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The Search for a Protestant Holy Sepulchre: The Garden Tomb in Nineteenth-Century Jerusalem

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Sarah Kochav
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Extract

Certainly since the time of the Emperor Constantine there had been little doubt in the Christian world that Christ was crucified, buried and rose from the dead on the site later occupied by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Eusebius described the discovery of the tomb beneath the site of the Roman temple to Venus and the construction of the church, dedicated in 335. Constantine's church underwent numerous changes and rebuilding, through invasions, occupations, earthquakes and the disastrous fire of 1808, which caused extensive damage. But at no time did anyone seriously dispute the convictions of the competing Christian factions – Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Georgians, Copts and Ethiopians – who had chapels, or at least a recognised foothold, within that sacred precinct. While earlier travel accounts, such as those of Willibald (AD 724) and John Mandeville (1322), had recognised that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was located well within the walls of Jerusalem, it was generally accepted that this was because the city had expanded and surrounded the site, and that new perimeter walls enclosed the place of the crucifixion and the tomb which according to the biblical texts had to lie ‘without’ the city walls.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , April 1995 , pp. 278 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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76 A wealthy spinster, Louisa Hope, was the major contributor of funds to the scheme. Other supporters were: E. W. Benson, later archbishop of Canterbury; Randall Davidson, bishop of Rochester and later archbishop of Canterbury; Brooke Foss Westcott, bishop of Durham; E. Carr Glynn, bishop of Peterborough; Handley Moule, a leader in the evangelical party in the Church of England and later bishop of Durham; the bishops of Ripon, Salisbury, and Newcastle in Australia. Other prominent figures included the naturalist and explorer, Canon Henry Baker Tristram, Revd Preb. Webb-Peploe, Stuart A. Donaldson, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge and Canons Appleton, Hobson, Lowe and Phillips. The original trustees of the Garden Tomb Fund were the duke of Argyll, the marquis of Northampton, the earl of Aberdeen, the Revd C. T. Wilson of the Church Missionary Society and Miss Louisa Hope.

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80 Ibid.

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114 Gavron, D., ‘Life on the seam’, Jerusalem Post Magazine, 2 06 1989, 4–5Google Scholar. A more recent defence of the site is in McBirnie, W. S., The search for the authentic tomb of Jesus, Montrose, Ca. 1975Google Scholar.