As we continue to celebrate the reopening of certain sites and the gradual restarting of tourism in the Holy Land, let’s add to our understanding of one of those sites that we mentioned last week: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. I noted last week that we will spend more time examining this unique and complex location here on the blog, and we should perhaps begin by observing that this is a site that has evolved over time.
The earliest Christians preserved the memory of this location as the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and nearby burial and resurrection. That memory persisted through the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. In order to erase that memory and to promote the worship of Roman deities, the emperor Hadrian built a temple dedicated to the god Jupiter and the goddess Venus around AD 135. This new temple inadvertently preserved the location of Golgotha and the tomb for nearly three centuries. In the early fourth century AD, the emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and sent his mother Helena to the Holy Land to locate Christ’s tomb and other significant Christian holy sites. The Roman temple to Jupiter and Venus was torn down and replaced by a church.
Following fire, earthquake, and warfare damage over the next several centuries, as well as restoration and rebuilding efforts, the current structure was built in stages by the Crusaders during the twelfth century. Other additions, along with damage and restoration efforts, have brought the structure to be the one we know today.
This is a simplified summary, and we will look at this complex history in more detail over the coming months. But for now, it helps us to understand the site as a whole by beginning with a broad overview of how it has evolved. This video offers a 3D rendering of the general architecture of the site working back from today to the Crusaders to Constantine and Helena to Hadrian to the first century. It is a helpful orientation to start understanding this special, historic place. You may need to pause the video a couple of times (I did) in order to take in the text on the screen and process it alongside of the images because it can move quickly at times. Enjoy this fascinating journey!
