in Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago Jesus was led like a lamb to the [Music] slaughter the problem is that sin separates man from God the solution was Jesus the Messiah who was sacrificed for the forgiveness of sin so that the punishment of sin could pass over us this is why the New Testament declares of Jesus for Christ Our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed this is why each year in the springtime Christians from all over the world travel to Jerusalem bearing multitudes of crosses they make their way to golgatha which in Aramaic means the place of the skull marked today by the cross on top of this Dome at Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy supplier but further to the north is another site that looks like a skull which other Christians believe to be gtha this site is known as skull Hill or Gordon’s Calvary by far the oldest tradition is the one commemorated at the Church of the Holy supplier Christians have been visiting this site for almost almost 2,000 years where they have never forgotten the place where the sacrifice for their sins was made so that the wrath of God could pass over them is this really the place that Jesus was crucified and what we’re going to do is we’re going to test the authenticity of this site through historical sources and archaeology don’t forget to hit that subscribe button also the information that I’m covering in this video is a supplement to chapter 8 in the book that I wrote where God came down the archaeological evidence thanks for all your reviews thanks for making it number one in archaeology and I’ll leave a link in the description where you can order a copy keep in mind also with the holidays coming up that it makes a good gift to give to others I’ll also leave a link in the description where you can leave a donation we spend more money on these videos than we bring in and so donations are much needed and appreciated even though the Tomb of Jesus and crucifixion place of Jesus are next to each other I already did a video on the Tomb of Jesus so in this video I’m going to focus on golgatha Mark 15:22 says they brought Jesus to the place called golgatha which means the place of the skull the oldest commemorated site of golgatha is located in the land of ancient Judea in the city of Jerusalem where about 1700 years ago the early Christians built a church over the place where Jesus was crucified many churches were destroyed and rebuilt on the site right up to the Church of the Holy supper that currently stands over the same plot of sacred ground so in the 1960s the Church of the Holy supper was excavated by the archaeologist virgilia corbo and in his excavations he found an agricultural layer this stood out from the others because there was no architecture in it it was a soil layer with the remains of what had been grown in that soil he found the seeds of grapes and figs and olives and such things this layer dated to the time of the early Roman period And so this was archaeological evidence that the TR traditional site of golgatha at the time of Jesus was used as a garden this is significant because in John 1941 it says in the place where Jesus was crucified there was a garden and so we have a correlation between the traditional site of golgatha as a garden and the historical Source from the New Testament that says that Jesus was crucified in a garden in the 1970s the Israeli archaeologist non aviod was busy Excavating the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem’s old city in his excavations avigad uncovered Roman streets like this one notice the building underneath the street level so that once the street was removed through excavation the remains of the older City Beneath it was exposed the Byzantine period is the period of early Christianity which began in Jerusalem in ad. 324 in avig God’s report he shows a sketch plan of the Byzantine City avod and his team excavated this section of the main street called the cardo Maximus I’m standing in the old city of Jerusalem on the cardo Maximus which is depicted in this mural behind me uh this is the main North South Street in Jerusalem at that time and so this particular part of the cardo Maximus uh that we see here that remains is an extension from the Byzantine period here we see the Byzantine cardo being excavated by avig God’s team this drawing of the cardo from avig God’s report shows the pillar bases resting on the street level just as in one of his excavation squares we see the remains of some of the pillar bases that reveal the street level of the cardo Maximus underneath this street an older City wall of Jerusalem was Unearthed by avig God’s team this city wall was in use in the early Roman period which is the time of Jesus as the excavations continued two sides of the city wall were uncovered with a gap in between them revealing a City Gate the ad 1st Century historian Josephus wrote about the gate called GTH which belonged to the First wall was this the gate that the first century historian Josephus called the gineth gate aviod thought so because gineth means garden and Gates were often named after the place where the road that passed through them led to on avig God’s top plan of Byzantine Jerusalem this is where he discovered The City Gate and nearby he shows the original church built by Constantine at gotha avigad knew that at this church the earlier excavations of corbo had found evidence that in ad1 Century this was a garden it makes sense then that the gate leading to this Garden would be the one called The Garden Gate it was named this because it led to the Garden that corbo had discovered Hebrews 13:12 says Jesus also suffered Outside The City Gate therefore what the archaeology demonstrates is that the church on the hill golgatha was inside the much larger Byzantine city of Jerusalem in the early Christian period while underneath this Byzantine city was a much smaller City dating to the time of of Jesus when the garden at golgatha was located outside of Jerusalem this means that the ad 1st Century Garden corbo found in his excavations at golgatha was accessed by the road that passed through the garden gate discovered by aviod this evidence then demonstrates the authenticity of the traditional site of golgatha since the New Testament declares that Jesus Jesus was both crucified in a garden and outside of a City Gate about 11 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Jerusalem expanded to the north bringing golgatha into the city after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in ad70 the emperor hadrien rebuilt it around ad 130 as a pagan city which he called Alia capitalina so this is the Roman Emperor hadrien who is the one who rebuilds the ruins of Jerusalem as Alia capitalina directly over the top of golgatha hadrien built the main Temple for his new city the early Church Father Jerome wrote on the rock where the cross had stood a marble statue of Venus was set up by the Heathen and became an object of worship so over the spot of Jesus’s cruci fiction hadrien placed a statue of Venus this is an example of a headless statue of Venus will go over and look at a head from a statue and here is an example of the head of Venus from one of the statues it was a little less than a 100 years from the time of Jesus crucifixion to the time hadrien came to the rubble of Jerusalem and chose a particular Hill to put his main Temple in the uh Pagan City Alia capitalina that he was building why did he choose that particular place Jerome gives the reason when he wrote the original persecutors indeed supposed that by polluting our holy places they would deprive us of our faith in the passion he did it to pollute the Christian holy places and this informs us that before hadrien came there uh golgatha was a holy place of the Christians it had been a holy place for a hundred years almost and that makes sense that that is why then hadrien chose the hill golgatha to build a temple Mount over and to build his temple on top of after hadrien did that then there were two Temple mounts in Jerusalem one over the hill Mariah and the other one over the hill golgatha and a more specific question is then why did he choose to put over the spot of crucifixion specifically a statue of Venus and again the answer is very clear uh 1 John 3:16 Says uh This Is How We Know What Love Is that Christ laid down his life for us where did he do that he did that at golgatha so of all the places on Earth the place that most represents love would be golgatha where Jesus laid down his life for us that was the greatest act of love that was the demonstration of what love is that defines what love is for us that allows us to love others because Christ first loved us in this place where he laid down his life and died for the sins of humanity and so to pollute that to supplant that hadrien came and put a statue of Venus the goddess of love right over the top of that where then the acts of worship horrible things like sexual immorality and temp prostitution and these kinds of things were acted out right over the top of the very spot where God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son who died in the place of the sins of humanity when hadrien built his temple on top of golgatha he had stairs built up the side of the Hill you came down the cardo Maximus you came upsteps and then the ancient original entrance was from the front when we look down on the same area today this is the line of the cardo Maximus and in between these lines were the stairs leading up to the temple on top of the hill some of these original steps and other structures were found through excavations and are preserved under these buildings these preserved steps are roughly here on the temple model this is the ancient way that you came up from the cardo Maximus up to the temple that hadrien built and these elaborate structures that you see here are part of that entrance built at the time of hadrien in this next scene I’m standing on the roof of the Eastern end of the Church of the Holy supplier next to this Dome so we have the Dome here look at where it’s uh located as far as where the Crusader church is we’re going to be down there in just a few minutes and we’re going to be looking up at the D like this and we’re going to be looking at the stairs that ascended up from the Cardone Maximus up to uh the place of golgatha where Jesus was crucified so this Dome is the one that we were standing next to up above here and so we’re now down underneath where the stairs come up the side of the hill to the place of crucifixion and you see these Stones here from the late Roman period these are from the time of Hadrian when Constantine the first Christian emperor of Rome came to power in ad 324 he had Hadrian’s Temple destroyed and a church called the martyrium built in its place to commemorate the spot where Jesus was crucified this is the mausoleum Constantine had built over the Tomb of Jesus and this building is the martyrium church with its Western apps built over the place of crucifixion many churches commemorating the same were destroyed and rebuilt right up to the Church of the Holy seler that currently stands over the site built in the Crusader period when we fly over the current church and look straight down we see that it is built in the form of a cross with the Dome of golgatha and in front of it the half circle of the church’s apps laying the top plan of the church over it we can mark the center of the apps this marks the place of Cru Cru fiction notice when we lay the top plan of Constantine’s original church over the top of the current Church the apps is in the same place in the original Church the apps pointed West towards the Tomb of Jesus in the churches that followed including the current Church the apps Points East towards the sunrise however the place of the crucifixtion of Jesus at the center of the apps has remained the same to this day underneath this Dome here and here are the stairs that I walk up in the next scene where I arrive at the outside of the church’s apps these modern steps I’m climbing are built over the ancient stairs ascending the hill golgatha to the outside of the church’s apps here we have uh the apps of the church um in front of me here now the apps is what marks the place of crucifixion Jesus was crucified just on the other side of this wall um we have because of that we have different masonry from different time periods you can see they’re on a different line from each other so this is modern masonry then we have older masonry on a different line then we have a row of even older masonry and then below it we have this uh oldest masonry um this is because the church that was originally built here by Constantine was destroyed and rebuilt over and over again and here you see the archaeological evidence for it after entering the current Church many visitors are LED East and climb a set of stairs these lead to an upper room where they are shown as Stone and told that this is golgatha when you enter the Church of the Holy supper a lot of people go up the Steep stairs up to an upper room and they’re told that’s where the crucifixion took place uh this is not where the crucifixion took place it’s actually the architecture of the church that marks the place of crucifixion and that as always is at the center of the commemorative apps on the east side of the upper room is a place for burning candles when looking over these candles you’re looking into the real place of crucifixion at the center of the church’s apps marked with a crucifix this is the crucifix that marks the place of crucifixion and this has been the same commemorated Place through the earlier churches that have been built and destroyed there uh what has stayed consistent is the the specific spot that is being commemorated as where Jesus was crucified has stayed the same the center of each apps of each church has stayed the same over the course of time so it comes down to the reality today that there’s two sites in Jerusalem that Christians believe are golgatha the site under the Church of the Holy supplier that we’ve been talking about and further to the north the site called skull Hill or Gordon’s Calvary so I want to talk just briefly about what is referred to as skull Hill which is the hill right next to the Garden tomb so in 18 1942 uh a guy named othus was the first to look at this hill north of the old city of Jerusalem and he saw a skull in the side of this hill and of course golgatha means the place of the skull then later on in 1883 the well-known British general named Charles Gordon uh adopted this interpretation and popularized it he also drew a skeleton over the rest of Jerusalem with the skull over this hill and so uh this became really a Protestant site uh known as golgatha and many Protestants evangelicals believe that this is golgatha today a common argument for skull Hill is to First dat that the New Testament declares that Jesus suffered outside the city then it is pointed out that skull Hill is located outside of Jerusalem’s current Old City wall while the Church of the Holy supper site is located ated inside these walls this is an illegitimate argument since we know that the Church of the Holy supper site was located outside of Jerusalem City wall at the time of Jesus since non avigad found the northern city wall in gate from this period in his excavations what is also telling is that to this day the oldest traditional site of golgatha has a church built over it this is where archaeologically we have one thing built on top of another over the course of thousands of years in contrast nothing at all has been built on top of skull Hill there’s no evidence there’s no archaeology of commemoration or desecration on top of skull Hill that could even be excavated in other words what that means is that nobody believed that this place was the place of Jesus’s Cru of fiction until 1842 it’s pretty straightforward the evidence for golgatha at the Church of the Holy supper is staggering it is got one stack of archaeology on top of another and from these different periods that have been found through excavations you have to remember that Christians have lived in Jerusalem from the time of Jesus and his crucifixion until today they are not going to forget and indeed they did not forget where Jesus their lord was sacrificed where he gave his life for the sins of humanity that was why it was a worship place that’s why hadrien chose it that’s why he was polluting it that’s why it was then uh again commemorated by Constantine and churches ever since it has never been forgotten down through the course of history because no sac place is known better with more historical and archaeological evidence than golgatha in 1975 east of the apps of the church excavations were carried out and a very important inscription was discovered that years ago uh I got permission along with a small group that I was with uh to be taken down and shown this very important archaeological Discovery in the next shot I’m standing here so behind this door here is where the boat inscription is an Armenian priest named Samuel took us through a wall built by Constantine and down into the area excavated in the 1970s now technically we are outside the church and this query extends all the way to goo we go deeper into the excavated Chambers where patches of wall and rubble from Hadrian destroyed Temple can be seen on one of the stones from this Rubble is the inscription flat ston is drawn or gra of a boat underneath it says do H we go the inscription likely dates to the late Roman period when hadrien statue of Venus stood on golgatha above this area and the boat probably represents the one used for travel by the early Christian Pilgrim who drew it this is an description I’ve wanted to see for seven years and finally got in permission this is the oldest Pilgrim Christian Pilgrim inscription that’s ever been found when exactly how early it dates to we’re not sure but a lot of scholars believe it dates to earlier than the church itself and what it says in ancient Latin is yes Lord we will go what could an early Christian leave in an inscription on the side of the base of golgatha with a ship that points away from golgatha that says yes Lord we will go uh Christianity is about coming it’s about coming to Christ it’s about coming to believe in him it’s about coming to the Cross to receive the Forgiveness of sins that he offers in the Salvation that he offers but after that Christianity is about going it’s about going into all the rest of the world to take the message of who Jesus is and what he accomplished for man kind at golgatha and so to have this on an inscription the earliest Christian Pilgrim inscription ever found to have this purpose of the church so clear yes Lord we will go that’s how we serve the Lord we go after coming to him we go and take his message to the the ends of the Earth how awesome how powerful how profound is that no sacred place is known better with more historical and archaeological evidence than golgatha it is a monument of evidence to the authenticity that this is the place where Jesus was crucified it is so encouraging to us if you’re willing to support the channel and hit that subscribe button also keep in mind that this uh information is also covered in chapter 8 of my book where God came down the archaeological evidence uh I’ll leave a link where you can order that keep in mind with the holidays coming up that it makes a good gift also to give to others I’ll also leave a link where you can leave a donation donations are so helpful and appreciated because we spend a lot more money on these videos than we bring in uh also you can watch another video right up here and thanks again for watching and I’ll see you next time