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GOLGOTHA

(Gk. Golgothá)

The place of Jesus’ crucifixion (Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17; cf. Luke 23:33). Golgotha renders Aram. gûlgaltāʾ, “skull,” and is synonymous with Lat. calvaria. Origen speculated that Golgotha received its name because Adam’s skull was buried beneath the cross, and Jerome suggested that it was because skulls of executed prisoners littered the area. The first known reference to Golgotha as a hill is in the diary of the Bordeaux Pilgrim, who speaks of “the little hill (monticulus) of Golgotha,” locates it a stone’s throw from Jesus’ tomb, and indicates that Constantine built a basilica there.

Since the mid-1800s many have identified Golgotha with the Garden Tomb area, a limestone outcropping just N of the Old City of Jerusalem. However, no one before the 19th century ever identified this site as the place of Jesus’ death and resurrection. In 160 c.e. the Christian community considered Golgotha to be deep within the city (Melito Paschal Homily 71), not outside the walls (Heb. 13:12). Since the early 4th century Golgotha has been identified as a rock once enclosed in Constantine’s 4th-century church and now covered by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Excavations there have revealed that Golgotha is an outcropping of bedrock that lay in the 1st century at the edge of a quarry. The rock rises to a height of 5 m. (ca. 16 ft.) above the present floor of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Bibliography. J. Finegan, The Archaeology of the New Testament, rev. ed. (Princeton, 1992), 261-57, 282-84; C. Katsimbinus, “The Uncovering of the Eastern Side of the Hill of Calvary and Its Base,” Liber Annuus 27 (1977): 197-208; J. Wilkinson, Jerusalem as Jesus Knew It (Nashville, 1983).

Robert Harry Smith

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GOLGOTHA

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)