Conrad Schick Street, not far from Damascus Gate, Jerusalem
Tel. (02) 627 2745
Bus: 1, 3
Open: 2- 5:30pm Mon- Thu
The Garden Tomb is located just outside of the Damascus Gate. Many protestants believe that this is a true spot of crucifixion and burial of Jesus Christ. It was "discovered" by General Major Charles George Gordon. He believed that the shape of a mountain in the outskirts of the Old City reminded of human skull. Existence of the tomb in the base of the cliff made his conviction more compelling. However certain facts don't quiet add up. For once the location of the tomb is too far from a city walls. Crucifixion was quiet grotesque and violent death that was intended to teach Roman citizen and subjects alike that the law of the Empire should not be broken. Killing someone this far from a city made little sense. Secondly the tomb that was called "The Tomb of Jesus" existed several centuries before the birth of Christ since the times of King David. Thus it wasn't exactly "new" as the New Testament claims it was. And lastly there is absolutely no oral tradition that associate this place with the events described in the Bible. Nevertheless it is a nice place surrounded by a garden. It is a nice hideout from a busy city.
The Garden Tomb is north of the Damascus Gate just outside of Jerusalem's Old City. The burial chamber from Roman times was carved out of a rock face several meters high. Today it is surrounded by manicured gardens that are appreciated by many visitors to Jerusalem as a place of rest and reflection in the busy city.
In 1867 the garden tomb was discovered. The year 1883 was
decisive for further development, when the English major general Charles
Gordon came to the conclusion that the garden tomb must be the tomb of
Jesus. The location in front of the city wall and the shape of the hill
or rock, which looks like a skull from different sides, served as
evidence. Since the name "Golgotha" can be derived from the Aramaic word
Gûlgoltâ ("skull"), Gordon concluded that this must be the place
reported in the Gospels (Mt 27:33 EU; Mk 15:22 EU; Jn 19, 17 EU). This
interpretation had previously been suggested by Claude Reignier Conder
(1870) and Fisher Howe (1871). The connection of Golgotha (Γολγοθα)
with Hebrew Gulgolet or aram. Gûlgoltâ had already been brought into
play in 1842 by the German scholar Otto Thenius.
In 1891 the
grave was excavated, in 1894 the "Garden Grave Association" was founded
to preserve the site, which bought the area around the grave with
donations.
Archaeologists generally assume that
the garden tomb is not the tomb of Jesus. Bargil Pixner, for example,
judged:
"The so-called Garden Tomb on Nablus Road north of the
Damascus Gate, while an attractive place for meditation and prayer, is
unacceptable for archaeological and historical reasons as the site of
Jesus' crucifixion and burial."
Today's archaeologists consider
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be the plausible site of Jesus'
burial. Pixner (1991) already considered this to be “scientifically well
founded”. The early testimonies of pilgrims, the construction of the
basilica by Constantine the Great and archaeological evidence support
the localization.
Some things seemed to speak earlier for the
authenticity of the garden tomb: Christian symbols inside the tomb and
the fact that the place was traditionally referred to as the "stoning
place". The main argument, however, was that according to the passion
story, Jesus was led “outside” the city for the crucifixion (Mt 27:32
EU), while the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is within the (today's) city
walls of Jerusalem. This argument has been disproved because it is now
archaeologically certain that the hill on which the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher stands was outside the city walls at the time of Jesus. As an
undeveloped quarry, it was an “ideal place” for a rock tomb.