I’d considered just supporting the Holy Sepulcher Site now that I’ve made an effort to restrain my bias for Alternative Biblical Geography theories, which includes that I do now mainly favor the Mainstream Sinai View and definitely do not think it was in Arabia or Jordan.
But the more I think about it and look into it the more convinced I become of an East of Jerusalem model for The Crucifixion and Resurrection rather than West or North.
The most compelling reason is the parallel accounts of Matthew 27:51-54, Mark 15:38-39 and Luke 23:45-47.
One can argue there is some reasonable doubt that the Veil being torn has to be specifically among what the Centurion saw, but looking at is an an aspiring writer and one who likes to analyze the writing of others, to deny every sign here is among what the Centurion saw is worse then denying that Blue Curtains symbolize Sadness. And if you know even the basics of the Geography of The Temple and Jerusalem then you know that is only theoretically possible if they were directly due East of The Temple.
I’m still undecided about how I fully view Zechariah 12-14, but for Chapter 14 Verses 4-5 I lean towards the Earthquake cleaving of the Mount of Olives there as being the one from Matthew:26:51-54.
John 19:20 says The Crucifixion was “nigh to the city”. To a modern reader that doesn’t seem to say anything about which direction, but when you understand all the Torah and Scriptural Emphasis on entering The Tabernacle and Camp from the East you’ll understand that best fits being on the road leading to Jerusalem from The East.
And that also applies to Hebrews 13:10-13 and it’s allusion to Torah Passages like Exodus 29:14, 33:7, Leviticus 4:12-21, 6:11, 8:17, 9:11, 16:27, 24:14 and Numbers 19:3-8.
Additionally Numbers 31:13-19 identified “Without the Camp” as where Censuses were held, and because of Exodus 16:13, 38:16, Number 1:2-18-20-22 and 1 Chronicles 23:3-24 the Hebrew word gulgoleth could be associated with Censuses. So Golgotha could refer not to a Geographical feature but to a place for holding a Census.
Second Kings Chapter 23 in Verses 4, 6 and 12 refer to Josiah burning Idols and other pagan paraphernalia in the brook Kidron which is between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives, even saying “without Jerusalem”. Verse 12 names Ahaz and Manasseh showing this is still tied to the Tophet mentioned two verses earlier.
Gehenna in The New Testament is a name derived from Hinnom of The Hebrew Bible. I disagree with the popular view that it was South of Jerusalem, that’s based on a misunderstanding of Joshua 15:8 and 18:16. Jeremiah 19:2 much more explicitly identifies Hinnom with the Eastern Gate.
In The Bible Kidron is always the name of a Broke, the Valley we today call Kidron is the real Valley of Hinnom.
The Tophet is why Hinnom became associated with Fiery Judgment in Jeremiah 7 and 19 and Isaiah 30:33. The Tophet was something related to the Worship of Molech built by Ahaz in 2 Chronicles 28:3 (and 2 Kings 16) and used by Manesseh in 33:6.
In Genesis 22 Moriah is the name of a land not a single Mountain, but the Hebrew word translated “mount” in 2 Chronicles 3:1 can itself refer to a mountain range rather than a single mountain. So the Mount of Olives rather than the Temple Mount being where Abraham offered Isaac is plausible.
2 Samuel 15:30-16:1 tell us David Worshipped God at the Summit of The Mount of Olives as he fled the rebellion of Absalom. In Ezekiel 11:22-23 the Glory of God leaves the midst of The City and stands on the Mountain on the East Side of The City.
In my Sunday post at the start of 2025 I mentioned Biblical reasons to view Sunrise as a symbol of The Resurrection. Well the Sun Rises in The East so likewise Jesus should Rise East of Jerusalem.
The Romans usually Crucified criminals in front of a City's Main Gate to make sure a maximum number saw the example being made. And for Jerusalem especially during the Pilgrimage Festivals that was The East Gate.
The problem with having some confidence that the local Traditions couldn’t have gotten it wrong is that the history of Jerusalem is filled with multiple discontinuities. There is a lot of dispute on if the Jewish Jerusalem Church after 70 AD ever returned to Jerusalem from Pella even in part, because Jerusalem was largely not actively inhabited at all during that time. But what’s most significant is after the Bar Kochba Revolt, Jews, including Jewish Christians, weren’t even allowed anywhere Jerusalem was visible from, so in Hadrian’s City a new Gentile Christian community was formed that had no direct continuity with the prior community. And the thing is I don’t believe these truly Early Christians were all that invested in worshiping as special sacred locations to begin with.
This is relevant to debating the location of The Temple as well. You’ll see it claimed that during this period of Jews being banned from Jerusalem they were at least allowed to visit the site of The Temple once a year on the 9th of Av, but even that wasn't there from that start, that allowance was granted by Septimius Severus. By then it’s very well possible no Jews who had ever been in Jerusalem previously were still alive, but any who had been were very old and possibly Senile.
The Architect Hadrian used for Aelia Capitolina also oversaw a similarly shaped complex at Baalbek, where a Temple to Venus was also built nearby the Temple to Jupiter, that’s why a Temple to Venus was built where The Church of The Holy Sepulchre now stands, it had nothing to do with covering up a Christian place of worship. But maybe even before Nicea local Christians desired to imagine it was.
Where The Church of The Holy Sepulcher is located was outside the city limits during the first century, unfortunately the history of people arguing against it was so wrapped up in people before we knew that starting with that argument that traditionalists just think that being debunked is itself alternate theories can be dismissed. As I laid out above, the real issue is that it’s in the wrong direction.
However Melito of Sardis and my own date for the writing of Revelation (Chapter 11 verse 8) can be cited as evidence that the Crucifixion site was now in the City Limits after Hadrian's rebuilding of the City. Neither Melito or Revelation are being strictly geographically literal, and the Mount of Olives can be considered part of the area of Jerusalem in any time period. In the Fourth Century Cyril of Jerusalem referred to both The Mount of Olives and Bethlehem as part of Jeursalem at least as far as his clerical authority went. But if Hadrian’s rebuilding did create some increase in a willingness to refer to the Crucifixion site as within Jerusalem maybe it was some nuance in how a Roman style city is defined. Or maybe what Cyril claimed goes back to Marcus the first Greek Bishop of Jerusalem.
The Garden Tomb has the issue of its Tomb being too old going back to the Bronze Age. We also know the Skull like Feature tourists find so attractive probably didn’t exist yet in Antiquity. Ron Wyatt’s claim about finding The Ark under that Crucifixion is attractive for a lot of symbolic reasons I understand, but his story also sounds way too much like Joseph Smith’s.
There are different East of Jerusalem sites that have been proposed for The Crucifixion and Resurrection. One of the first I read about was looking way too far north not lined up with any proposed Temple Location. Bob Cornuke places The Temple way too far South and thus is also looking for The Crucifixion way too far South.
I have come to favor the Northern Conjecture or Dome of the Tablets view of where The Temple/Holy of Holies stood, of alternatives to the official view it’s the least extreme, it's not that far away being essentially on the same large platform. And it involves reading sources like the Bordeaux Pilgrim pretty much the same as the mainstream view does, my hunch is simply that the Rock underneath the Dome of the Rock and the “Well of Souls” beneath is the Cave where these Fourth Century Witnesses say Solomon wrote “The Book of Wisdom”. And that’s even if the Pilgrim was still referring to the correct Temple Site, as i said above the core mistake could have been made before the 2nd Century was even over.
The main reason I like that view is it places The Temple directly due West of The Golden Gate, which is definitely where it should be. I therefore think the Crucifixion site should be looked for directly due East of The Golden Gate. It is principally the Crucifixion site that has to be directly due East, the Tomb can be a little north or south as long as it isn’t too far away from its corresponding Crucifixion site.
I think the original Jerusalem Church may have casually commemorated these locations and they may have in some form been inherited by the Greek Church set up after Hadrian, but no one built grand structures as Christian Worship sites in the area till Constantine. I think after the site of Hadrian’s Temple to Venus became the official imperial backed site the true sites may have become reframed as more obscure references, that may or may not have been at the same location anyway. But maybe not, again I have no great confidence that the Traditions got anything right.
So I decided to look at Churches that are due East of The Golden Gate. Attempting to start in the West then moving East, but I can’t find a single Map with all of them so I may be uncertain about some of the order. And all of this is speculative, I don’t know nearly enough about the geography of the area to propose a definitive exact location for anything.
First is The Church of All Nations and the nearby Garden believed to be Gethsemane. The Church commemorates a Rock they believe is where Jesus prayed on the Eve of his Passion. I’ve looked at pictures of this Rock and I feel it could justifiably be said to look like the top of a Skull and thus Golgotha. But I’m not gonna be like other people insisting their Golgotha is obvious and nothing else could be Golgotha, I’m self aware that there is a bit of a Rorschach test in my seeing it here, and I’ve argued against it needing to refer to what anything looks like anyway.
John 18:1-26 mentions a Garden popularly assumed to also be Gethsemane of Matthew 26:36 and Mark 14:32. John 19:41 and 20:15 say the Tomb Jesus was buried was in a Garden. Could it be that they were meant to be the same Garden? I don’t know for certain and I don’t know if this Gethsemane has or had any First Century Tombs, but this Garden is considered to have been larger than it is now in the First Century. Sometimes I’m tempted to speculate that the traditional Tomb of The Virgin located a little north of here was actually the Tomb of Jesus.
The Church of All Nations is the point on this route that seems to be of the same level elevation as The Temple would have been. Whether or not this is the Crucifixion site it feels like it makes the most sense for being where the Tophet was.
Next is The Church of Mary Magdalene. Given that her original core importance is as the first Eyewitness of The Resurrection naming a Church for her at or near where that happened makes sense. But this Church isn’t Ancient.
The Dominus Flevit Church is a bit too far South for a Crucifixion site, but it does long fascinate me not for what it in name claims to commemorate but because of the good reason for believing it marks the primary burial site used by the original Jewish Jerusalem Church. Christians and Jews in Antiquity chose Burial over Cremation primarily as a witness to their Faith in the General Resurrection of The Dead. To Christians the Resurrection of Jesus is the beginning of that, so it makes sense for them to choose their first burial site as close as possible to where Jesus was buried.
Last is The Chapel of The Ascension at the Mountain’s Summit.
The idea that the Ascension happened on the Summit of the Mount of Olives originates in a misunderstanding of Acts 1:12, but that verse in my view can be read as placing the Mount of Olives between Jerusalem and where the Ascension happened. Luke 24:50 places the Ascension at Bethany, which can be considered on the Mount of Olives but is its Eastern edge not the Summit.
A lot of Prophecy students want to interpret Acts 1:11 as saying Jesus will return to the same spot he left from and tie that into Prophecies about the Mount of Olives, but that verse isn’t about location but the manner in which Jesus Ascended. And the Eschatological significance of the Mount of Olives I think is fulfilled by the Crucifixion and Resurrection happening there, but I’ll get into that someday on my Materialist Eschatology Blog.
The “Ascension Rock” is another rock that arguably looks like the top of a Skull to me.
Just a little South of the proper Ascension site is the Church of the Pater Noster where the Eleona was built during the reign of Constantine. It was associated with the Ascension but Eusebius also stressed it as containing a “Cave” where Jesus taught His Disciples “Secret Knowledge”, that is not a Biblical Concept. The modern name implies it’s the Our Father that was taught here, but The Bible doesn’t place that in a Cave and Eusebius never hints at that. In Eusebius’s writings this site is presented as the Holiest most central site of Christian veneration prior to 325. There are reportedly First Century Tombs carved into the Cave.
The Boreux Pilgrim refers to a location near the summit of the Mount of Olives as where the Transfiguration happened, which has long confused scholars since that happened in Galilee. Ernest L. Martin in his book on a Mt of Olives Crucifixion theory says this is a linguistic confusion with Transfixiation which could have been used to describe Crucifixion. But I want to note that the Gospel event we typically call The Transfiguration was just a lesser preview, the true permanent Transfiguration of Jesus to a fully Immortal unfallen state was The Resurrection.
Jerome’s Commentarius in Sophoniam or Commentary on The Twelve Prophets is a work I can’t find an accessible English Translation of Online even though so many other Jerome works are easy to find. There is a claim for which Ernest L. Martin sources this text on page 108 of Secrets of Golgotha that I want to independently verify about a woman named Poemenia placing a large Cross at this spot on The Mount of Olives in the late 4th Century.
There is a lot of folklore involving Helena’s role in all this. For one thing Eusebius’s Life of Constantine does not imply she had anything to do with choosing The Church of The Holy Sepulcher, just the Church of The Nativity and the previously mentioned Eleonia near the mainstream Ascension site.
