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WD_319/ 2007
(  Satoshi Kinoshita )
| Series: | Works on paper: Drawings 4 | | Medium: | oilstick on paper | | Size (inches): | 25.6 x 17.7 | | Size (mm): | 650 x 450 | | Catalog #: | WD_0319 | | Description: | Signed, date and copyright in pencil on the reverse.
Where Was Golgotha (Calvary)?
Golgotha is the biblical name for the place where Jesus was crucified. It was probably a small hill just outside the walls of ancient Jerusalem. According to church tradition, it was within the area now occupied by The Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The name "Golgotha" is derived from the Aramaic word gulgulta. Matthew 27:33, Mark 15:22, and John 19:17 give its meaning as "place of the skull." When Saint Jerome translated these verses into Latin, he used the Latin word for skull, calvaria. This eventually evolved into the word Calvary, the most common Christian name for the site.
The gospels don't say why Golgotha was known as the "place of the skull". One common suggestion is that the site was on a hill or near a rock that had the shape of a skull. Another suggestion, first made by the third-century scholar Origen, is that the name referred to the burial place of Adam's skull, traditionally believed to have been interred at Jerusalem. An association with burials does seem likely, because John 19:41-42 implies that Jesus' body was carried only a short distance before it was placed in the tomb.
The New Testament provides a few other clues to Golgotha's location. According to Hebrews 13:12, it was "outside the city gate", but the passage doesn't say which gate. Matthew 27:39 indicates that it was near a road with a lot of foot traffic. This is consistent with the fact that the Romans often crucified people on elevated spots near major roads, to serve as a warning of the likely fate of anyone who challenged their authority.
Some scholars think that the site was probably north or west of the city, because the land on the other sides was precipitous and broken by ravines. At the time of the crucifixion, the northwestern part of the city was bounded by the so-called Second Wall. Unfortunately, Jerusalem was destroyed twice by the Roman army during Jewish revolts in the first and second centuries, and this makes it difficult to determine the exact layout and boundaries of the ancient city. However, the approximate location of the Second Wall is known.
During the first destruction of Jerusalem, most of its Christians fled the city, and the second destruction dispersed almost the entire population. Because of these upheavals, and because Christian writers rarely mentioned Golgotha during the next two centuries, some scholars think that knowledge of its location was probably lost. But other scholars argue that local traditions could have been strong enough to preserve such knowledge despite the upheavals.
At any rate, the first well-documented attempt to identify the location dates from the fourth century, when Constantine the Great and his mother, Empress Helena, became interested in the site. They wanted to build a church near the locations of Golgotha and the tomb in which Jesus was placed. Empress Helena was especially interested in the project, and in 325 AD she made a trip to Jerusalem to explore the possibilities.
When she arrived, she was told that Golgotha and the tomb were in the vicinity of an old Jewish cemetery located on the northwest side of the city. It isn't clear where this information came from. A fifth-century book called the Acts of Judas Cyriacus says that Christians learned about the cemetery from an old Jew who had to be tortured before he would reveal its location. But most scholars doubt this story, and many argue that the cemetery was probably well-known to the people of the city.
In any case, the local Christians believed that Golgotha and the tomb were in the vicinity of the old cemetery. However, the exact locations of the two sites were still unknown. One problem was that the Romans had built a pagan temple over part of the cemetery, and in the process they probably destroyed parts of it.
Shortly after her arrival, the Empress ordered the demolition of the pagan temple and the excavation of the area beneath it. According to one account, the workers soon found a tomb containing some nails and the sign that Pilate had attached to the top of the cross. Some versions of this account say that the remains of three wooden crosses were also found, either in the tomb or a nearby cistern, and that one of them was identified by its healing powers as the true cross.
However, another account says that the locations of Golgotha and the tomb were revealed to the Empress by a miraculous revelation. Thus, there is some uncertainty about how the sites were finally identified.
The first churches built at the sites were later destroyed, once by Persian invaders, and once by Arabs. After the Crusaders gained control of Jerusalem in the eleventh century, they constructed the present Church of the Holy Sepulchre, although part of it had to be rebuilt after it was damaged by a fire in 1808. It encloses both the tomb of Jesus and a small rocky outcrop called the "rock of Golgotha".
According to church tradition, Jesus began his walk to Calvary from the Antonia Fortress, which housed the main Roman military garrison in the city. The traditional route, called the Via Dolorosa, is a distance of about 0.4 miles and ends at the Church. However, some scholars think that the last interrogation of Jesus took place at Herod's Palace, and that he began the walk from there. This would be a shorter distance.
The site of the present church appears to fit the available evidence regarding Golgotha's location: The church is northwest of the ancient city, probably just outside the ancient wall, and apparently in the area of an old cemetery. Thus it may very well mark the correct location. But some scholars have expressed doubts, and several other possible sites have been proposed. The best-known alternate location, Gordon's Calvary (the Garden Tomb), is about 0.4 mile north of the ancient city.
-www.gospel-mysteries.net/golgotha.html
This article from Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia) seems to contain unencyclopedic lists that may require cleanup.
Calvary (Golgotha) in the Bible:
Although usage since the sixth century has been to designate Calvary as a mountain,[1] the Gospels call it merely a "place." Calvary is mentioned in all four of the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion in the Christian canonical Gospels:
Matthew 27:33
And when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). (ESV)
Mark 15:22
And they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull). (ESV)
Luke 23:33
And when they came to the place that is called The Skull. (ESV)
John 19:17
and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. (ESV)
The location of Calvary:
Roman emperor Constantine the Great built the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on what was thought to be the sepulchre of Jesus in 326 — 335, near Calvary. According to Christian legend, the Tomb of Jesus and the True Cross were discovered at that site by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, in 325.
Regarding the location of the church, there has been some question of the legitimacy of its claims as it appears to sit within Jerusalem's Old City Walls. However, although the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is now within Jerusalem's Old City Walls, it was beyond them at the time in question. The Jerusalem city walls were expanded by Herod Agrippa in 41-44 and only then enclosed the site of the future Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Professor Sir Henry Chadwick (Dean Emeritus of Christ Church Oxford University) comments: "Hadrian's builders replanned the old city, incidentally confirming the bringing of Golgotha inside a new town wall" (a fact implicit in a Good Friday sermon 'On the Pascha' by Melito bishop of Sardis about thirty years later). On this site, already venerated by Christians, Hadrian erected a shrine to Aphrodite (Chadwick, H., The Church in ancient Society. From Galilee to Gregory the Great. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2003:21).
Inside the church is a pile of rock about 7m length x 3m width x 4.80m height that is believed to be what now remains visible of Calvary. During restoration works and excavations inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the years 1973-1978, it was found that this place, Golgotha, was originally a quarry from which white "Meleke limestone" was struck.[3] Observation suggests that from the city the little hill could have looked like a skull. In 1986, a ring was found of 11.50 cm diameter, struck into the stone, which could have held a wood trunk of up to 2.50 meters height.[4]
The church is accepted as the Tomb of Jesus by most historians and the little rock currently inside the present church as the location of Calvary. In 333 AD, the Pilgrim of Bordeaux wrote, "On the left hand is the "little" hill of Golgotha where the Lord was crucified (Latin original: … est monticulus golgotha, ubi dominus crucifixus est.), pages 593, 594). About a stone's throw from thence is a vault (crypta) wherein his body was laid, and rose again on the third day. There, at present, by the command of the Emperor Constantine, has been built a basilica, that is to say, a church of wondrous beauty." Eyewitness Cyril of Jerusalem, a distinguished theologian of the early Church, speaks of Golgotha in eight separate passages, sometimes as near to the church in which he and his hearers were assembled:[5] "Golgotha, the holy hill standing above us here, bears witness to our sight: the Holy Sepulchre bears witness, and the stone which lies there to this day." [6] And just in such a way the pilgrim Egeria often reported in 383: "… the church, built by Constantine, which is situated in Golgotha …"[7], and also bishop Eucherius of Lyon wrote to the island presbyter Faustus in 440: "Golgotha is in the middle between the Anastasis and the Martyrium, the place of the Lord's passion, in which still appears that rock which once endured the very cross on which the Lord was."[8] (See also: Eusebius (338) and Breviarius de Hierosolyma (530)). Professor Dan Bahat, one of Israel's leading archaeologists and a senior lecturer at the Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, comments in 2007: "Six graves from the first century were found on the area of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. That means, this place laid here outside of the city, without any doubt, and is the possible place for the tomb of Jesus."
Refuted claims of Charles Gordon:
After time spent in Palestine in 1882-83, Charles George Gordon suggested Calvary might have been in a different location. It was not then known that the location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was actually outside of the city walls at the time of the crucifixion. The Garden Tomb is to the north of the Holy Sepulchre, located outside of the modern Damascus Gate, in a place that was used for burial at least as early as the Byzantine period.[citation needed] The Garden has an earthen cliff that contains two large sunken holes that people say are the eyes of the skull to which "Golgotha" refers.[citation needed]
Notes:
1. ^ a b Mount Calvary, article from the Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III. New York: Robert Appleton Company (1908)
2. ^ Latin Vulgate, Luke 23:33
3. ^ Michael Hesemann, Die Jesus-Tafel, Freiburg 1999, p. 170, ISBN 3-451-27092-7
4. ^ Hesemann, p.172
5. ^ St. Cyril of Jerusalem, page 51, note 313
6. ^ Cyril, Catechetical Lectures, year 347, lecture X, page 160, note 1221
7. ^ Iteneraria Egeriae
8. ^ Letter To The Presbyter Faustus, by Eucherius. "What is reported, about the site of the city Jerusalem and also of Judaea"; Epistola Ad Faustum Presbyterum. "Eucherii, Quae fertur, de situ Hierusolimitanae urbis atque ipsius Iudaeae." Corpus Scriptorum Eccles. Latinorum XXXIX Itinera Hierosolymitana, Saeculi IIII–VIII, P. Geyer, 1898
-en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary
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