There's been a lot of controversy over where the tomb of Yeshua is. The Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian and the Syriac Church say it's one place and the Protestants say it is at a different place.
So who's right?
Neither of them is correct. Let's see why...
First let's look at where these two places are.
On this map you'll see 2 different "x" marks. The one for the Catholics etc is called The Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The one for the Protestants is simply called "The Garden Tomb"
Lets take a look at the temple area. What does that have to do with the crucifixion? A lot! Let's take a look.
This is a model of the temple. We're looking at it from the Mount of Olives (see the above map). This is the only entrance to the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies, it is walled by marble.
Now let's take a look at the inside of the temple...
Here's the first entrance
Here's the second entrance
Notice the curtain (also called a veil in some translations).
Now let's read about the crucifixion...
Matthew 27:50-56
50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. 51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; 52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. 54 Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, "Truly this was the Son of God.
According to this Scripture, the centurion saw the veil ripped in two. Now take a look again at the picture of the first map. Do you see where the Mount of Olives is and do you see where one would HAVE to be to be able to see into the Temple in order to see the veil being ripped in two? He would have to be DIRECTLY across from the Temple doors in order to see that! Now look again at where the other two places are where they say the crucifixion took place... it's impossible. From either of those two places you wouldn't be able to see the veil rent, you wouldn't even be able to see into the Temple AT ALL! Let's take a couple other views at the Temple...
The Holy Sepulcher and the Garden tomb are WAYYYY over here.
This is from the opposite angle.
So you see the only place it could be is on the Mount of Olives. And guess what? There's a tomb over there! It's guarded by the Greek Orthodox and they wont let anyone in. Do they know something that we don't?
The controversy concerning the Holy Sepulcher has to do with archeology. It's well known that in Biblical times that the Jews would not allow anyone to be executed or buried within the city walls, only outside the walls was permitted. So lets look at a diagram of the Holy Sepulcher.
The lines I've drawn show the wall that we've been able to excavate we've located it going up to the Church on both sides. What we don't know is if the wall goes to the left of the tomb or the right of the tomb. If it goes to the left making the tomb inside the city walls, then it couldn't be the place just based on that. The church won’t let us dig there to find out. But they have done a lot of digging in that area and they probably already know where the wall goes. They just don’t want anybody else to know that it's not the place. They've seen what hundreds of thousands of tourists have done to the church and they don’t want that to happen to the REAL Golgotha!
And what about the Protestant Garden tomb? Well, this upsets many Christians who have made the trip to Israel and have seen the Garden tomb. They even say they saw Jesus there in visions etc. Sorry to tell them, it's not the real place. Not only because of what I've shown above but also because it's been PROVEN false already by Gabi Barkai, a well known and reliable archeologist in Israel. The Garden tomb was built 500 years before Jesus and the Bible clearly says He was laid in a new tomb. When I was a child before this was all proven, the owners of the Garden Tomb used to tell us that "This is where Jesus was buried". Now BY LAW they have to say, "This is LIKE the place where Jesus was buried".
So now we know where Yeshua was buried. Is it important? Yes it is, but not as important as the fact that He was raised from the dead and now lives!!!
