Where was Jesus’ Crucifixion and Burial?

Where did Jesus’ crucifixion and burial take place?

Well, we know from the Gospels that the Holy Week events took place in Jerusalem.

But that’s not the question.

Where, exactly, did Jesus die on the cross?

And where did Joseph of Arimathea take his body for burial?

It’s complicated.

Maybe.

One traditional site for Jesus’ crucifixion and burial

The Gospel of Matthew tells us the Romans crucified Jesus on Golgotha (place of a skull).

During our 2022 visit to Israel, we visited two possible sites.

The Garden Tomb is north of the “old” city of Jerusalem. Old Jerusalem is an ancient town surrounded by walls and punctured with gates.

The Garden Tomb sits at the base of a hillside that some believe resembles a skull, hence Golgotha.

Our guide produced photos, like the one to the right, of a hillside resembling a skull.

That, and the fact it’s located outside of Old Jerusalem, seems to be why people believe this spot a possibility.

What do you think?

The more likely spot for Jesus’ crucifixion and burial

In 326 AD, Emperor Constantine’s mother, Helena, traveled to the Holy Land looking for sites related to Jesus.

The residents brought her to spots known as the traditional locations of Jesus’ life events. (As they’d lived there for centuries, they had historical knowledge of where important events happened. Eric Metaxas explains this concept in Is Atheism Dead?).

Helena ordered a church or basilica constructed on the site of Biblical events throughout Palestine.

As to the sites of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, she concluded a spot in Old Jerusalem made the most sense.

It’s the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

But it’s inside the walls of Old Jerusalem.

How does that work?

First-century Christians revered the spot now housing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as a holy site.

Emperor Hadrian ordered the area destroyed when he rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Caitolina in 135 AD.

On the site of what tradition claimed to be Jesus’ tomb, he ordered the construction of a temple to Venus.

A later governor of the city extended the city walls outside of the present church.

Nearly two hundred years later, Macarius, the Bishop of Jerusalem, asked Emperor Constantine to look into the issue.

With his mother in the area identifying the same place as the site of Jesus’ Crucifixion and Burial, Constantine went to work.

He ordered a new church built on the site.

Was Jesus crucified and buried at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?

I visited the enormous church, more than a thousand years old, twice during our time in Jerusalem.

When I walked through the ancient doors on the south side, I broke into inexplicable tears both times.

I felt overwhelmed by the grandeur, the history, and the enormous building.

Following the crowds, I climbed the narrow stairs inside the door and found myself in a mobbed area.

Magnificent frescoes and paintings covered the walls.

What were all these people doing? Why were they standing in lines and then falling to their knees?

They were touching the rock under the altar.

It’s allegedly the rock in which the Romans stuck Jesus’ crucifixion cross.

His blood, therefore, would have dripped onto that rock.

Did I believe it?

Intellectually–really?

Emotionally? I felt overwhelmed.

I had to sit down to take it in.

The burial tombs

We peered into a tomb cut into the rock at the Garden Tomb site.

It was empty, just as you would expect for the site of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial.

The line to enter the aedicule–tomb of Christ–at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was very long.

We did not have time to wait two hours to walk through it. But it’s claimed to be the site where Joseph of Arimathea laid Jesus to rest on Good Friday.

It’s also the site of where he got up and left the grave on Easter Sunday morning.

Does it matter?

No.

The important thing is Jesus did die on the cross and did rise again from the dead three days later.

Thanks be to God.

A blessed Holy Week to all.