The first puzzle from Jerusalem

Jerusalem and Christianity

When I was in Jerusalem, I was challenged with two puzzles: The first one was about the location of the crucifixation and tomb.

Where was Jesus crucified and buried?

There are two main claimants:

the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the the main claimant 

and the less well known is the Garden Tomb

I read up on the respective histories and I visited both sites. My favourite location is the garden tomb. Here are my thoughts:

As explained in the Garden Tomb brochure

According to a local oral tradition the disused quarry was later used as a place of execution by stoning - Crucifixions were usually carried out by busy roads as a visual deterrent. The bible tells us that they took Jesus out of the city to the place of the skull. (Golgotha in Aramaic).

The nearby quarry used to have an area that looked like a skull (this has now disappeared, but here is a picture from 1930s.

There is also a tomb carved out of the rock (as indicated in the Bible - Matthew 27:60) and there are many other indications. 

However the main claimant is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which was established in the early 4th century, at the time of the Emperor Constantine (the one that was made Emperor in York) and changed the Roman empire's main region to Christianity (and whose mother was St Helen who had a vision of the cross and went to Jerusalem to find it). 

These two people had a big impact on the development of Christianity (eg the council of Nicea when the current Bible ie collection of books, was determined). 

Outside the City Walls

One important feature that puzzled me was the location of the Church as it close to the centre of Jerusalem, clearly inside the current city walls. The Via Dolorosa did not lead out of the city as expected but into it and of course ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

This could be explained by changes made overt the centuries to enlarge Jerusalem. There was a book in the book shop in the Garden Tomb (Jerusalem AD30 by ) which shows a map of the city. According to the work done by the authors, the 1st century walls could have been located much closer in and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would be just outside the walls.

There is also the mystery of the Holy Fire -

The Holy Fire (Greek Ἃγιον Φῶς, "Holy Light") is described by Orthodox Christians as a miraclethat occurs every year at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Great Saturday, or Holy Saturday, the day preceding Orthodox Easter.

 I read an amazing account of this fire in a book by that name by Skarlakidis, which i bought at Meteora monasteries in Greece and decided one day - one easter I would be in Jerusalem to see it.

Conclusion

So after visiting both places and reading up on both - and sensing into the puzzle, I conclude that we will never really know - and maybe it does not matter. As the Garden Tomb brochure says - "We cannot be sure exactly where the crucifixion took place, but the precise location is of less importance than the spiritual significance of what really happened."

However, my best guess is that Jesus achieved the rainbow body after he died on the cross and was buried somewhere in near Jerusalem - possibly the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Jesus then ascended into the 5th dimensional and was able to create a holographic projection into 3D reality. Jesus, in the form of a light body, appeared as the Gardner and then later to the apostles and others. In this form he travelled to Kashmir and de materialised the holographic projection there. With this understanding, there would be no relics to distract from the key teachings that Jesus gave - or do no harm and love your neighbour as yourself.