The Garden Tomb (; ) is an ancient rock-cut tomb surrounded by a garden, right outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem, that functions as a site of Christian pilgrimage attracting hundreds of thousands of annual visitors, especially Evangelicals and other Protestants, as some Protestant Christians consider it to be the empty tomb where Jesus of Nazareth resurrected. This is in contrast to an older tradition that locates the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus at a site roughly to the south known as Golgotha and located within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.Kochav (1999)Pippert, Wesley G. Jesus Christ's resurrection: Garden Tomb or Church of Holy Sepulchre?, upi.com, USA, April 7, 1985
The Garden Tomb and its surrounding gardens are adjacent to a rocky outcrop known as Skull Hill (; ). In the mid-nineteenth century, some Christian scholars proposed that Skull Hill is Golgotha, where the Romans crucified Jesus. A few decades later, in 1867, the Garden Tomb was discovered and later proposed to be the tomb of Jesus.
More recently, the Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay points out that the tomb does not contain any features indicative of the 1st century CE, when Jesus was buried, and argues that the tomb is likely to have been created in the 8th–7th centuries BCE.Barkay (1986) The Italian archeologist Riccardo Lufrani argues instead that it should be dated to the Hellenistic era, the 4th–2nd centuries BCE. The re-use of old tombs was not an uncommon practice in ancient times, but this would seem to contradict the biblical text that speaks of a newly hewn tomb which Joseph of Arimathea made for himself (Matthew 27:57–60, John 19:41).
The organization that owns and maintains the Garden Tomb is a non-denominational charitable trust based in the United Kingdom named The Garden Tomb (Jerusalem) Association, a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Israel and the World Evangelical Alliance.The Garden Tomb Official Website It was formed by a number of evangelical Anglicans from the Church of England in 1885. The association refrains from claiming that the Garden Tomb is the authentic tomb of Jesus, and instead emphasizes the site's utility as a visual aid for the gospel accounts and its function as a place of Christian worship.The Garden Tomb (Jerusalem) Association Official Website The site draws hundreds of thousands of annual pilgrims, especially evangelicals and other Protestants.
History of debate over the tomb's location
According to the Bible, Jesus was crucified near the city of Jerusalem, outside its walls.; ; The location of the Holy Sepulchre being inside the city walls of Jerusalem – which have changed and been expanded throughout history – has resulted in debate regarding the location of the tomb of Jesus, mostly following the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century.
Early medieval views Early accounts of the discovery and location of the tomb of Jesus differ.
Emperor Hadrian had built during the 130s a temple to Venus over the supposed site of Jesus' tomb near Calvary, and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina and Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina. Accounts differ concerning whether the temple was dedicated to Venus or Jupiter.Stephenson 2010:252. According to Eusebius, Constantine destroyed the temple of Venus and discovered the burial site of Jesus in the spot.Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.26–28 Later legends had Helena destroying the temple.Philip Schaff, "Chapter 4, Mythical Constantine" in Eusebius Pamphilius: Church History, Life of Constantine, Oration in Praise of Constantine. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
According to tradition, Helena ordered the temple torn down and, according to the legend that arose at the end of the 4th century, chose a site to begin excavating, which led to the recovery of three different crosses. The legend is recounted in Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius (died 395) and at length in Rufinus' chapters appended to his translation into Latin of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, the main body of which does not mention the event. Then, Rufinus relates, the empress refused to be swayed by anything short of solid proof and performed a test. Possibly through Bishop Macarius of Jerusalem, she had a woman who was near death brought from the city. When the woman touched the first and second crosses, her condition did not change, but when she touched the third and final cross she suddenly recovered, and Helena declared the cross with which the woman had been touched to be the True Cross. On the site of discovery, Constantine ordered the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Saewulf (), likely the earliest English pilgrim to Jerusalem and writing nearly three centuries later, maintained that it was Hadrian who enclosed the traditional Golgotha and Tomb of Christ within the city limits when he rebuilt the city during the second century CE, though they were previously outside the city.Thomas Wright ed., Early Travels in Palestine (London 1848), p. 37Wilson (1906) The two explanations contradict each other, since Hadrian's rebuilding of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina predated Helena's pilgrimage there by close to two centuries.
Doubts after Reformation After the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, doubts regarding places regarded as holy in the Catholic tradition grew. In 1639, Quaresmius wrote of "western heretics" who argued that the traditional site could not possibly be the true tomb of Christ.Franciscus Quaresmius, Elucidatio Terrae Sanctae (Antwerp 1639), lib. 5, cap. 14 The first extant publication which argued a case against the traditional location was written by the German pilgrim Jonas Korte in 1741, a few years after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. His book contained a chapter titled "On Mount Calvary, which now lies in the middle of the town and cannot therefore be the true Calvary".
19th-century Protestant doubts In 1812, Edward D. Clarke also rejected the traditional location as a "mere delusion, a monkish juggle",Clarke, Edward Daniel (1817). Travels in various countries of Europe, Asia and Africa: Part II – Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land, section I (vol. IV), 4th edition, London, p. 335 and suggested instead that the crucifixion took place just outside Zion Gate, which was built in 1540. During the 19th century travel from Europe to the Ottoman Empire became easier and therefore more common, especially in the late 1830s due to the reforms of the Egyptian ruler, Muhammad Ali.Kochav (1995)Kark, Ruth and Frantzman, Seth J. "The Protestant Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, Englishwomen, and a Land Transaction in Late Ottoman Palestine" in Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 142, 3 (London 2010), pp. 199–216 The subsequent influx of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem included more Protestants who doubted the authenticity of the traditional holy sites, which were exacerbated by the fact that Protestants had no territorial claims at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and by the feeling of Protestant pilgrims that it was an unnatural setting for contemplation and prayer.
In 1841, Dr. Edward Robinson's Biblical Researches in Palestine,Robinson, Edward. Biblical Researches in Palestine. at that time considered the standard work on the topography and archaeology of the Holy Land, argued against the authenticity of the traditional location, concluding: "Golgotha and the Tomb shown in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre are not upon the real places of the Crucifixion and Resurrection". Robinson argued that the traditional location would have been within the city walls also during the Herodian era, primarily due to topographical considerations. Robinson was careful not to propose an alternative site and had concluded that it would be impossible to identify the true location of the holy places. However, he did suggest that the crucifixion would have taken place somewhere on the road to Jaffa or the road to Damascus. Skull Hill and the Garden Tomb are located in close proximity to the Damascus road, about from Damascus Gate.
Contemporary scholarship Contemporary scholars, such as Professor Dan Bahat, one of Israel's leading archaeologists, have concluded that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is located in an area which was outside the city walls in the days of Jesus and therefore indeed constitutes a plausible location for the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.Bahat (1986)
Discovery Skull Hill identified as Calvary
In the 19th century, many Protestants who felt that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could not be the site of Jesus' tomb looked elsewhere in the attempt to locate the site of Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection.
Otto Thenius In 1842, heavily relying on Robinson's research, , a German theologian and bible scholar from Dresden, was the first to publish a proposal that the rocky knoll north of Damascus Gate, which, as Thenius noticed, resembled a skull, was the biblical Golgotha. The site he suggested contains a few natural cavities as well as a man-made cave, which Christians call Jeremiah's Grotto. Thenius went so far as to suggest that Jeremiah's Grotto was in fact the tomb of Christ.Thenius, Otto (1842). "Golgatha et Sanctum Sepulchrum" (in Latin). In Zeitschrift fir die historische Theologie. Though his proposal for the tomb of Christ did not have a lasting influence, his proposal for Golgotha was endorsed by several other Protestant scholars and pilgrims. Since Golgotha is the Aramaic word for 'skull', and may perhaps refer to the shape of the place, Thenius concluded that the rocky escarpment was likely to have been Golgotha.White, Bill (1989. A Special Place: The Story of the Garden Tomb).
Fisher Howe A few years later the same identification was endorsed by the American industrialist Fisher Howe,McBirnie, William Steuart (1975). The Search for the Authentic Tomb of Jesus. who was also one of the founding members of the board of directors of Union Theological Seminary in New York.Prentiss, George Lewis (1889). The Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York: historical and biographical sketches of its first fifty years. New York. In 1850, Howe visited the Holy Land, and endorsed the view that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could not be the true site of Christ's death and resurrection.Howe, Fisher (1853), Turkey, Greece, and Palestine, Glasgow; also published as Howe, Fisher (1853), Oriental and sacred scenes, from notes of travel in Greece, Turkey, and Palestine, New York. Instead, he pointed to the hill containing Jeremiah's Grotto as the true Calvary, though he had only argued this view in length in an essay published in 1871, just after his death. In that essay Howe described the hill in these terms: "[The] hill is left steeply rounded on its west, north, and east sides forming the back and sides of the kranion, or skull. The skull-like front, or face, on the south side is formed by the deep perpendicular cutting and removal of the ledge. To the observer, at a distance, the eyeless socket of the skull would be suggested at once by the yawning cavern, hewn within its face, beneath the hill."Howe, Fisher (1871). The True Site of Calvary, and Suggestions relating to the Crucifixion. New York . Howe claimed that he developed his theory completely independently of Otto Thenius, and that he stumbled upon Thenius' claims only in the course of researching for his essay.
H. B. Tristram Another early proponent of the theory that Skull Hill is Golgotha was the English scholar and clergyman Canon Henry Baker Tristram, who suggested that identification in 1858 during his first visit to the Holy Land, chiefly because of its proximity to the northern gate, and hence also to the Antonia Fortress, the traditional site of Christ's trial. (Canon Tristram was also one of the advocates of purchasing the nearby Garden Tomb in 1893.)"The Site of the Holy Sepulchre" in Palestine Exploration Fund Quarterly Statement (London 1893), pp. 80–91
Claude R. Conder