So
Where Was Jesus Buried?
If
the skull feature in el-Edhemieh’s southern scarp is identified
as the New Testament Golgotha, but the Garden Tomb is disqualified
as the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, where then was the sepulchre
in which Jesus was laid and from which He rose again? Probably,
as President Hinckley suggested, it was “somewhere nearby”—somewhere
as near to the skull feature as the Garden Tomb is. If we take
at face value the passage in John that the garden and tomb were
“in the place where he was crucified” (John 19:41), it means that
we cannot look too far in any direction from the skull feature.
The
area west of el-Edhemieh is ruled out, that being the Nablus Road
and Garden Tomb area. Heavy Jewish foot traffic there would not
have allowed for tomb construction in Jesus’ day. No Second Temple
period tombs have been discovered in that area.
But
what about the other side of el-Edhemieh—the east side? The eastern
slope of that hill (technically the northeastern slope, since
that face of the hill runs southeast to northwest) actually was
a place where tombs could have been dug in Jesus’ day. This is
the area along modern Saladin Street, between the Israeli post
office and the money changer Aladdin (a well-known landmark to
Jerusalem Center faculty and students), but across the road on
the west side (properly the southwest side) of the street. Behind
the single line of commercial buildings on that western side of
Saladin Street is the Muslim cemetery on el-Edhemieh. The hill
rises steeply enough in that area to have allowed for ancient
burial caves to be cut horizontally into bedrock. Photos of the
area taken eighty to a hundred years ago show an agricultural
hillside with more than enough slope for tomb construction. That
relatively fertile area of Saladin Street was likely a garden
area in the early first century, and the new sepulchre of Joseph
of Arimathea may well have been cut into the bedrock of the el-Edhemieh
hillside, on its northeastern slope (see figure 16). Such a tomb
site would have been as close to the skull feature as is the Garden
Tomb area because then (unlike today) a person could simply walk
from the skull feature over the el-Edhemieh hill to get there.
Any site behind or under the buildings on that stretch of Saladin
Street, along its west side, could qualify as having been “in
the place where he was crucified.” The presence further up Saladin
Street of the so-called Tomb of the Kings, a Herodian Period burial
complex dug out about twenty years after Jesus’ death, demonstrates
that the region east and north of el-Edhemieh was deemed acceptable
for sepulchre construction in the first century a.d. However,
no modern archaeological exploration has ever taken place on the
west-side stretch of Saladin Street that fronts el-Edhemieh, and
the presence of modern Arab buildings now there prevents any close
research or excavation at present.
Figure 16. Jerusalem during the mid-Herodian period, 20
b.c.–a.d.
43.
How
Jesus' Tomb Would Have Looked
Jewish
tombs in the Herodian period were architecturally different from
tombs of Iron Age II (such as the Garden Tomb) in a number of
ways. The term used by archaeologists to describe the part of
a tomb where a body was laid is loculus (plural loculi).
Herodian period tombs featured two different types of loculi:
the bench and the kokh. The kokh (a Hebrew term—plural
kokhim) was a narrow vault carved about two meters deep
into the tomb’s stone wall. The vault and its opening were generally
about 70 centimeters high and about 60 centimeters wide and usually
were carved at floor level or low in the wall of the tomb. This
type of loculus began appearing in Israel as early as the third
century b.c., and
kokhim from before Jesus’ era are found at the Holy Sepulchre
(see again figure 1).
But
even though kokhim continued to appear in tombs into the
first century a.d., it is virtually certain that the
body of Jesus was not laid in a kokh. The New Testament
describes angels sitting at both the head and foot of where Jesus
had lain (see John 20:11–12), which would be impossible with a
long, narrow kokh carved deep into the rock wall of the
tomb. John’s description strongly suggests the other type of loculus—the
burial bench. Two styles of burial benches are common in Herodian
period tombs. One, called arcosolium (plural arcosolia)
is actually a recessed bench cut into the stone wall of the tomb
with the bench surface at a level about waist high and an arch
above the bench serving as the top of the recess (see figure 17).
This elaborate type of burial bench is well known from wealthier
tomb complexes, and it is tempting to think that Jesus might have
been laid on an arcosolium bench in the Arimathean’s tomb.
But arcosolia are usually found only in the interior chambers
of multichambered tombs. Since the bench where Jesus had lain
was clearly and entirely visible from outside His tomb (see John
20:5; 20:11–12), that bench cannot have been in an interior chamber;
otherwise, it could not have been seen by John and Mary from outside.
Unlike drawings of Jesus’ burial depicted in some popular books,
the body of Jesus was probably not laid in an arcosolium.[28]
Figure 17. Drawing of a typical arcosolium burial
bench from the time of Jesus.
The
other type of bench loculus was just a plain bench, with no elaborate
decoration or overhead arching (very much like the original benches
in the Iron Age II Garden Tomb). Such benches are usually waist
high from the tomb floor, are about two meters long, and vary
anywhere from half a meter to a meter in width. It was upon this
type of plain bench that Jesus’ body was most likely laid and
where angels were later seen sitting at the head and foot of where
he had lain. Since the bench was clearly visible through the tomb
entry from outside, it is almost certain that the tomb consisted
of only a single chamber. The most common bench arrangement for
single-chamber tombs in the Herodian period was the triple-bench
arrangement. (This was different from the Iron Age II plan only
in that the Iron Age II tombs like the Garden Tomb had their triple
benches in their interior chambers.)
A
single-chamber, triple-bench tomb of the Herodian period would
have an interior area of only about three meters square (about
10 feet). This type of tomb could contain benches only (see figure
18) or might also contain kokhim carved into the walls
at bench level (see figure 19). For those who wonder if a single-chamber
tomb could suffice as the sepulchre for a man of the social stature
of Joseph of Arimathea, who was known to be a member of the Jewish
Sanhedrin (see Luke 23:50–51), it may be pointed out that the
ossuary (bone box) of the high priest Caiaphas was found in just
such a single-chamber tomb (the Jerusalem tomb depicted in figure
19).[29]
Figure 18. Single-chamber tomb from Herodian period, located
at Gilo,
Jerusalem, shown with blocking stone (after Kloner).
Figure 19. Single-chamber tomb from Herodian period with
kokhim,
located at Jerusalem, Peace Forest (after Kloner). Note that the
ossuary of Caiaphas was found in this tomb.
In
reviewing recent archaeological literature, I am not alone in
suggesting that Jesus was placed in a single-chamber, triple-bench
tomb. In a very useful article in Biblical Archaeology Review,
Israeli archaeologist Amos Kloner, an expert on ancient tombs
in Israel, comes to essentially the same conclusion.[30]
Kloner also makes a somewhat surprising suggestion: that Jesus’
tomb was not sealed with a disk-like “rolling stone” of the type
generally imagined. Pointing out that “98 percent of the Jewish
tombs from this period . . . were closed with square blocking
stones,” Kloner suggests that the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ burial
and Resurrection are probably referring to that type of stone—a
square, plug-like stone about a meter wide—as the type of stone
that was “rolled” to and from the door of Jesus’ tomb: “Matthew,
Mark, and Luke all describe the stone being ‘rolled’ (in John
it is ‘taken away’), and thus it is only natural to assume that
the stone was round. But we must remember that ‘rolled’ is a translation
of the Greek word kulio, which can also mean ‘dislodge,’
‘move back’ or simply ‘move.’"[31]
Kloner
further points out that “the Hebrew word for these blocking stones,
both round and square [is] golal or golel (plural
golalim). The root means ‘to roll’ an well as ‘to move.’"[32] He also suggests three
other interesting considerations:
- That only four of the
huge disk-type “rolling stones” have been discovered from the
time of Jesus, versus hundreds of the square blocking types—this
statistically favors the latter as the type of sealing stone
at Jesus’ tomb.
- That the huge disk-type
of stone was employed only for very elaborate multichambered
tombs (as opposed to single-chamber tombs of the type proposed
above for Jesus’ burial).
- That the New Testament
description of an angel sitting on the stone moved away from
the tomb door (see Matthew 28:2) does not work well with a huge
disk-like stone—“A square blocking stone would make a much better
perch."[33]
So
how would Jesus’ tomb have looked? Based on a decade of research,
and including Kloner’s blocking-stone suggestion, a drawing of
the tomb with a cutaway view (see figure 20) shows a small, square
entry that someone would have to stoop down to look into or enter
through. The single chamber of the tomb, only about three meters
square, would have featured three connected benches. Quite probably,
the body of Jesus was laid on the back bench, directly opposite
the entry, where on Sunday morning, John, “stooping down, and
looking in, saw the linen clothes lying” (John 20:5). Shortly
thereafter, Mary “stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,
and seeth two angels in white sitting [on that back bench], the
one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of
Jesus had lain” (John 20:11–12). The bench on the right-hand side
of the entry would probably have been the place where the women
mentioned in Mark “saw a young man [angel] sitting on the right
side” (Mark 16:5). The square, plug-like blocking stone, a meter
wide and very heavy, had been “taken away from the sepulchre”
(John 20:1), and an angel “sat upon it” (Matthew 28:2—or “two
angels” sat on it, according to the JST). It is even likely that
if this tomb were cut into the eastern scarp of el-Edhemieh (the
Saladin Street side), the entry faced east, allowing the first
rays of Sunday dawn to illuminate the sepulchre enough for visitors
to peer in and see the place where Jesus had lain. Outside the
tomb (not pictured in figure 20) were olive trees—the garden of
Joseph of Arimathea, where Mary Magdalene momentarily thought
she was speaking with a gardener.
Figure 20. Proposed design of the tomb in which the body
of Jesus was laid.
Note that the body would have rested on the bench opposite the
door.
Note also the square, plug-like blocking stone to seal the entrance.
What
Do We Do Now?
With
the Garden Tomb ruled out as the site of Jesus’ burial and with
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre also disqualified as a viable
candidate, what do we do now? For those who are interested in
the precise geography of the life of Jesus, for those who conduct
study programs in Israel, and even for those who find it useful
to display photographs of New Testament venues in their classrooms,
there is simply no tomb of Joseph the Arimathean that we can represent
to students as authentic. It is possible, as demonstrated above,
to isolate the general area where that tomb must have been located
and to reconstruct quite accurately how that tomb might have looked.
But it would hardly be inspiring to march a group of students
or visitors to the dingy sidewalk outside Aladdin the money changer,
point west across Saladin Street, and say, “It’s probably underneath
there somewhere.” It is even possible that the Arimathean’s tomb
no longer exists. And even if it does, the likelihood that it
will be identified and excavated anytime in the near future is
practically nil. For Latter-day Saint students and others who
have the desire to know the exact places of sacred events, archaeology
presents only a rather gray cloud in terms of the tomb of Jesus’
Resurrection. But something of a silver lining still exists. That
silver lining is, somewhat ironically, the Garden Tomb itself.
It
may be an adjustment for some, but if Latter-day Saints would
regard the Garden Tomb as a teaching tool rather than as a shrine,
a visit to the site or even a photo of the burial cave may still
provide valuable insight into New Testament events. Rather than
venerate it as sacred space, we would do well to employ the Garden
Tomb as a visual aid—a pleasant and useful locale that may continue
to be used in teaching aspects of the accounts of Jesus’ Crucifixion,
burial, and Resurrection. The Garden Tomb does, after all, possess
a number of qualities for the Latter-day Saint teacher and student:
- It is adjacent to the
skull feature, which is the best candidate for the site called
Golgotha in the New Testament. This is an extremely important
point. Even though a visit to the Garden Tomb may not bring
us to the actual sepulchre of Jesus, it does bring us to the
“place of a skull,” where the final hours of the Savior’s sacrifice
were accomplished. There can be little doubt, as demonstrated
above, that the skull feature was the site of the Crucifixion.
In this regard, we really do access “sacred space” by going
to the Garden Tomb. For those who desire knowing and visiting
an exact location, the Garden Tomb’s platform for viewing Golgotha
is as good as it gets.
- The Garden Tomb is almost
certainly within two hundred meters of wherever the real tomb
of Joseph of Arimathea was located. Since we know where Golgotha
is, we know that the actual tomb in which Jesus was laid must
be somewhere close by. Probably it was to the east of Golgotha,
as demonstrated earlier. But, in any case, when we visit the
Garden Tomb, we are no more than a few minutes’ walk from where
the actual garden and the actual tomb must have been. Often,
there is educational value in knowing we are merely in the vicinity
of a sacred event, such as in New York’s Sacred Grove or Missouri’s
Adam-ondi-Ahman. This knowledge can certainly also be the case
in terms of that most sacred of events, the Savior’s Resurrection.
- Physical aspects of the
Garden Tomb itself can be used to illustrate the New Testament
accounts. Even though the exterior of the tomb is of little
use in demonstrating how they “rolled a great stone to the door”
(Matthew 27:60), the tomb’s interior originally featured benches,
as Jesus’ tomb most certainly did. And even though those benches
have been cut away, their visible lines remain, and the form
and position of the original loculi are easily distinguished.
The interior chamber’s triple-bench design may be used to demonstrate
how a single-chamber tomb with a triple bench could fit the
accounts of Jesus’ burial and Resurrection (compare figure 4
with figure 20). Of course, examining any other existing bench
tomb would serve the same purpose, but the Garden Tomb is especially
suited for receiving groups of visitors and is very convenient
for both teachers and students in this regard.
- Last, but certainly not
least, is the “spirit of place” visitors encounter at the Garden
Tomb. Here, within a pleasant garden setting, a reverential
memory of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection is the main concern
of Christian hosts, while the meaning of those events, which
can differ somewhat from denomination to denomination, is discreetly
left to the minds and hearts of the individual visitors. The
Garden Tomb itself is actually not the end focus of the polite
and friendly guides there, who frequently summarize their presentations
with a declaration of belief in Christ rather than confidence
in the tomb. It is not uncommon to hear those guides say something
along these lines: “The most significant thing about the Garden
Tomb is that it is empty! He is risen! And because of this,
we too shall all rise again!” Latter-day Saints can agree with
this significant testimonial as much as any other Christians.
With
these suggestions in mind, anyone who revisits Golgotha and the
Garden Tomb, whether in person or by photograph, continues to
have a spiritually enriching and educationally instructive adventure.
NOTES
28- Amos Kloner, “Did a Rolling Stone Close Jesus’
Tomb?” Biblical Archaeology Review 25, no. 5 (September/October
1999): 29. Kloner reaches the same conclusion for a different
reason. He maintains that arcosolia were at most two feet
high, and angels could not have sat upright in such a niche. But
I have visited tombs in Jerusalem and the Shfelah with arcosolia
more than three feet high and have sat upright in them.
29- Zvi Greenhut, “Burial Cave of the Caiaphas
Family,” Biblical Archaeology Review 18, no. 5 (September/October
1992): 29–36.
30- Kloner, “Rolling Stone,” 29.
31- Kloner, “Rolling Stone,” 28.
32- Kloner, “Rolling Stone,” 29.
33- Kloner, “Rolling Stone,” 23–29
