Holy Sepulchre vs. Garden Tomb —

British General Charles Gordon clearly thought so, as well. His answer was the Garden Tomb, located just North of the Damascus Gate, carved into the Western escarpment of a limestone hill. Today, we have access to more information about first century Jerusalem and first century tombs then did General Gordon in 1880s. And while the site of the Garden Tomb is more peaceful, natural, and displays an ancient tomb much more effectively than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it may be standing on misinformation the tomb appears to be entirely from the wrong era. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre on the other hand may preserve the site less naturally, but the tradition on which it stands is well established.

First, to the location of the Holy Sepulchre: It’s known from the records of Josephus (Flavius Josephus, 1^st century Roman historian) that the area where the church stands was originally outside of the city walls. It was incorporated into the city shortly after the time of Christ by Herod Agrippa (AD 41-44). It’s now known, thanks to excavations, that the site was originally a limestone quarry (8^th -7^th centuries BC) and was used for tombs in the 1^st centuries (BC-AD). After AD 135 the site was completely remade by Emperor Hadrian who filled and levelled it to build a Temple to Venus. Impressively, two hundred years later during the reign of Constantine, the Christians of Jerusalem identified the site, and the manmade temple and platform were removed to reveal 1^st century tombs.

As for the site of Gordon’s Calvary and the Garden Tomb: When the tomb was claimed as Jesus’, Charles Gordon did not spend a lot of time, at least officially, investigating it particularly. He was more focussed on the overall site of Golgotha which he believed to be the limestone hill into which the tomb was dug. The problem with the site is that the tomb is in the midst of an 8^th century (BC) grave complex. The Garden Tomb appears to be identical to them. It follows all of the known patterns of 8^th century (BC) tombs and breaks all the patterns of known 1^st century tombs. In short, it’s from the wrong era to be Christ’s tomb.

Today, knowing what we do about the location of Jerusalem’s wall, and the layouts and construction of first century tombs, the battle is intellectually decided. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is much more likely the actual place of Golgotha and Christ’s tomb.

These two differing sites however, both offer valuable experiences for the Christian pilgrim. One offers a mishmash history of Church building styles while preserving what could very well be the tomb of Christ, the other offers a peaceful place amid a modern city to go experience what it might have been like to be the disciples on resurrection Sunday.