Finding Jesus
The rediscovery of the tomb of Jesus Christ in 326 keeps non-believers mystified even today.
The New Testament and Christian tradition tell us that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans in the year 30 or 33, some 20 centuries ago. According to the Gospel of Luke, his body was put in a tomb that was guarded by a Roman soldier. Jesus was then resurrected and ascended to heaven. What has intrigued the Christians ever since is the question of exactly where Christ’s tomb is located.
We know that he was crucified and entombed in Jerusalem, and it has been believed for centuries that his tomb is inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This crypt lies beneath a shrine called the Edicule, a term derived from a Latin word, aedicule, meaning little house. According to tradition the tomb was a limestone cave.
Within the crypt, it’s said that Jesus was laid on a shelf of rock carved from the side of the cave. This belief in the precise location of the tomb of Jesus actually dates back to the 2nd century. It was then that the Emperor Hadrian constructed a temple in honor of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, to conceal the place where the troublesome Jesus had apparently been entombed. The covering-up of Jesus Christ’s existence began then and still continues today where disbelievers try in earnest to cloud his presence.
Roman emperor, Constantine the Great, in either 325 or 326 made an epic rediscovery with the help of his mother. He was the first emperor to follow the Christian faith and consequently commanded that the pagan temple built in the honor of Venus be demolished. Constantine then had a Christian church built in its place — what we now call the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. And as the new church was being constructed, it’s said that Constantine’s mother, Helena, found Christ’s tomb. Devine intervention no doubt. Without Constantine’s Mother, the tomb may have never been discovered. However, the power of Jesus Christ would have prevailed eventually.
The church that now stands in Jerusalem is not the same one that Constantine built. It’s on the same site, but the original church was destroyed in 614 when Khosrau II, Emperor of the Sassanids, captured Jerusalem and put the church to the torch.
In 630 yet another Roman emperor, Heraclius, recaptured Jerusalem and restored the church, only for it to be badly damaged once more by earthquakes in 746 and again at the start of the 9th century. A number of fires then further damaged the church in the ensuing decades.
These years of destruction came to a head in 1009 when the grandly named Muslim caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, demolished the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Then in a welcome example of religious tolerance, Al-Hakim’s son, Caliph Ali az-Zahir, permitted the reconstruction of the church.
In spite of the best efforts of the Byzantine Empire, the rebuilding of the church progressed slowly, and little had been achieved by the end of the 11th century. Christians who made the pilgrimage to Christ’s tomb found that parts of the holy site were little more than piles of rubble. Then came the Crusades.
The First Crusade reached Jerusalem in 1099. It was followed by seven more Christian invasions stretching almost to the end of the 13th century. And during this period, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was extensively restored, becoming the seat of Jerusalem’s Christian Patriarch.
After these rebuilding efforts, however, there followed decades of neglect. These lasted until 1555, when Franciscan monks carried out further reconstruction work. But another fire badly damaged the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1808. As a result, the Edicule and the Rotunda that sits above it were rebuilt over the next two years, with the Rotunda again reconstructed in 1870.
In fact, the 1555 restoration was a key moment for what is thought to be the actual tomb of Jesus, set within the Edicule at the heart of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Some researchers believe that the marble cladding located there may have been installed earlier; in any case, Christ’s tomb has not been seen by anyone since at least 1555.
Throughout the 20th century, there was continued restoration work. And the question that was now being asked was: just how far back could any of this battered structure be dependably dated? In other words, what were the earliest surviving remnants of this most holy of Christian sites? Perhaps most crucially, how old was the purported tomb of Jesus?
Until recently, the oldest archaeological dating that had been confirmed within the church went back no more than 1,000 years. These sections originated during the 11th- and 12th-century rebuilding work done by the Crusaders, after the Caliph Al-Hakim had destroyed the previous church in 1009.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is today controlled by six different strands of the Christian faith. As a result, it can require a considerable amount of diplomacy to get any decisions made about the maintenance and archaeological exploration of the church. But in 2015 the groups agreed to allow researchers from the National Technical University of Athens to undertake a thorough study and renovation of the Edicule, along with the tomb within it.
The Edicule has been in a somewhat perilous state since it was damaged in a 1927 earthquake. In fact, the British authorities that still controlled Jerusalem in 1947 were so worried by the condition of the Edicule that they stabilized it with essential but distinctly unattractive scaffolding. The current restoration work has included the removal of this scaffolding.
A group of 50 National Technical University of Athens experts were tasked with the hugely important job of restoring the Edicule. The project was led by chief scientific supervisor Professor Antonia Moropoulou — an eminent academic with a huge amount of hands-on experience of complex restoration projects. She and her team arrived in Jerusalem in the summer of 2016, and the specialists soon got to work.
The restoration team’s first task was to take away the ugly metal supports. This scaffolding — which rose to 30 feet high — had been installed in the late 1940s in order to stabilize the Edicule. And Moropoulou seemed jubilant after the arrangement had been removed, telling NPR in 2017, “This monument today is free. It is emancipated from the iron grids.”
Moropoulou had been more solemn in tone before this moment, though. Speaking to NBC News in June 2016, she explained,
“We have very difficult and challenging work here. We discovered by nondestructive techniques that there are cracks on the holy rock that surrounds the tomb.”
These fissures were the result of the pressure that had been exerted over the years by the stone columns supporting the dome above the Edicule. But Moropoulou’s team had to do more than just stabilize the rock on which the Edicule rests. You see, it emerged that they also had a massive cleaning task on their hands. Over many years, the candles that had been lit by pilgrims visiting Christ’s tomb had coated the Edicule and its surroundings. And this grime, which also included bird dung, needed to be carefully cleared away.
- Fissures (plural noun)a long, narrow opening or line of breakage made by cracking or splitting, especially in rock or earth.
“The monument was surrounded by scaffolding that made it very difficult to really appreciate,” Burnham continued.
“And the scaffolding was often used by the worshippers to place candles, so the entire outside of the building was covered with black soot and you couldn’t really see the color.”
However, cleaning the marble slabs of the Edicule’s façade was a delicate procedure. The restorers utilized cotton swabs to painstakingly clear away the disfiguring layers of dirt, with each sheet then carefully returned to its original position after having been spruced up. And after the specialists had removed the pigeon dirt and the smoke and wax stains caused by the worshippers’ candles, the deep red color of the marble emerged for the first time in many years. Then, when the stone slabs that had surrounded the Edicule had been removed, the restorers were able to reinforce the structure’s heart before replacing them.
The highly dramatic moment in the restoration project came on October 26, 2016. On that day, the researchers and technicians were now ready to remove the marble slab that had covered Christ’s tomb since — at the latest — the 1555 restoration work done by Franciscan monks. Some experts maintain that the cladding (coating) may have already been in place for hundreds of years before that.
As this crucial point in the restoration process approached, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was closed to worshippers. Inside the church, meanwhile, the Edicule was surrounded by the restorers as well as representatives of the Copts, the Greek Orthodox Church and the Franciscans — all of whom were there to witness the exposure of Christ’s grave.
In the lead-up to the event, Moropoulou emphasized its significance, saying,
“We are at the critical moment for rehabilitating the Edicule. The techniques we’re using to document this unique monument will enable the world to study our findings as if they themselves were in the tomb of Christ.”
BEHIND DOOR #1
The marble slab had been removed from the tomb, however, there was a surprise in store. You see, the researchers had expected to find what is called the burial bed — or where Christ’s body may have rested before he was resurrected. And while this feature would have appeared as a shelf-like structure carved from the limestone rock, instead the onlookers merely found debris.
“The marble covering of the tomb has been pulled back, and we were surprised by the amount of fill material beneath it,” archaeologist Fredrik Hiebert told National Geographic in 2016. “It will be a long scientific analysis, but we will finally be able to see the original rock surface on which, according to tradition, the body of Christ was laid.”
The conservators worked to clear away this layer of material. Then, after some 60 hours of labor — and not long before the tomb was scheduled to be resealed — they came to a second marble block. This feature had been wrought from a white-hued version of the material, featured a carving of a cross and appeared to date to the time of the Crusaders.
There were even more surprises in store. Once the team had taken off that 14th-century layer, they saw that yet another slab of marble rested underneath. This third piece was a gray color, and its mortar fixing appeared to be from the 4th century. Notably, this was the era in which the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had been commissioned by the Roman Emperor Constantine. However, this slab proved to be the final one above the bedrock. And while speaking to National Geographic, Hiebert described his feelings when that last covering was removed.
“I’m absolutely amazed,” he said. “My knees are shaking a little bit because I wasn’t expecting this. We can’t say 100 percent, but it appears to be visible proof that the location of the tomb has not shifted through time — something that scientists and historians have wondered for decades.”
The researchers collected pieces of the mortar that had been used to fit the slab immediately above the rock. Then, after that, the material was sent for analysis. And there was a lot at stake, too. If the samples confirmed the age of the fitting of the last slab, that would go a long way to proving that this could indeed be Jesus’ tomb.
Finally, in November 2017, the results of the lab tests on the mortar came through. And, sensationally, these findings showed that the final slab had in all probability been laid down in the 4th century. Of this monumental discovery, archaeologist and expert on the tomb Martin Biddle told National Geographic,
“Obviously that date is spot-on for whatever Constantine did. That’s very remarkable.”
Beneath that last layer of marble, the experts were also delighted to find the limestone walls of the cave in which it is believed that Jesus was interred. And Moropoulou was in no doubt about the significance of this find. She told NBC News,
“The opening of the tomb was a unique moment not only for us, but for all humanity.”
THE DATING GAME
The dating of that mortar has completely changed what we understand about the age of the monument. Previous work in the area, you see, had only suggested that the tomb and its surroundings originated in or around 1400. So how sure can we be that this is truly the final resting place of Jesus Christ? Well, we do know that, in 325 A.D., a converted Emperor Constantine sent men to Jerusalem to search for Jesus’ burial site. And, apparently, the ruler was told that the grave lay beneath the pagan temple we heard about earlier — one that the Emperor Hadrian had built 200 years before.
It seems, though, that Hadrian had constructed the tomb — which was dedicated to the goddess Venus — with the express purpose of obscuring the grave of Jesus. And ancient historian Eusebius recorded that Constantine later ordered the demolition of the Roman temple, with this work then managing to reveal Jesus’ tomb. All of this seems to fit, too, with what was uncovered during the 2016 excavation of the grave.
Biddle also believes there may yet be further evidence that proves the authenticity of the tomb of Jesus. Specifically, he told National Geographic that there could be ancient graffiti on the stonework that may be of vital importance in confirming that Jesus was buried there. And he added,
“I don’t myself think Eusebius got it wrong — he was a very good scholar — so there probably is evidence if only it is looked for.”
In July 2019, archaeologists were meticulously excavating this ancient church in a bid to learn more about its mysterious past. And there, beneath a layer of ash, they discovered the most fascinating artifact of all. For 1,600 years, a colorful mosaic had been hidden from sight; now, however, its striking subject matter was about to be revealed.
Elsewhere, researchers uncovered more beautiful mosaics that had been preserved on the church floor — including one example that seemingly features a rendition of a pomegranate. Once a symbol of fertility, this fruit was apparently used by Christians to represent the resurrection and the concept of eternal life.
In another part of the church, meanwhile, archaeologists revealed depictions of etrogs — a type of citrus fruit that is used in Jewish traditions. The team’s painstaking work also uncovered sections of mosaic that were devoted to geometric designs as well as those featuring various animals. A number of exotic birds are illustrated on the unearthed mosaics, too, although it’s as yet unclear which species are represented.
JESUS WAS HERE
The mosaics that have been causing the biggest stir, however, are the ones that depict some very specific items. On the floor of the recess in the eastern wall, a pattern of colorful tiles takes the form of two fish, while others at another location feature a number of baskets — with each containing five loaves of bread.
To anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Bible, these items are instantly familiar. According to the Gospels, Jesus once performed a miracle that has become known as the “Feeding of the 5,000.” Apparently, after John the Baptist died, the son of God retreated to a remote spot. But when a large crowd followed Jesus there, the story goes, his disciples grew concerned that they had nothing to feed them.
As we know, Jesus is said to have told his disciples to bring him what food they had. And while this bounty ultimately turned out to be just two fish and five loaves of bread, Christ was nevertheless apparently able to feed the entire crowd of 5,000 men and many more women and children with these meager rations.
The connection between the story and the designs in the church is remarkable. According to experts,
“There are definitely five loaves — not three or six. Their colors may reflect different types of flour, wheat and barley. Then there is the pair of fish on the mosaic in the apse. The association that came to mind was the miracle of the loaves and the fish.”
In the Bible, the story explains that there was even food left over after the crowd had had their fill, leading Jesus’ disciples to subsequently collect a dozen baskets of the excess fish and loaves. And, interestingly, back at the Burnt Church researchers noted that the same number of receptacles are depicted on the mosaic floor.
The discovery was made in the “Burnt Church” in Hippos, an archaeological site on a mountain a mile east of the Sea of Galilee. The church was built around 1,500 years ago and destroyed by fire in the early 7th century AD.
Michael Eisenberg, a co-leader of the excavation, told CNN:
“As far as I know, this is the best view from a Byzantine church from one of the cities or settlements or villages around the Sea of Galilee.”
“It is obvious that the people praying there….of course recognized the geographic position of what they thought would be the real place of the feeding of the 5,000.”
Although cautious about the interpretation of the mosaic, Eisenberg added:
“It opens up a very healthy academic debate on where the miracle happened… I would suspect it happened at the furthest end of the territory of Hippos.”
Christian tradition holds that the miracle took place on the northwestern edge of the Sea of Galilee, where the Church of the Multiplication now stands in Tabgha. Hippos’ extensive territory was on the eastern side of the lake.
Eisenberg said he believes Jesus performed the miracle in the east, before he walked on water and crossed to the northwestern shore.
He noted that the Church of the Multiplication at Tabgha has a mosaic showing two fish but only four loaves of bread — a slightly different total from the one depicted in the Burnt Church mosaic, which corresponds exactly to the story told in the New Testament.
Although the mosaic in the Burnt Church is not of the finest quality, it was very well preserved, thanks to the fire that destroyed the building. The entire roof collapsed during the blaze, leaving a 12- to 16-inch blanket of ash over the mosaic that acted as a protective layer over the centuries.
Without the devotion to Christian faith of Constantine the Great, the preservation of Christ’s tomb may have taken a forgotten turn. The evidence of Jesus Christ’s existence takes on a human validation to all those who spend their lifetime trying to disprove. Catholic believers did not need the mosaic tiles to know that Jesus Christ was and still is real.
