The Site of the Tomb
The Site of the Tomb
Golgotha, the site of Jesus’ execution (Mk 15:22), was undoubtedly near the current site of the Holy Sepulchre.344 That traditional location was outside the city walls, but only roughly 1000 feet north-northeast of Herod’s palace, where Pilate was staying.345 All available historical evidence favors the premise that the earliest Christians preserved the accurate site of the tomb. That Jesus’ followers would forget the site of the tomb (or that officials who held the body would not think it worth the trouble to produce it after the postresurrection Jesus movement arose) is extremely improbable. James and the Jerusalem church could have easily preserved the tradition of the site in following decades,346 especially given Middle Eastern traditions of pilgrimage to holy sites.347
The modern Protestant “Garden Tomb” is a much later site and cannot represent the site of Jesus’ burial;348 by contrast, the Catholic Holy Sepulcher and tombs in its vicinity date to the right period.349 The tradition of the latter vicinity is at least as early as the second century (when Hadrian erected a pagan temple there; he defiled many Jewish holy sites in this manner),350 and probably earlier.
Good evidence exists, in fact, that this site dates to within the first two decades after the resurrection. This is because
1. Christian tradition is unanimous that Jesus was buried outside the city walls and no one would make up a site inside (cf. Heb 13:12; Jn 19:41)
2. Jewish custom made it common knowledge that burials would be outside the city walls351
3. the traditional vicinity of the Holy Sepulchre is inside Jerusalem’s walls, a site that would not have been invented
4. Agrippa I expanded the walls of Jerusalem, thereby including this area, sometime between 41 and 44 CE352
If Joseph of Arimathea owned the ground in which he buried Jesus (perhaps implicit in Mk 15:46, though more explicit in Matt 27:60),353 the Jerusalem Christians could well have maintained the site, at least until 70, and it apparently remained known by Judeans in the early second century354 and preserved afterward.355 Because the site predates 44 CE (the time of Agrippa’s death), it must go back to a period of eight to fourteen years after Jesus’ burial, during a time in which his closest followers led the growing church in Jerusalem, within walking distance away (Gal 2:1, 9).