F. E. MITCHELL

ALTHOUGH MANY of the sites in Jerusalem attributed by guides, anxious for baksheesh, to places mentioned in the Scriptures are spurious, and the destruction caused by the Romans in the city makes identifications difficult, there are other sites which are indisputable. In fact, with the help of Josephus and other writers, it is possible to furnish a description of the city which will approximate to what it was like in the time of Jesus and even earlier. The plan illustrating this article will be helpful, as will the following description by Stephen L. Caiger :

According to Josephus, the city had three walls of which the course of the first one is easiest to trace. The beginning and the ending of its direct northern line, straight from west to east, is well-known. It stretched from Herod’s Palace, with its three great towers, Hippicus, Mariamne, and Phasael, in the west to a junction with the west wall of the Temple. Somewhere near where the wall joined the Temple wall, probably north of the marble Herodian colonnade called Xystus of which today no trace exists, was a viaduct leading across the Tyropean Valley and connecting the Temple area with the Upper City. An arch which formed part of the viaduct, known as Wilson’s Arch after its finder, Sir Charles Wilson, was discovered. Further south is another ruin, Robinson’s Arch, called after its finder, Dr. E. Robinson.

The southern part of the first wall struck south from Herod’s Palace along the contour of the south-west hill, now called Zion, to the present Protestant cemetery. Here was the gate called, by Nehemiah, the Valley Gate of which Bliss discovered traces. It now turned due east by the Dragon’s Well (site unknown) along the southern edge of the south-west hill for about 1,800 feet to the Dung Gate at the south-eastern angle of the city, where Bliss found the remains of an ancient threshold. It now turned northward over the Tyropean Valley and in the direction of the Pool of Siloam which was inside the city. Running due north along the steep eastern slope of Ophel, the true site of David’s Zion, it passed near the Virgin’s Spring (Gihon) and bent sharply eastward at Guthe’s Corner towards the Water Gate. From this point it continued in a north-easterly direction until it joined the south-east angle of the Temple enclosure at a point where Sir Charles Warren discovered a tower. In Old Testament times, the rest of the wall was identical with the outer wall of the Temple. At first, it ran due north, overlooking the steep descent into the Kidron Valley. It appears that the Temple wall did not then extend as far north as it does today, but, bending sharply north-west above the Golden Gate, struck across, being pierced by the Sheep Gate, to the Castle of Antonia which protected it where it was less strong than elsewhere. From Antonia, the wall turned due south to the junction near Wilson’s Arch.

By the time of Hezekiah, a new suburb had been built outside the first wall. A second wall was therefore necessary to protect it. After the return from the Babylonian captivity, the wall which had been destroyed by the Babylonians was restored by Nehemiah, and was strengthened later by Herod the Great. Its precise line has nut yet been settled. It started from the Castle of Antonia and made a junction with the first wall at a gate called Genath (the Garden Gate), somewhere near the tower of Phasael. Antonia and Phasael have been identified, but Genath is not known. Nehemiah mentions two towers, Meah and Hanameel, and these stood probably on the site of Antonia, but other gates mentioned by him, such as the Fish Gate, the Old Gate, the Gate of Ephraim, and the Tower of the Furnaces, have not been found.

The line of this wall is also obscure. It was built after the time of Jesus, its construction being started in A.D. 41 by Herod Agrippa I, but the Roman Emperor ordered the work to cease. Building was hastily completed in A.D. 67, but in A.D. 70, when the city fell, it was completely demolished. According to Josephus, it started at the Tower of Hippicus (near Phasael) and extended northward to the Tower of Psephinus, identified as the modern Kasr Jalud (Goliath’s Castle); traces of the wall have been unearthed. Now matters become difficult. Josephus says that the wall turned eastwards, marching down right opposite the monuments of Helena, Queen of Adiabene, where was a gate protected by the Women’s Tower, continuing through the Royal Caverns and turning south at the Fuller’s monument to join the older wall above the Kidron Valley. It thus enclosed the suburb of Bezetha, north of the Temple. Apart from Bezetha, however, none of these landmarks has been found.

The Scripture states (Heb. 13:12) that Jesus suffered without the gate. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, dedicated as the site of Calvary by Constantine the Great, stood outside the second wall and as the third wall was not built until after the crucifixion, agrees on this point with the Bible record. According to Eusebius the historian, however, the locality of the resurrection was already known at that time. In fact the Emperor Hadrian had built a Temple of Venus on the spot where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands, in order to defile it; Constantine destroyed the Temple of Venus, and erected the Christian Church in its place. It is stated that Bishop Macarius, when clearing away the ruins of the Temple of Venus to build the new church, came upon an ancient rock-tomb, cut deep below the surface. Ever since, the discovery has been hailed as evidence of the genuineness of the site.

Caiger’s description of the sepulchre says,

The modern marble additions do not help the pilgrim, but, as Caiger points out, there is nothing archaeologically impossible in the situation of the tomb itself.

Two considerations, however, have cast doubt upon this view. The first is a discovery by Dr. Robinson, and the second is the advancing of an alternative theory. Over a hundred years ago, Dr. Robinson found the remains of what he believed to be a first-century wall, running on a line parallel with, but over a quarter of a mile to the north of, the wall thought to be the old third wall. There was no fourth wall, and this wall therefore would have been the third, and the one previously regarded as the third must have been the second (and the outermost) wall in the time of Jesus. Since the Church of the Holy Sepulchre lies inside this wall, it could not be the place where Jesus was crucified, which was outside the city.

The second objection came from a theory put forward by General Gordon. To the north of Jerusalem, well outside any possible city wall, is a great rugged cliff of limestone facing the Damascus Gate. This cliff, even at first view, provides a possible site for Calvary or Golgotha. The eye sockets, nose, and mouth of a human countenance are clearly seen upon the fissured and weather-worn surface of the rock and might well have caused it to be known as “The Place of a Skull”. The hill has become known as Gordon’s Calvary. Not far away is a tomb, known as the “Garden Tomb”, which may have been the sepulchre of Jesus, for it well satisfies the Scriptural narrative. It consists of a sunken chamber, excavated in the rock, to which access is given by a small door. In front of the door is a kind of channel or groove which in Crusaders’ days was used as a trough for horses, but may originally have been intended to serve as a runner for a ‘large stone, which could be rolled over the entrance. The chamber itself, within the tomb, has three recesses, each intended to enclose a stone shelf or platform on which a body coiild rest. But in only one of these is the carving completely finished. From the doorway it is possible to look inside and see one of the shelves, the completed one. The tomb thus answers the Scriptural description— it was “a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid”. It was possible for John, stooping down and looking in, to see the linen clothes lying, and the entrance was probably closed by a stone.

Gordon’s Calvary and the Garden Tomb are not impossible sites for the Crucifixion and the Entombment.

The suggestion that the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was inside the city wall has been challenged by the Ordnance Survey statement of 1865 that the remains of Robinson’s wall could not have formed part of a wall of defence, nor are they near the Royal Caverns through which Josephus said the third wall ran.

As regards the theory that the crucifixion took place on Gordon’s Calvary, the question has been asked, “Were the skull-like holes really there two thousand years ago? Or are they the result of later quarrying, and wear and tear?”. There is also a tradition that Golgotha gets its name because Adam’s skull was found there.(Footnote 1)

On the whole it is difficult to decide between the two sets of evidence and it seems that the question must remain an open one.

Archaeology has unearthed many more sites in and about the Holy City, but these must form the subjects of future articles.

1. For an alternative suggestion see The Testimony January 1973, p. 16.

‘I have set it in the midst of the nations’, says the Almighty.

(Ezekiel 5:5)

PROPOSED VISIT TO ISRAEL

[At this point in the original magazine details of a visit to Israel in August 1975 and a two-week tour were advertised. Further information and booking forms were available from the Archaeological Editor, F. E. Mitchell]