Garden Tomb

Overview

The Garden Tomb is a rock-cut tomb and its surrounding garden, located outside the Damascus Gate, north of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. In Korean it is also known as Dongsan Mudeom, another name meaning "garden tomb." The adjacent rock escarpment, known as "Gordon's Calvary," became famous through the view that it is Golgotha. Today the site is administered by the Garden Tomb Association, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom, and it is widely used by Protestant pilgrims as a place of worship and reflection.

Background

The Gospels relate that Jesus was crucified outside the city and buried in a new tomb in a garden near the place of execution (John 19:41–42). Matthew 27:60 records that it was the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, which he had hewn out in the rock. The name Golgotha means "the place of a skull" (Mark 15:22).

Since the time of the Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century, the place of Jesus' execution and burial has traditionally been identified with the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre within the Old City. In the nineteenth century, however, some observers noted that the church lies inside the present city walls and concluded that its location does not accord with the biblical statement that Jesus "suffered without the gate" (Hebrews 13:12). They therefore began searching for an alternative site.

Development

• 1842: The German scholar Otto Thenius is reported to have proposed that the rocky hill north of the Damascus Gate could be Golgotha.
• 1867: A rock-cut tomb was discovered near the hill.
• 1883: The British soldier Charles Gordon, during a stay in Jerusalem, popularized the view that the hill was Golgotha. As a result, it came to be called "Gordon's Calvary."
• 1894: The Garden Tomb Association was organized in England and purchased the land. The association has since cultivated and maintained the site as a garden. A winepress and a water cistern discovered on the grounds have sometimes been cited as evidence that the site was once a garden.

Impact

The Garden Tomb has become a leading destination for Protestant pilgrimage. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is shared among several churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Apostolic Church, and its life centers on the liturgy. The Garden Tomb, by contrast, offers a relatively quiet garden where groups can sing hymns and share the Word together. For this reason Protestant pilgrims have tended to prefer it. The site is commonly included in the itineraries of Korean churches' pilgrimages to Israel, and pilgrims sometimes share Communion there or hold services of reflection on the Resurrection.

Assessment

Many archaeologists doubt that the Garden Tomb is the actual tomb of Jesus. In the 1980s the Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay, citing the tomb's structure and nearby remains, argued that it dates to the Iron Age, around the eighth to seventh centuries BC, and therefore could not be the "new sepulchre" of Jesus' time (John 19:41). Many scholars hold that the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre lay outside the city walls in Jesus' day and came to be enclosed within the present walls only because the walls were expanded after Jesus' death. For these reasons, scholars tend to regard the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the more likely site, both traditionally and historically.

The Garden Tomb Association does not claim with certainty that the site is the tomb of Jesus. The association is reported to present it as a place for remembering the Resurrection while picturing the garden tomb described in the Gospels. Protestants who visit the Garden Tomb likewise generally place more emphasis on reflecting on the meaning of the Resurrection than on the authenticity of the site.