Temple Mount – The Back of My Mind

Opening the Golden Gate

In the various Facebook Archaeological groups that I frequent, there are often discussions about the Eastern, or “Golden Gate”, on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Most tourists are probably introduced to the Mount by way of the overlook on the Mount of Olives. From that viewpoint, you get a wonderful, panoramic view of the eastern wall. The first three features of that wall that you notice are the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque on top and the grand gate in the wall—The Golden Gate. Oddly, it turns out that almost everybody is hugely impressed by the gate, but almost nobody comes away from Jerusalem understanding its history or its prophesied future.

Golden Gate, eastern wall of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem. ©Ron Thompson 2008

The mythology of the Golden Gate has several common features that I think are confusing to some people:

Some equate the Golden Gate with the Beautiful Gate of the Gospels.
It is said that Muslims sealed the gate and established the cemetery in front of it in order to prevent the Jewish Messiah from entering through it.
Many people believe that Jesus entered Jerusalem through this gate on the first Palm Sunday.
It is commonly believed that this is the “Eastern Gate” through which the Divine Presence left the Temple before the Exile
It is further believed that Jesus will one day triumphantly enter the Temple through this same Eastern Gate.

A brief overview of the Temple, past and future

By one way of thinking, there have been four Jewish Temples on Mt. Moriah, with two more coming in the future. Two of the historical Temples have simply been extensive upgrades due to declining physical condition, so they aren’t considered to be separate new Temples.

Although there are important variations in the construction from one Temple to the next, many important details are the same for all, because the specifications for those are either Biblical or were unalterably decided by the rabbis and codified in Jewish law.

The “First Temple”

Solomon’s original Temple complex, shown below, was ornate, but relatively small. The Temple itself was built on a small platform erected on the threshing floor purchased by King David from Araunah the Jebusite. Solomon built a large palace for himself adjacent to the Temple platform and connected to it by a stairway.

First Temple, and Palace of King Solomon, Jerusalem. ©Leen Ritmeyer

Over the following 400 years, both edifices crumbled from age. Various kings made repairs and upgrades. Hezekiah in particular, demolished much of what remained and built a new Temple on the site, much as Herod did in Second Temple days. Hezekiah’s Temple, shown in the next diagram, was built on a much larger platform, a square, 500 cubits (around 875′) on each side. As with all renditions of the Temple, the doors leading to the Temple porch and antechambers faced east towards the Mount of Olives. A separate eastern gate named, appropriately, the East Gate was set into the eastern retaining wall, near the northeast corner and recessed below the level of the platform.

First Temple as Rebuilt by King Hezekiah, Jerusalem. ©Leen Ritmeyer

The “Second Temple”

In 586 BC, Hezekiah’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonian army, and the 3rd and final deportation of Judeans into captivity began. The retaining walls were damaged, but not totally destroyed. When Jews returned decades later to rebuild the temple, the East Gate was repaired. It was renamed the Shushan Gate, because a memorial picture of the Palace of Shushan was portrayed on it.

As for Zerubbabel’s “Second Temple” itself, it was built along similar lines as before, but it was a pale imitation of what Solomon’s craftsmen had produced. In Intertestamental Times, under Hasmonean rule, it was upgraded, and the platform extended to the south. Then after the Romans conquered Judea, their appointed puppet ruler, King Herod, gutted the entire edifice, rebuilt the structures (but again based on the same general plan), and again extended the platform, this time to the north, south and west. The Shushan Gate remained in its previous location.

Herod’s Temple, in Jesus’ time. ©Leen Ritmeyer. Mr. Ritmeyer is widely regarded as the ultimate authority on the architecture of everything associated with the Temple Mount, and I believe that he has definitively established that the Dome of the Rock is sitting where the Holy of Holies should be.

The “Tribulation Temple”?

Of course, there has been no Jewish Temple in Jerusalem since Herod’s Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. I believe that some time before the Tribulation period, the Gog and Magog war prophesied in Ezek 38 and 39 will result in the complete incapacitation of the Israeli and Arab militaries, setting the stage for a peace agreement to be administered by the Antichrist. I believe that part of the agreement will enable Israel to hastily build a very short-lived Temple that will function during the first half of the Tribulation; but this is only my opinion, and beyond the scope of this post.

Ezekiel’s “Millennial Temple”

In 573 BC, Ezekiel was given a vision of a new Temple to be built in Jerusalem. He records that vision in great detail in chapters 40 and following of his prophetic book. In an excellent book entitled Messiah’s Coming Temple, John W. Schmitt and J. Carl Laney, analyze both the design of this temple and the use to which it will be put. It bears a superficial resemblance to previous Temples, but is by far the largest, and in even some of the “essential characteristics”, it differs from them in ways that do not correspond to Jewish law. This is because its purpose will be different in many respects, as outlined in the Schmitt/Laney book. The three outer gates on the model pictured below are, from the right, the north, east and south gates. By the time this Temple is built, I believe there will be no trace left of the present Temple platform or the Golden Gate.

Model of the Millennial Temple, ©John W. Schmitt

The “Golden Gate”

All versions of the Temple faced east, with an eastern door, or gate. All were surrounded by one or more courtyards, and each of those had an east-facing gate. The preexilic East Gate, the postexilic Shushan Gate, and the present Golden Gate are all apparently at the same location. The “monolithic gate posts” shown in Ritmeyer’s diagram, below, were most likely the lentils of the Shushan Gate so, though somewhat elevated, the Golden Gate, probably built in the 7th Century under Umayyad rule, incorporates the earlier gates. An arch covering a mass grave was discovered below the gate in 1969, and for a time it was thought to be the actual Shushan Gate arch. Instead, it appears that it was part of a staircase connecting the elevated gate with the ground level below.

The back side of the Golden Gate, from the Temple Mount platform. The doors lead into a quadruple-domed chamber. ©Ron Thompson 2008

Questions and answers about the Golden Gate

To the best of my ability, I will now respond to the list of questions mentioned at the top of this post.

Is the Eastern Gate the same as the Beautiful Gate of the Gospels?

And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple.
—Acts 3:2 ESV

It is not credible that beggars would seek alms at a gate that was used only by priests, and that only rarely. Nor is it likely that the Beautiful Gate was the ornate, nearby Gate of the Pure and Just, the eastern gate of the Court of Women; that gate was only for VIPs, and we know that they tended to be stingy. I believe, along with many, that it is the Double Gate on the south side of the Mount, with its beautiful domed passage through to the interior Hulda Gate. That gate would see not only the largest crowd, but probably the most generous.

Is it true that Muslims sealed the gate and established the cemetery in front of it in order to prevent the Jewish Messiah from entering through it?

More or less. When the Ottoman Sultan, Suleiman I, learned that Jews and Christians expected the Jewish Messiah to be led onto the Temple Mount by the Prophet Elijah, he ordered that it be permanently sealed, in AD 1541. Knowing that Elijah would not defile himself by passing through a cemetery, he ordered that one be established outside the Gate. Later, plague victims were buried in a mass grave at the foot of the Gate.

Is it true that Jesus entered Jerusalem through this gate on the first Palm Sunday?

The answer is, no, in part because the Shushan (Susa) Gate was never open to the general public. The sages of the Mishnah pretty much ignored Herod’s extensions to the Temple Mount, so when they wrote about the gates, they were referring only to the gates giving access to the 500-cubit square platform. According to them, the Temple Mount gates were used as follows:

A. Five gates were in the [wall of the] Temple mount:
B. two Hulda gates at the south, serving for entry and exit;
C. Qiponos [Kiponus] gate on the west, serving for entry and exit;
D. Tadi gate on the north, serving no purpose at all;
E. the Eastern Gate—
F. on it is a picture of the Walled City of Shushan—
G. through which the high priest who burns the red cow, and the cow, and all who assist in its rite, go forth to the Mount of Olives
[M. Par. 4:11.]
—Middot 1:3 MISH-N

Another Mishnah tractate indicates that the scapegoat, Azazel, was also led through this gate each year on Yom Kippur.

Most Internet maps showing Jerusalem in Jesus’ day indicate a switchback road from the Kidron Wadi, ascending to the eastern gate. If that road existed at all, I think it would have been for ceremonial use only. Yet another tractate indicates that an arched causeway crossed the Kidron from the gate to the Mount of Olives where the red heifer ceremony was conducted. In any case, the Shushan Gate would have been inappropriate for access to the city, because pack animals would have to be led up the stairway to the gate, and once on the Temple Mount, they would have to pass through the outer courts and exit through another Temple gate to get to the city.

How, then, did Jesus enter the city? There were probably two routes in from Bethany. The map below shows the dubious switchback road, and a road to Jericho that may or may not be correct. Other maps say that Jericho travelers came in through Bethany on the road shown here. The exact location of Bethphage is unknown, but it was probably somewhere on the east slope of the Mount of Olives, roughly east of Gethsemane. I believe that another, more tortuous road, probably came around the south slope of the Mount of Offense, at the southeast corner of the map (not shown), and divided, with a branch going up the Kidron Valley to connect with the other road, and other branches leading to the southern gates to the city. If Jesus came in past Gethsemane, He would have most likely entered through the gate north of the Temple mount and passed the Pool of Bethesda and the Antonia Fortress. City streets are not shown on this map, so He would have had multiple choices once in the city. When He entered the Temple, He could have gone through the Sheep Gate on the north side or used the more traditional route of the Double Gate on the south side of the Mount.

First Century roads and gates around Jerusalem. I don’t know the source of this map, but I have little confidence in the accuracy of the roads on **any** similar map that I have. However, other features on this map correspond well with my understanding of the city at that time.

Whichever road He took from Bethany to Jerusalem, I think He was expected by the populace, and the crowd was alerted and waiting for Him on the west slope of the Olivet chain of hills.

Many prophecy enthusiasts point to the sealed Golden Gate as proof that Jesus entered the city by that route:

Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, which faces east. And it was shut.
And the LORD said to me, “This gate shall remain shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered by it.
—Ezekiel 44:1–2 ESV

But this prophesy refers to the eastern gate of Ezekiel’s Temple, described in Ezek 40 and following. That Temple has not been built yet and will not be built until the Millennium. More to the point, that prophecy does not point to Jesus (see below). Also, the Shushan Gate was destroyed or at least damaged in 586 BC, and the Golden Gate not built on top of it until hundreds of years later. Once built, it was later sealed, then opened, then sealed permanently, but not until 1541 BC!

Is it true that this is the “Eastern Gate” through which the Divine Presence left the Temple, as prophesied in Ezekiel chapters 10 and 11?

Then the glory of the LORD went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim.
And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the LORD, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.
—Ezekiel 10:18–19 ESV

Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.
And the glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city.
—Ezekiel 11:22–23 ESV

God is omnipresent, both in space and in time. As our infinite, Almighty God, He can’t be contained in a tent or a building. But because He chose to deal with humanity, as represented by the primitive Israelites, He picked a form in which to appear to them. In the desert, it was “a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.” In the Tabernacle, and later the Temple, His “Divine Presence” was in the Holy of Holies, above the Mercy Seat of the Ark.

Chapters 8 through 11 of Ezekiel record a vision that came to him while he was sitting in his house with “the leaders of Judah”. In the vision, he was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem and shown men in leadership positions performing “disgusting” idolatrous religious rites in the Temple precincts. God then ordered a scribe to pass through the city and put a seal on the foreheads of innocents, while six other presumably angelic beings followed him and executed anyone not so sealed. The six beings were then told to set fire to the city. After the return of the scribe, God’s Sh’kinah Presence left the Temple, rose above its threshold, paused for a bit over the “east gate of the Lord’s house” (this could be the gate of an interior courtyard, or it could be the Shushan Gate), and then “stood” over the mountain on the east side of the city (no doubt the Mount of Olives).

It doesn’t matter what gate, or what mountain, because it was a vision. It was not real, and the Divine Presence left by air, not through any gate. Yet it was prophecy of something that was real, which came very soon thereafter. God withdrew His protection from the city and the Temple, and both were sacked and burned by Nebuchadrezzar’s army.

Is it true that Jesus will one day enter the Temple through this same Eastern Gate, per Ezekiel chapters 43 and 44?

Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing east.
And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.
And the vision I saw was just like the vision that I had seen when he came to destroy the city, and just like the vision that I had seen by the Chebar canal. And I fell on my face.
As the glory of the LORD entered the temple by the gate facing east,
the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the LORD filled the temple.
—Ezekiel 43:1–5 ESV

Beginning in chapter 40, Ezekiel has been once again taken to Jerusalem in a vision, but this was to show him events far in the future, at the start of the Millennial Reign. The vision shows him a new Temple, to be built presumably at the start of the Reign. In chapter 43, suddenly God’s Glory returns to the Temple, but this time through the gate facing east, not above it. The assumption that many people make is that “God’s Glory” here refers to Jesus. That is possible, but the parallels between this and the earlier vision indicate it is God’s Sh’kinah returning. The Father, not the son.

The sequence in chapter 43 is as follows: God’s Glory returns, through the “gate facing east.” God goes into the Temple itself and fills it with His Glory. Ezekiel is standing outside the Temple with the angel who has been showing him around. God calls out from inside, saying that He will now dwell with His people forever, and never again will they defile His house.

So, if it wasn’t Messiah entering through the eastern gate, was Jesus “the prince“, who is mentioned several times in the prophecy. Clearly it is not! The prince, whoever he is and whatever his function, has sins to atone for, and evidently, he has children.

We know from other prophecies that Jesus will reign from Zion. But nowhere does scripture seem to say he entered through the eastern gate. And incidentally, there does not seem to be a throne room in Ezekiel’s Temple.

John 5 and the Bethesda Pool

The Pools of Bethesda were dual Roman baths (Figures 1 and 2) that are mentioned prominently in John 5. There is some confusion of place names there. Bezetha (Heb. Beitzata, probably meaning “house of olives”) is a mountain ridge trending southeast from above the top center of the map to just northeast of the Pools. The valley stream that feeds water to the Pools is also named Bezetha. That name was later applied to a broader area that became a suburban community also known as “the New City“, north of Biblical Jerusalem. The name Bethesda (Heb. BeitHisda, meaning “house of mercy”) appears in some manuscripts, and applies only to the Pools. Archaeologists, including Dan Bahat, author of this map, for long equated the Bethesda Pools with the “Sheep Pool“, where animals were washed prior to sacrifice, but I was skeptical of that from the day I first laid eyes on it, and in fact scholarship now equates the Sheep Pool with the Pool of Israel, just outside the Sheep Gate in the Northern wall of the Temple Mount. Why my skepticism? First, I couldn’t conceive of a possibility that the Romans would share their healing pool with Jewish livestock. Just as obvious to me was an observation that the Bethesda pools looked way too deep and steep-sided to dip and extract thousands of animals quickly enough, or even at all, on feast days (Figure 3). At the same time, the Pool of Israel, right outside the gate used for sacrificial animals, was ideally shaped for the purpose, with a shallow end and sloped bottom, and was clearly not suited for ritual cleansing of humans.

Figure 1: ©2007 Holman Bible Publishers. Problems with this map: Pool of Bethesda incorrectly identified also as Sheep’s Pool; Gordon’s Calvary (the Garden Tomb) incorrectly identified as Golgotha; Struthion Pool mislocated; pinnacle of the Temple mislocated; Upper Room mislocated.

Figure 2: Bethesda Pools, on Jerusalem model, Mt. Hertzl. Photo ©2008 Ron Thompson

Although Bethesda may have originally been a Jewish pool, by the 1st Century AD it was a thoroughly Roman facility. It was a two-pool bath house, either built or upgraded by Herod, for the use of soldiers stationed in the nearby Antonia Fortress (Figure 2). Almost certainly, it was an Asclepeion, a shrine to the Greek God of Medicine, Asclepius (Figure 4). Water flowing down the Bezetha Valley was collected in the upper pool and flowed across a weir into the lower pool, before spilling off into the Kidron Valley. Bathing in the pools would presumably bring healing.

Figure 3: Bethesda Pool excavation. Photo ©2008 Ron Thompson.

Figure 4: Asclepius, James Sands Elliott – Public Domain

John 5:1-9 (ESV)
The Healing at the Pool on the Sabbath
[5:1] After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
[2] Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. [3] In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. [5] One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. [6] When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” [7] The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” [8] Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” [9] And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.
Now that day was the Sabbath.

Most translations do not include the famous verses 3b – 4 because this wording is not present in “the best” manuscripts. Encyclopedia Judaica calls it a later gloss, but states that excavations reveal that “a health rite took place there during the Roman period.”

John 5:3-4 (KJV)
[3] In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water.
[4] For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.

If these words are legitimate, it would help explain vs 7. Though the pools were intended for Roman use, this was during the days right before Passover, and it makes sense that Jews might have been given an annual privilege in its honor. It is inconceivable, though, that devout Jews would have expected a medical miracle at a pagan shrine dedicated to healing by a pagan deity! The story about an angel appearing in a pagan pool would have likewise been pure superstition, possibly explained by roiling of the water when attendants opened a sluice gate to move water from the stream, or from pool to pool.

To answer one more frequent question, based on verse 6, when Jesus asked the paralytic if he wanted to be healed: No, I don’t think He was really asking him if he wanted to have his sins forgiven. Nowhere in the chapter is it indicated that the paralytic had any interest in salvation. Jesus never explicitly offered him forgiveness, He just gave him a warning, after which he ratted Jesus out!

John 5:14-16 (ESV)
[14] Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” [15] The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. [16] And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

Figure 5: For comparison, a reproduction of a 1st century Roman bath, in Bath, UK. From the column bases down, it is original construction from AD 60 – 70. From an online tourism promotion.

Jesus’ Last Steps

This past summer, a number of people from my church went on a tour of Israel. On their return, one of the pastors was marveling at the great distance that Jesus was required to walk on the morning of his crucifixion. Of course, it is not possible to say with total certainty what route He took that morning, but I believe with a little research it is possible to make some fairly good guesses. The relevant passages in Scripture are Matthew 26:17-27:45; Mark 14:12-15:37; Luke 22:7-23:51; and John 13:2-19:38.

©Leen & Kathleen Ritmeyer, from *Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus*. Annotated by me.

The paragraph numbers below correspond to points on the accompanying map.

The Upper Room – The trek, of course, began at the Upper Room. Most of the sites visited can be located today with some degree of confidence. Not so the Upper Room. Church tradition places it at the site of the Church of the Apostles on Mt. Zion, in the southwestern quarter of the city, in an upper story directly above the traditional location of the Tomb of David. I don’t believe that this is the correct location of either shrine. David’s real tomb was probably in a known cave complex on the southeastern slope of the City of David, but the Upper Room could be anywhere in the city. Due to the proximity of the Gihon Spring and given that the host was described as a man carrying a jar of water, some authors tentatively place it on the Ophel, south of the Temple Mount; however, everybody in Jerusalem had to fetch water, and the room was described as “large”, leading me to place it somewhere in the more upscale Upper or Lower City (the Western Hill or the Tyropoeon Valley). After killing the sacrifices on Thursday, Nisan 14 (probably April 4, AD 30), food for the Seder had to be prepared and the Sabbath candles lit before sundown. Then the meal could begin during the twilight period. Most celebrations wrapped up at around midnight and the celebrants went outside, either into the streets or onto the roofs, to join in citywide singing of the Hallel psalms.
The Mount of Olives – After singing the Hallel, Jesus and his party adjourned to the Mount of Olives, presumably leaving the City of David via the Water Gate, above Gihon Spring. There was most likely a switch-back road descending from the gate into the Kidron Valley below, intersecting with a road running along the valley floor. Matthew and Mark describe this stage of the trek similarly: as they arrived at The Mount of Olives, Jesus prophesied that his apostles would lose faith in him that night. He quoted from the apocalyptic 13th chapter of Zechariah which speaks of the End of Days (acharit hyamim). At that time, the people in the Land will be scattered, with 2/3 of them purged and those who remain purified. He then said that after His resurrection He would meet the disciples in Galilee. At this point, we see the exchange with Peter, when his threefold denial is foretold. They then proceeded on to Gethsemane. Luke only says that Jesus told them to pray that they might not be put to the test. He then went “about a stone’s throw away” to pray—presumably the John 17 prayer—and returned to find them sleeping. John’s account is quite different. There is no clear transition from the Upper Room to the Mount of Olives. Chapters 13 through 17 cover in great detail the exhortations and warnings to the disciples, and Jesus’ prayer. Given only this passage, one would conclude that the entire conversation, including the prayer, took place around the Seder table, though that is not actually stated. From this passage it appears that the exchange with Peter occurred near the end of the Seder, in the Upper Room. Conservative hermeneutics, based on examination of ancient literary practices, allows conversations to be paraphrased and chronologies to be out of order, as long as the message is not distorted by doing so, so this part of the conversation could have taken place in either location. Another likely possibility is that Jesus said the same thing twice in order to drive the point home to Peter.
Gethsemane – From the Mount of Olives, the party moved on to the Garden of Gethsemane (Gat-Sh’manim), where Jesus was arrested. Since Gethsemane is an olive grove and olive press on the Mount of Olives, this can of course be interpreted to mean that they simply moved from outside to inside the borders of the grove; however, I have a personal theory based on the passage in John. John records that after the prayer of chapter 17, “He went out with his talmidim (disciples) across the stream that flows in winter through the Vadi (Vale, or Valley) Kidron, to a spot where there was a grove of trees; and He and His talmidim went into it (CJB).” They must at some time have crossed the Brook Kidron, but is this the stream referred to? At that time the Kidron was fed year-round by the seasonally varying Gihon Spring, and by other sources in the mountains to the east and north during the rainy seasons of early and late winter. Since they would have had to cross this stream below Gihon, it would have always held water. I don’t see how it would be described as “the stream that flows in winter.” I am therefore postulating that the stream may have been just a small rill spilling down off of the Mount, to the south of the grove. That would allow the entire conversation of chapters 13 through 17 to have taken place on the Mount close to, but not strictly within, Gethsemane. One possibility is a small stream that separates what we currently think of as the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Offense. In those days these two mountains, along with Mount Scopus to the north were all considered part of the Mount of Olives.
Annas’ House – Only John mentions that after His arrest, Jesus was first taken to the house of Annas, father-in-law of the current High Priest. Annas was an extremely wealthy man who, though no longer High Priest, was still perhaps the most powerful man in the city. Annas was probably the inhabitant of a house in the richest part of the city which has been excavated, partially restored and named the “Palatial Mansion.” The arresting party is likely to have taken one of two routes from Gethsemane: I have drawn them retracing Jesus’ earlier steps to the Water Gate, then taking the most direct route to Annas’ house. As an alternative, they could have entered the city on the north side near the present Lions’ Gate, passing between the Pool of Israel and the Bethesda Pools and rounding north of the Antonia Fortress. The second route is longer, the first more tortuous.
Caiaphas’ House – After briefly questioning Jesus, Annas sent Him to Caiaphas. Matthew and Mark say that “The head cohanim (priests) and the whole Sanhedrin” then put Him on trial. Luke says, “Having seized Him, they led Him away and brought him into the house of the cohen hagadol (High Priest).” Caiaphas’ house has been identified by many with an archaeological site in the southwestern portion of the city, near the traditional site of the Upper Room. Many scholars have long assumed that since the Sanhedrin was involved, Jesus must have then been moved to the Chamber of Hewn Stones in the Temple complex, since that was where they normally met until a few years later when they moved into the Royal Porch. This view is not credible, because (a) they were holding an illegal trial at that time of day (before daybreak); (b) the Temple gates were still locked at that time of day; (c) Peter was described as “outside in the courtyard, (of a residence); and (d) the accompanying Roman soldiers had custody and would not have handed him over to the Jews at this time, which would have been necessary since they could not enter the inner courts of the Temple.
The Praetorium – This was Pilate‘s (the governor’s) headquarters. It has been variously identified as (a) the Antonia Fortress; (b) The Hasmonean Palace, near the Palatial Mansion; and (c) Herod the Great’s Palace, at the site of the later Citadel. It is presently believed that (c) is the correct location. Jesus was taken here “early in the morning”, around daybreak, and questioned by Pilate.
Herod Antipas – This son of Herod the Great normally lived in Caesarea Maritima but was visiting Jerusalem for the Passover. When in Jerusalem, he normally lodged in the Hasmonean Palace (see above). Only Luke mentions this side trip. Herod questioned Jesus and sent Him back to Pilate.
The Praetorium again – When Herod sent Jesus back to the Praetorium, Pilate tried unsuccessfully to release him in order to avoid confrontation with the masses of common people. Instead, he was compelled to kill Jesus instead of Barabbas (Bar-Abba). Jesus was led inside, tortured, and prepared for crucifixion.
Golgotha (Gulgolta) and Joseph of Arimathea’s (Yoseph from Ramatayim’s) Tomb – In a previous blog I explained why Gordon’s Golgotha and the Garden Tomb are not possibly where Jesus’ life was temporarily put to an end. Instead, the crucifixion and burial almost certainly occurred at the traditional Christian site inside the Church of the Resurrection.