Was Christ crucified on a cross or a tree?

[patrick457]

Oh yeah, some crucifixion-related reading.

Ancient Jewish and Christian Perceptions of Crucifixion by David W. Chapman (2008). Chapman’s book is specifically about how Jews in antiquity perceived crucifixion and what they thought about it, and in addition, how early Christians rejected or incorporated these Jewish attitudes into theirs.

Crucifixion in Antiquity by Gunnar Samuelsson (2013; he also has a webpage about his book and thesis here). Samuelsson examines mainly classical (non-Christian) sources that seem to describe crucifixion and concludes that there was no ‘crucifixion’ as we understand it today in antiquity, but rather, a series of what he calls ‘suspension punishments’, all of which have a few things in common (such as hanging the condemned person onto something), but which in reality should really be considered separate forms of execution. Our understanding of ‘crucifixion’, he claims, is really influenced by the kind of ‘suspension punishment’ Jesus experienced: while up to now the tendency is to read Jesus’ execution into these other executions, what he proposes is that all of these events need to be considered independently of each other.

Crucifixion in the Ancient Mediterranean World (PDF) by John Granger Cook. Cook has also recently published a scholarly tome on the subject, Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World (2014). Cook specifically responds to what he sees as Samuelsson’s excessively minimalistic and skeptical conclusions: contra Samuelsson, Cook asserts that yes, there is such a specific thing as ‘crucifixion’ as we understand it in antiquity. An advantage Cook has over Samuelsson is that while the latter limited his scope to written sources predating the Christian period (Greek and Roman authors plus pre-Christian Jewish sources and the New Testament only), Cook also takes other, post-2nd/3rd century written sources plus early iconographic depictions of crucifixion (the same ones I posted earlier) into consideration in his study.

The Constanza Carnelian and the Development of Crucifixion Iconography in Late Antiquity by Felicity Harley-McGowan. The author examines the oldest known images depicting the crucifixion of Jesus, starting from carved gemstone amulets dating from the 2nd to the 4th centuries.

The Staurogram in Early Christian Manuscripts: The Earliest Visual Reference to the Crucified Jesus? (PDF) by Larry Hurtado. Hurtado examines the staurogram (tau-rho) symbol found in early Christian manuscripts as an abbreviation for the Greek words stauros (“cross”) or stauroō (“crucify”), and proposes that this symbol actually served as a visual depiction of the crucified Jesus.

I consciously didn’t include works that approach crucifixion from a medical perspective (like those of Drs. Pierre Barbet and Fred Zugibe). Reason being, virtually all of these medical approaches take the Shroud of Turin as their foundation. There’s of course the issue of whether the Shroud is authentic or not. I personally believe that yes, it’s authentic, but even if it is, that brings us to the other issue: the Shroud would really only tell us about how one particular individual who suffered crucifixion died. So all those extrapolations from the injuries visible on the Shroud is applicable only to this particular person, not necessarily on the other crucifixion victims.

IMHO it’s a bit unscientific to simply assume that everyone who suffered crucifixion experienced it in the exact same way the Man on the Shroud (= Jesus?) did, because there’s no fixed rules for a crucifixion: at best, the only part of the ritual that was common across most or all crucifixions is that you beat or whip the victim first before you hang him/her up the gibbet in some way. The shape of the gibbet might be more or less established (a T or t) but there are no specifics as to how you’ll put up the victim there.

Fun fact: strictly speaking, the Latin word crux only referred to the upright post, the stake. (This I think is really the source of the confusion.) The horizontal beam that is attached to the crux is called the patibulum, the ‘yoke’.

Both terms - crux and patibulum - can sometimes be used to refer to the device as a whole, but in classical Roman sources, you also see a distinction in particular cases, say when describing what the condemned person bears: what the condemned carries is a patibulum, not a crux. We have no classical source that describe the carrying of a crux; they all speak of the patibulum being carried, the person bearing said beam towards the crux.

Just correcting myself: the Latin word crux does not only refer to the upright post, the stake. It can be and is sometimes applied to the upright pole specifically, but as noted in the next paragraph, it can also be applied to the assembled device as a whole (a horizontal patibulum hoisted onto a vertical crux). But then again, so is the word patibulum.

 

[Novocastrian]

The only reason why we now speak of ‘carrying the cross’ is really because how the New Testament was translated into Latin. Jesus in the New Testament is described as both carrying a stauros and then also being hung from a stauros. Unlike in Latin texts, in Greek sources the single word stauros serves as a stand-in for both patibulum and crux. So in New Testament Greek, what is called a stauros means both what a Roman author would have specifically called a patibulum, and the modern meaning of the word ‘cross’ (patibulum + crux).

I was going to post something similar to this; here’s what looks likely to me:

The one thing we can be confident about is that the crucifixion involved an upright stake or pole. Whatever else we conjecture, that’s the root concept behind the noun σταυρός and the verb σταυρὀω. The former can be used to refer to, e.g., the posts of a fence at Od. 14.11; or the upright stakes on which a corpse can be impaled, e.g. Plutarch Artaxerxes, 17. The latter is used to describe the installation of piles in a harbour, in order to prevent enemy ships carrying out an amphibious assault, at Thuc. 7.25. The non-negotiable basic meaning of the NT’s crucifixion-language seems to be that of the upright stake.

Beyond this, with regard to shape, Lucian Iudicium Vocalium 12 indulges in a little false (? - I presume!) etymology to suggest that the σταυρός on which men die gets its name from the letter Tau. This suggest that a 90-150 years after Christ’s death the standard Roman cross was roughly T-shaped, backing up the idea that unless stated otherwise, a crux used to crucify probably had a patibulum.

What I can’t find, on a cursory search, is whether we know of extra-Biblical instances in Greek where σταυρός is used specifically for patibulum.

 

[patrick457]

I was going to post something similar to this; here’s what looks likely to me:

The one thing we can be confident about is that the crucifixion involved an upright stake or pole. Whatever else we conjecture, that’s the root concept behind the noun σταυρός and the verb σταυρὀω. The former can be used to refer to, e.g., the posts of a fence at Od. 14.11; or the upright stakes on which a corpse can be impaled, e.g. Plutarch Artaxerxes, 17. The latter is used to describe the installation of piles in a harbour, in order to prevent enemy ships carrying out an amphibious assault, at Thuc. 7.25. The non-negotiable basic meaning of the NT’s crucifixion-language seems to be that of the upright stake.

Beyond this, with regard to shape, Lucian Iudicium Vocalium 12 indulges in a little false (? - I presume!) etymology to suggest that the σταυρός on which men die gets its name from the letter Tau. This suggest that a 90-150 years after Christ’s death the standard Roman cross was roughly T-shaped, backing up the idea that unless stated otherwise, a crux used to crucify probably had a patibulum.

You bring up a very good point there.

You’re right, the basic meaning of crux or stauros is essentially an upright pole or post. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, to their credit, get this right. Where they are wrong IMHO, however, is their belief that crux / stauros can only mean ‘pole’ or ‘beam’, to the exclusion of an upright post with a patibulum attached to it, what we often think of nowadays when we say ‘cross’.

What I can’t find, on a cursory search, is whether we know of extra-Biblical instances in Greek where σταυρός is used specifically for patibulum.

There’s this snippet from the late 4th century author Macrobius where he seems to understand patibulum as the equivalent of stauros (pp. 24-25 in Granger’s book).

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

I also heard that since the Romans didn’t have enough lumber for the vertical beam, they used tree trunks and then attached the patibulum to the tree trunk.

 

[patrick457]

Beyond this, with regard to shape, Lucian Iudicium Vocalium 12 indulges in a little false (? - I presume!) etymology to suggest that the σταυρός on which men die gets its name from the letter Tau. This suggest that a 90-150 years after Christ’s death the standard Roman cross was roughly T-shaped, backing up the idea that unless stated otherwise, a crux used to crucify probably had a patibulum.

I’m replying to your post again.

Earlier than Lucian, you also have the Epistle of Barnabas, which dates from the late 1st-early 2nd century (approx. 50-90 years after Jesus’ death) - just roughly around the same time period as the gospel of John - where the cross of Jesus is likened to a T via analogy with the 318 men from Abra(ha)m’s household (Genesis 14:14). In Greek numerals, 318 would be TIH: the author of Barnabas sees Jesus (IHCOYC) in the IH, and the cross in the T. By the time Justin Martyr wrote in the 2nd century, Christians were seeing visual allusions to Jesus’ cross in practically anything that even remotely resembled a T or †.

At one point, Justin even appropriates a quote from Plato’s Timaeus that speaks of ‘crosswise’ and applies it to Jesus.

And the physiological discussion concerning the Son of God in the Timaeus of Plato, where he says, “He placed him crosswise in the universe,” he borrowed in like manner from Moses; for in the writings of Moses it is related how at that time, when the Israelites went out of Egypt and were in the wilderness, they fell in with poisonous beasts, both vipers and asps, and every kind of serpent, which slew the people; and that Moses, by the inspiration and influence of God, took brass, and made it into the figure of a cross, and set it in the holy tabernacle, and said to the people, “If ye look to this figure, and believe, ye shall be saved thereby.” And when this was done, it is recorded that the serpents died, and it is handed down that the people thus escaped death. Which things Plato reading, and not accurately understanding, and not apprehending that it was the figure of the cross, but taking it to be a placing crosswise, he said that the power next to the first God was placed crosswise in the universe.

As an aside, this quote from Justin is actually yet another argument against Simcha Jacobovici’s theory of Roman crosses being X or asterisk-shaped.

The Greek verb for ‘crosswise’ (echiasen) in Plato suggests an X shape, but Justin, who claims that Plato derived the idea from a misunderstanding of the story of Moses and the brass serpent, argues that Plato misunderstood the object Moses made as being in the shape of an X, when in fact it was “the figure of the cross” (stauros).

This suggests that for Justin, a stauros - a ‘cross’ - is clearly not X-shaped. Which flies against Jacobovici’s claim that early Christians saw the X as a symbol of Jesus’ cross, with the T/† only being mistaken for a cross after the 4th century.

I also heard that since the Romans didn’t have enough lumber for the vertical beam, they used tree trunks and then attached the patibulum to the tree trunk.

We can’t be 100% sure of course, but that’s a possibility.

 

[dilleachta]

All in all, these depictions have a number of things in common:

• At least four of them clearly depict a T-or-t shaped cross
• The subject is naked
• A sort of ‘seat’ or ledge is attached midway through the vertical post; three of them depict the crucified as sitting on this ledge
• The feet are not nailed together (as in traditional, post-medieval Western crucifixes), but either nailed separately or not nailed at all

In addition to these depictions, you have the so-called staurogram, a symbol composed by the Greek letter tau (Τ) superimposed on the letter rho (Ρ), used by the early Christians to abbreviate the Greek word stauros (“cross”) or stauroō (“crucify”): it is used in this way in very early New Testament manuscripts such as Papyrus 66 (ca. early 3rd century), Papyrus 75 (ca. AD 175-225) and Papyrus 45 (ca. mid-3rd century)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...5px-Coa_Illustration_Cross_Staurogram.svg.png

A scholar named Larry Hurtado has recently argued that the staurogram could actually be the earliest extant Christian depictions of the crucified Jesus (the T = the cross; the loop on the P = the head of the crucified). It is now a sort of given to assume that Christians did not visually portray Jesus on the cross until the 4th-5th century, with some even drawing conclusions from this apparent absence. (The Alexamenos graffito doesn’t count as it was made by a non-Christian who is mocking Christians.) Hurtado however says that no, the early Christians did in a way depict Jesus crucified in the form of the staurogram.

It is these precisely these key pieces of evidence that Simcha Jacobovici ignored in his documentary.

https://imgur.com/BSV8K3O

AWESOME!!! Thank you so much for your posts on this thread, Patrick!! Exactly what I was hoping for and very fascinating information.

 

[patrick457]

AWESOME!!! Thank you so much for your posts on this thread, Patrick!! Exactly what I was hoping for and very fascinating information.

You’re welcome!

Just as Novocastrian said, the basic meaning of crux or stauros is ‘stake’ or ‘pole’ or ‘post’; the JWs at least get that part right. Where they are mistaken is their assumption that crux / stauros can only mean a plain upright post, when we have more than enough evidence that they were also used to denote a vertical stake with a horizontal beam attached to it - what we think of when we say ‘cross’.

In fact, this assumption of theirs flies in the face of ancient sources that speak of Roman cruces / stauroi being T or †-shaped.

BTW, to answer your OP: yes, at least four passages in the NT (one in 1 Peter, the rest in Acts) do speak of Jesus being hung on a ‘tree’ (xylon). Some people then wonder: does this mean Jesus was literally hung from an actual tree?

However IMHO the passage need not be taken too literally, especially considering the context in which these uses appear. The word “tree” here is highly likely to be a reference to Deuteronomy 21: “And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.” (St. Paul in Galatians 3:13-14 explicitly connects the passage to Jesus: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree’ …”)

In other words, the word ‘tree’ was used because Peter and Paul were speaking ‘biblically’. They were alluding to the Deuteronomy passage (which speaks of the hanged man being cursed) in order to highlight to his audience that no, Jesus was not cursed by God at all; on the contrary, God vindicated and rewarded Him. Note that when Jesus is spoken of as being hung from a ‘tree’ it is immediately followed with a note of God raising Jesus from the dead and giving Him a position of authority.

“The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

“He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.”

“For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him. And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.”

The same pretty much goes for the 1 Peter (2:22-25) passage. At that point, the author is in full ‘scripturalizing’ mode, making allusions to OT passages like Isaiah 53 every other sentence.

In its original context, the Deuteronomy passage is describing the hanging of a man stoned to death - in other words, the man’s dead body is hung from a tree after he is stoned. But during the time of Jesus, this passage in Deuteronomy was being reinterpreted in the context of Roman crucifixion - where the condemned is hung from a ‘tree’ in order to kill him.

It was usual for crucifixion victims to not be buried; their rotting corpses were left hanging on the cross. But there are cases when permission was granted for the bodies to be taken down. In Palestine, among the Jews, burial was actually the rule rather than the exception, because of this injunction in Deuteronomy. (At least, that’s what the Jewish historian Josephus once claimed: “the Jews used to take so much care of the burial of men, that they took down those that were condemned and crucified, and buried them before the going down of the sun.” Just like Deuteronomy says.)

Since the idea was that any corpse left unburied will defile the land that the Lord had given them, the Jews in Palestine were very careful to ensure that the dead were interred.

 

[Bruce_Killian]

Jesus was crucified on a cross with an upright beam, a cross beam and a beam going up from the cross beam and the Bible when understood confirms this. First in Hebrew and therefore likely in Aramaic the word for tree and beam, is the same word `ets. This word appears more that 300 times in the Old Testament, but the word is more general even than this. This word is used for the tree of life in Gen 3:3, the wood Isaac was bound on Gen 22:6; wood water vessels Ex 7:19, the stick Moses through in the water to make it sweet Ex 15:25; the wood of the ark of the covenant Ex 25:10; Timber Ex 31:5; The vine is a tree Jud 9:12; the bramble is a tree Jud 9:15; Goliath’s spear 1Sam 17:7; an oxen’s yoke 2Sam 24:22; the sticks the widow of Zaraphath collected for fire wood 1Ki17:10; etc.

Because Jesus was the Passover Lamb 1Co 5:7-8 and the blood of the passover needed to be put on the two door posts and the lintel Ex 12:7. So the upright and cross bean of Jesus’ cross were the doorposts and the beam going up from His head was the lintel of that door.

Jesus the door was attached to the doorway which was His cross, a three branched tree.
Grace and peace,
Bruce

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

Jesus was crucified on a cross with an upright beam, a cross beam and a beam going up from the cross beam and the Bible when understood confirms this. First in Hebrew and therefore likely in Aramaic the word for tree and beam, is the same word `ets. This word appears more that 300 times in the Old Testament, but the word is more general even than this. This word is used for the tree of life in Gen 3:3, the wood Isaac was bound on Gen 22:6; wood water vessels Ex 7:19, the stick Moses through in the water to make it sweet Ex 15:25; the wood of the ark of the covenant Ex 25:10; Timber Ex 31:5; The vine is a tree Jud 9:12; the bramble is a tree Jud 9:15; Goliath’s spear 1Sam 17:7; an oxen’s yoke 2Sam 24:22; the sticks the widow of Zaraphath collected for fire wood 1Ki17:10; etc.

Because Jesus was the Passover Lamb 1Co 5:7-8 and the blood of the passover needed to be put on the two door posts and the lintel Ex 12:7. So the upright and cross bean of Jesus’ cross were the doorposts and the beam going up from His head was the lintel of that door.

Jesus the door was attached to the doorway which was His cross, a three branched tree.
Grace and peace,
Bruce

You know if they had attached the sign to the cross it would still end up like t.

 

[Bruce_Killian]

The crosses of the two thieves had only two branches, so a possibility, but Jesus’ cross had three branches.
Jesus came to fulfill the Scriptures (Matt 5:17) and God gave dreams and their interpretation (gen 40:8). In Gen 40 cupbearer=wine; baker=wheat; cupbearer saw a three branched vine (a tree Jud 9:12), the three branches mean in three days raised to life; Jesus was raised to life on the third day so there were three branches on His cross. The baker had three baskets on his head=in three days he would be lifted up; hanged on a cross and die; the basket was Jesus’ crown of thorns (plaited John 19:2) but only one basket; one basket meant Jesus died on the first day. Their faces were cast down, Jesus bowed His head as He died. Jesus the Bread of Life was the bread in the basket and the wine was Jesus Blood. He was the Fruit on the Tree of Life. The tree/cross Jesus was lifted up upon and died on had three branches.
What material and color was the sign above Jesus and what did that fulfill?
How was the cross held up and how can we know?
Grace and peace,
Bruce

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

The crosses of the two thieves had only two branches, so a possibility, but Jesus’ cross had three branches.
Jesus came to fulfill the Scriptures (Matt 5:17) and God gave dreams and their interpretation (gen 40:8). In Gen 40 cupbearer=wine; baker=wheat; cupbearer saw a three branched vine (a tree Jud 9:12), the three branches mean in three days raised to life; Jesus was raised to life on the third day so there were three branches on His cross. The baker had three baskets on his head=in three days he would be lifted up; hanged on a cross and die; the basket was Jesus’ crown of thorns (plaited John 19:2) but only one basket; one basket meant Jesus died on the first day. Their faces were cast down, Jesus bowed His head as He died. Jesus the Bread of Life was the bread in the basket and the wine was Jesus Blood. He was the Fruit on the Tree of Life. The tree/cross Jesus was lifted up upon and died on had three branches.
What material and color was the sign above Jesus and what did that fulfill?
How was the cross held up and how can we know?
Grace and peace,
Bruce

This is the problem of reading too much into the text.

 

[adawgj]

I could have sworn when I was reading Tacitus that he mentioned Jesus being crucified from cross. I could be wrong though.

 

[Bruce_Killian]

This is the problem of reading too much into the text.

When God is the author a lot can be read into the text and He rose on the third day
“according to the Scriptures” Nicene Creed and 1Co 15:1-3; There are at least 70 places in the Old Testament Scriptures pointing to Jesus raising from the dead on the third day, but by shadow, not even one by direct statement. Paul says this is of first importance, so I would hesitate to say God did not give more detail in the text than you think is likely or reasonable.
Grace and peace,
Bruce

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

When God is the author a lot can be read into the text and He rose on the third day
“according to the Scriptures” Nicene Creed and 1Co 15:1-3; There are at least 70 places in the Old Testament Scriptures pointing to Jesus raising from the dead on the third day, but by shadow, not even one by direct statement. Paul says this is of first importance, so I would hesitate to say God did not give more detail in the text than you think is likely or reasonable.
Grace and peace,
Bruce

Well for starters if He wanted to write what type of cross His Son would be crucified on, well then, He certainly would have. As of now, we should be focusing on the why.

 

[patrick457]

We don’t know for sure. We do know via research that it may not have been a cross and some historians say more likely it was not.

But I’m curious to ask those who oppose this possibility so vehemently…what does it matter? Is his message so changed or weakened if he was killed on an “x” or a “T” rather than a “t”?

.

No. What shape Roman crosses were is itself not important.

But when you have people who argue - despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary - that “no, traditional Christians have got it all wrong, crosses were actually shaped like this, that T/t sign is a later pagan innovation” (emphasis on that last clause) then you’ve just gotta answer.

 

[hadulzo]

It would not make much difference to the person being crucified however consider that it is a pretty arid climate an he was crucified on a rocky hill. Then consider how many people the Romans crucified. There would have to be a lot of trees,in an arid area…think about it.
JH’s biggest concern should be why their leaders keep getting the end times wrong.

 

[patrick457]

It would not make much difference to the person being crucified however consider that it is a pretty arid climate an he was crucified on a rocky hill. Then consider how many people the Romans crucified. There would have to be a lot of trees,in an arid area…think about it.
JH’s biggest concern should be why their leaders keep getting the end times wrong.

Jerusalem’s not ‘arid’ as in desert-like AFAIK. (It’s totally unlike the ‘Jerusalem’ you see in movies, which are portrayed by cities in Morocco such as Ouarzazate, that are so brown they look like they’re smack-dab in the middle of the desert. The real Jerusalem’s much greener.) It’s in the hill regions, meaning drier, cooler weather (mediterranean climate); especially in spring, the weather seems to actually be on the pleasant side there.

And technically, the Rock of Calvary is not a mountain. It’s not even a hill. More like a steep, tall column of rock. That’s why some people now think it unlikely that Jesus was literally crucified on top of it; it’s too steep to climb and too narrow for three crosses (especially if you add in the execution squad).

We often now consider the Rock of Calvary to be the Golgotha, but originally, ‘Golgotha’ referred to the whole region - both where the place where Jesus was crucified and where His tomb was located is. It is used in that sense in the gospels.

The traditional site (where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands) was actually not so much a ‘mountain’ or a ‘hill’ itself as it was located on the slope of a hill - likely the hill of Gareb (hill of lepers?) mentioned in Jeremiah 31:38. The region was originally a limestone quarry that was slowly abandoned just before the time of Jesus as good quality rock ran out. (The Rock of Calvary seems to have been a leftover of the quarrying; it was not hewn out because the rock was poor.) When quarrying stopped, people converted the area for other uses: they began to cultivate gardens, groves and orchards in the area, as well as build tombs on the rock face (John 19:41 “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden …”).

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/image.axd?picture=2010%2F1%2FFigure5Visualization.jpg

In other words, at the time of Jesus, Golgotha would have been a ‘green’ cemetery of sorts: quite a lot of farming and cultivating happening there, tombs dotting the landscape. Maybe something that’s not too different from Gethsemane. So yeah, there would have been quite a number of trees there.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

Jerusalem’s not ‘arid’ as in desert-like AFAIK. (It’s totally unlike the ‘Jerusalem’ you see in movies, which are portrayed by cities in Morocco such as Ouarzazate, that are so brown they look like they’re smack-dab in the middle of the desert. The real Jerusalem’s much greener.) It’s in the hill regions, meaning drier, cooler weather (mediterranean climate); especially in spring, the weather seems to actually be on the pleasant side there.

And technically, the Rock of Calvary is not a mountain. It’s not even a hill. More like a steep, tall column of rock. That’s why some people now think it unlikely that Jesus was literally crucified on top of it; it’s too steep to climb and too narrow for three crosses (especially if you add in the execution squad).

We often now consider the Rock of Calvary to be the Golgotha, but originally, ‘Golgotha’ referred to the whole region - both where the place where Jesus was crucified and where His tomb was located is. It is used in that sense in the gospels.

The traditional site (where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre now stands) was actually not so much a ‘mountain’ or a ‘hill’ itself as it was located on the slope of a hill - likely the hill of Gareb (hill of lepers?) mentioned in Jeremiah 31:38. The region was originally a limestone quarry that was slowly abandoned just before the time of Jesus as good quality rock ran out. (The Rock of Calvary seems to have been a leftover of the quarrying; it was not hewn out because the rock was poor.) When quarrying stopped, people converted the area for other uses: they began to cultivate gardens, groves and orchards in the area, as well as build tombs on the rock face (John 19:41 “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden …”).

Home - Associates for Biblical Research

In other words, at the time of Jesus, Golgotha would have been a ‘green’ cemetery of sorts: quite a lot of farming and cultivating happening there, tombs dotting the landscape. Maybe something that’s not too different from Gethsemane. So yeah, there would have been quite a number of trees there.

This is why people like me think the actual crucifixion site was near the Garden Tomb.

 

[patrick457]

This is why people like me think the actual crucifixion site was near the Garden Tomb.

The problem with the Gordon’s Calvary-Garden Tomb site is: both of them were virtually unknown before the 19th century. The only reason why people brought it up was because the area did look like a bit like a skull during the 19th century. However, the question is: did it also look like that during the 1st century? (Just last year, Gordon’s Calvary was affected by a storm, which resulted in the skull’s ‘nose’ collapsing. The fact that it happened should give one pause: who’s to say that erosion had coincidentally just transformed the site into something that resembled a skull, and it actually looked much different - if the site was already in existence - during the 1st century?)

And frankly, Gen. Charles Gordon - the most famous proponent of the site and the guy who gave his name to it - seemed to be too reliant on his emotions and personal (rather quirky) interpretations of Scripture when he declared that the place must be the biblical Golgotha: Gordon’s Calvary is the correct site because it felt like it to him, because he wasn’t ‘touched’ enough by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

As for the Garden Tomb, it is in reality an Iron Age (8th-7th century BC) Israelite tomb (thus, way before the time of Jesus), that was reused both during the Byzantine era (as a burial place) and the Middle Ages (by the Crusaders, as a stable). Back then, the place is associated, not so much with the tomb of Jesus, but with the nearby church of St. Stephen.

I go into detail about all that on this thread.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

The problem with the Gordon’s Calvary-Garden Tomb site is: both of them were virtually unknown before the 19th century. The only reason why people brought it up was because the area did look like a bit like a skull during the 19th century. However, the question is: did it also look like that during the 1st century? (Just last year, Gordon’s Calvary was affected by a storm, which resulted in the skull’s ‘nose’ collapsing. The fact that it happened should give one pause: who’s to say that erosion had coincidentally just transformed the site into something that resembled a skull, and it actually looked much different - if the site was already in existence - during the 1st century?)

And frankly, Gen. Charles Gordon - the most famous proponent of the site and the guy who gave his name to it - seemed to be too reliant on his emotions and personal (rather quirky) interpretations of Scripture when he declared that the place must be the biblical Golgotha: Gordon’s Calvary is the correct site because it felt like it to him, because he wasn’t ‘touched’ enough by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

As for the Garden Tomb, it is in reality an Iron Age (8th-7th century BC) Israelite tomb (thus, way before the time of Jesus), that was reused both during the Byzantine era (as a burial place) and the Middle Ages (by the Crusaders, as a stable). Back then, the place is associated, not so much with the tomb of Jesus, but with the nearby church of St. Stephen.

I go into detail about all that on this thread.

Well as you stated earlier, the traditional site is pretty steep.