The Tomb Under the Temple

According to one account, in the early fourth century Macarius, Bishop of Jerusalem, asked Emperor Constantine for permission to dig for a tomb.

Scripture: Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb in which no man had ever yet been laid.

Just before this verse, Joseph of Arimathaea asks Pilate for the body, and Nicodemus brings spices. John then places the tomb near the crucifixion site.

Jerusalem lay in ruins after AD 70. Around 135, Emperor Hadrian had a cave holding a rock-cut tomb, a burial chamber carved into stone, filled in, and a temple of Aphrodite was built over it.

The temple stood into the early fourth century. Later writers give differing accounts of a dream or a cross vision before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312. According to one account, Macarius later asked him to dig.

According to historical accounts, Emperor Constantine found the tomb about 325 to 326, after the temple was torn down. By one account, the excavators found a cave with several tombs and designated one as Jesus' burial place.

Consecrated on 13 September 335, the church had a round hall, the Anastasis, Greek for resurrection, over the tomb, and a great basilica beside it.

Testing of mortar between the old limestone tomb and a later marble slab dates it to about 335–345 AD, which researchers link to Constantine's era. It dates the shrine, not the burial.

Wikipedia says scholars note two or three independent burial accounts and that many archaeologists see this as the likely site, though others question it. The source counts at least seven matches in everyday details with John's Gospel.

Still, the link is indirect. The identification is a fourth-century tradition, about three centuries after the burial, and the story of three crosses found at the site is legend too.

Destroyed in 1009 and rebuilt by 1048, the church today stands in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City, the tomb inside a 19th-century shrine called the Aedicule.

When you stand somewhere people have prayed for centuries, what do you notice first? Follow this page for more discoveries. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today.