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WASJESUS REALLY BURIED
AT GOLGOTHA?
I
n these days of doubt and chal–
lenge to traditional beliefs, it's
hard lo know what lo accept.
Was Jesus Christ a mylh as sorne
say? Or did He truly exist? Can He
be found
in
hístory? ls there any
way to know?
Many evidences based on re–
corded his torical fact show that
Jesus of Nazareth did live, that H e
died, was buried and resurrected.
Now even archaeology may be
called as a witness in connection
with the place of His burial.
The Golgotha Controversy
According to the New Testament ,
J esus was scourged and condemned
to die by Pontius Pilate, the Roman
governor, a t a p lace called "the
Pavement" (John 19: 13). He was
then take n through the streets of Je–
rusalem to a place called Go lgotha,
or " place o f a skull" (Matt. 27:33;
Mark 15:22; John 19: 17). That loca–
tion was outside the city walls, yet
still near the city (He b. 13: 11-13 ;
John 19:20).
In the recen! past. ma ny visitors
to the Ho ly Land have viewed the
strange formation of eroded strata
on the southern face of a small,
rounded, rocky summit just north of
the present ci ty wall of Old J erusa–
lem, and felt sure they were lookjng
at the "place of a skull." Two eye
sockets, a hint of nasal bones and
a
vacant mouth can easily be imag–
ined among the recesses, semicaves,
and overhangs of the rocky cliff–
just below which a bus station and a
busy street carry the business of
modem Je rusalem.
Supporting the speculation that
this rock formatíon is the bíblica)
" place of a skull" was the discovery
of a tomb in the clitf's lowest leve)
by nineteenth-century explorers. (Al
that time the Holy La nd was still
part of the Turkish empi re.) The
tomb is hewn into the rock with a
18
by
Lawson C. Briggs
recessed track at the opening for a
huge rolling stone which would
serve for a door, fitting the biblical
descript ion (Matt. 27:60 ; 28:2 ;
Mark 15:46; 16:3-4; Luke 23:53;
24:2).
Even after many centuries, the
description in John 19:4 1 seems to
hold true: " Jn the place where he
was crucified there was a garden;
and in the garden a new sepulchre."
The place has therefore become
known as the " Garden Tomb."
Since its discovery, thi s location
has achieved an increasing degree
of acceptance as the actual site, es–
peciaUy among Protestants. Others,
however, have pointed out diffi–
culties: the lack of historical conti–
nui ly; the facl t hat the New
Testament requires a low entrance
which one had to stoop to look
through (Luke 24: 12 ; John 20:5),
which is by no means fulfill ed in the
much larger entrance lO the so–
called Garden Tomb; the separation
of the modern garden location from
the supposed cliff-top crucifixion
site (unlike the statement o f John
19:41); and perhaps most damaging
of all, the judgment of experts that
the excava tion and doo r-framing
masonry are of a much la ter date.
This and much more has recently
come to us as new evidence. And in
particular, archaeo1ogy has shed an
ever brighter light on the claims for
a different site, the traditional site
now covered by the massive Church
of the Holy Sepulcher.
Archaeology to the Rescue
To be sure, the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher is today wilhin the walls
of "Old Jerusalem." But these walls
were built in A.D. 1538-4 1 at the
command of Suleiman the Magnifi–
cent, a Moslem and emperor of the
Ottoman Turks. Was the place in–
side or outside the J erusalem of the
early first century?
Multiple painstaking a rchae–
o logical digs have demonslraled
lhal there were indeed, as the first–
century Jewish his torian Josephus
wrote, three different walls on the
north and west of Jerusalem (
Wars,
v. 4. 1-2). Each walJ marked a phase
o f the city's growth and expansion
between the days of Ezra a nd its
destruction by the Romans in A.D.
70. T he third and outer wa ll was
commenced, says Josephus- a nd ar–
chaeology has confirmed it- by He–
rod Agrippa in about A.D. 4 1. He
did not finish it for fear of otfending
hi s Roman -emperor ove rlord ,
Claudius Caesar (see also
Antiqui–
ries,
xix. 7. 2 and
Wars,
ii. 11. 6). Ap–
parently only when the great war
with the Romans of A.D. 66-70 was
imminent was the full height o f the
wall "hurriedly erected by the
Jews." Suleiman ult imately built his
wall on the ruins of those founda–
tions.
But no wa ll existed therc unt il
A.D. 4 1. T here fore none existed
when Jesus was crucified. So the
place of His death "outside the city"
may well have been whe re the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher now
sta nds.
Before A.D. 40
It would be tedious here to consider
the details o f how archaeology has
found remains of the "second wall"
of Jcrusalem just to the east o f the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
Readers who are interested may
find a carefully researched dis–
cussion in
The Archaeology of the
New Testament
by Jack Finega n
(see especially pages 135-168). Dr.
Finegan tenta ti vely identifies the
very gate by which Jesus left the
walled city, after traversing it from
eas t to west by the "Via Dolorosa"
or "Street of Sorrow."
" If, then, J esus carne from con–
demnation by Pilate at the Antonia
The PLAIN TRUTH
March
1978
.