The Garden Tomb and Golgotha

This stop was undeniably the best moment of the trip, and for it to come at the very end was perfect timing. To have this earlier in the trip would have made everything up to this point lessen in significance. The entire trip seems to have been arranged in order of the personal impact they would make on all of us, that is, except for the first stop at the Mount of Beatitudes, but what better way to jump right in to start there. This was arranged perfectly.

We began at the Garden Tomb with a short worship service, again led by Jonathon Falwell. At a part of this service I became stuck in a moral dilemma. During our service we had communion, which in itself was a very powerful experience. My delimma was that our communion cups were small olive wood chalices that I was very tempted to steal because that would probably the most memorable souvenier of the trip, but I could not steal at the Garden Tomb! I had decided that I would ask to keep it in exchange for a donation that would buy several of these in its place. Thank the Lord, He had already planted my thoughts into whoever arranged this stop, because we were later told that the cups were ours to take with us!

“And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.”
John 19:17

We went directly from the worship service to view a traditional site for Golgotha. A formation cut out of the rock during the time of Solomon's mines bears a striking resemblance to a human face. After viewing this and then the later mounting evidence with the Garden tomb, it was hard not to imagine this being the correct place of the crucifixion and the Garden Tomb.

“Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.”
John 19:41

This Garden Tomb was definately in the same place as the scripture indicates. I actually took the picture of Golgotha from the "garden" of the Tomb.

“As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.” Matthew 27:57-58

About the only thing that we know of Joseph of Arimathea is that he was rich, and all the evidence shows that this tomb was the tomb of a rich man, as indicated by the refined finish of the walls inside the tomb and the massive stone and full cutout of the doorway.

Also, inside the tomb at the feet of where the body would be laid, the stone was chunked out in large sections without the better finish of the rest of the tomb interior, indicating that this was done hurriedly, and that the person that was buried here in haste was taller than the person that the tomb was designed for.

“And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted.” Mark 16:5

According to our tour guides, having the tomb cut with the door on the left and the burial place inside on the right is extremely rare, and even in the rare case that one is found, there typically is a reason that it was cut non-traditionally, such as that the shape of the rock structure necessitated it or made the stone cutting much easier. Neither seems to be the case here, and there is no doubt that "on the right side" bears some significance in the bible. There is no left side in this tomb so the only place for an angel to sit is on the right.

This mounting evidence is incredibly significant and powerful:

• The place of the skull - A rock formation bearing the image.
• "In the place where he was crucified" - Golgotha adjacent to the Garden Tomb.
• "a rich man from Arimathea" - All indications are that the owner of this tomb was wealthy.
• "young man sitting on the right side" - As rare as it is, the tomb is cut out on the right.
• Also, there is the obvious fact that no one could have moved the stone that would have been in front of this tomb.
  

Old Testament Reference:

I thought it was amazing to learn that Golgotha is on Mount Moriah (the site of Isaac's would be sacrifice). I can't believe that have never heard this before. Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac would be a foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice. Because God loved Abraham he would intervene to stop him in his sacrifice of Isaac, but thousands of years later, God would sacarifice His only son in the same place, the pay the price of all our sins!

Also, our tour guide instructed us that one every month or so, the Romans were allowed to play games with prisoners in which they were beaten badly, and from what we know of Jesus' crucifixion, it appears that he fell victim of this treatment. As a part of this abuse, wounds were filled with salt (that hurts to even mention) and then covered in oil, which served to prevent the victim from bleeding to death. The fascinating thing about this is that unbeknownst to the Romans, this followed the instructions given to the Jews in Leviticus for the meat offering, to properly prepare the perfect sacrifice!

"And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. And if thou offer a meat offering of thy firstfruits unto the LORD, thou shalt offer for the meat offering of thy firstfruits green ears of corn dried by the fire, even corn beaten out of full ears. And thou shalt put oil upon it, and lay frankincense thereon: it is a meat offering." Leviticus 2:13-15