Garden Tomb - 1st Field Trip

Our best time to get to know students well is on field trips.  As our schedules allow, we can take each field trip outside of Jerusalem one time while we are here.  More often, we go with students to local sites -- usually on weekends when there is more free time.  [See Aug. post, JC Students, various other F.T. posts.]

The Garden Tomb.

On Sabbath 9/11/10, after our 3-hour block of Church meetings, we walked with the students beyond the Old City to the Garden Tomb.  It has been managed by the Anglican Church since the late 1800's.

Our guide: Rev. Al Melton, a retired So. Baptist minister who loves BYU groups!  Each year he & wife are tour volunteers here -- just like us!

While views differ about the Christ's actual tomb location, some evidence supports this spot.  First, this tomb is very near "the place where he was crucified" (John 19:41).   The most likely Golgatha (not Calvary) is only a few yards away, from which stones were used to build the temple. 

Romans crucified their victims outside the city walls near public highways, to terrify & subdue the public.  This rock quarry was next to a public way (now a busy bus station).  It even looks like "Golgatha...the place of a skull" (Mark 15:22). Our archaeologist Jeff Chadwick agrees this is the right site.  Perhaps the first Christian martyr after Jesus (St. Stephen) was also cast out of the city & stoned here (Acts 7:58).

To be a "garden," it must have had a water source.  Discovered on site was a cistern & winepress -- evidence of a vineyard & water -- but several centuries after the crucifixion.  Back then, a "garden" was a fruit (typically olive) orchard and not a vineyard.

ALSO, it had to be a new tomb, hewn into solid rock, never used & owned by "a rich man."  Joseph of Arimethea, who gave Jesus his own tomb, was rich -- also a good, just & honorable  disciple (Matt. 27:57,  Mark 15:43, Luke 23:50).  But this tomb is much too old (from Isaiah's Iron Age II).

Joseph "rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre" (Matt. 27:60). Dr. Chadwick thinks the "great stone" was a smaller square-block type commonly used in the days of Jesus. (Note: Hebrew for "rolled" is the same as "moved.")  Also, a 2-ton round and flat disc may not fit in the front track.  Instead, was it an animal watering trough? 

When the women entered the tomb, they found two angels--one "sitting on the right side" (Mark 16:5; John 20:12).  This Garden Tomb had multiple burial spaces. (The one shown is on the rt. side.)  Jeff thinks the Jesus tomb had a single chamber, with triple benches used by the angels. 

Dr. Chadwick thinks the actual tomb may have been on the other side of that same hill --perhaps near this Muslim cemetery across the street from Aladdin's Money Exchange.  (It has fallen into a sad state of disrepair.)

Far more important than where Jesus was laid was who and what.   The angels' testimony to the women was, "He is not here; he is risen" (Mark 16:6) -- also inscribed inside this tomb, above the doorway.  What event in all human history compares with that?  Our souls were stirred to be here on our very first Sabbath Day, 9/3/10.  The exact location is secondary -- but it is sure to be very close to this serene & peaceful place.

Afterwards, our group met in a quiet garden corner near the tomb.  We pondered, prayed and sang hymns of the life & resurrection of Jesus Christ, who made this land holy.