One of the features that distinguishes The Jesus Dynasty from many other historical treatments of Jesus is the attention I give to place. By that I mean my attempt to determine if possible the locations of various sites that become the settings of the basic gospel narratives. This is particularly the case when it comes to the Last Days of Jesus in Jerusalem, that final week that includes his daily excursions into the Temple court area, the guest house where he ate his last supper, the garden of Gethsemane, the various stages of his “trial,” first before the High Priest, then Pilate, and then Herod, the place of the execution, and the location of the tomb closeby where he was temporary placed in haste. In almost every case I have reason to question the traditional sites, many of which were settled upon in the 4th and 5th centuries AD, or even later.

Over the years, in dozens of trips to Jerusalem, I have studied the various sites and their traditions and I have shifted my views over time. For example, there was a time when I was quite convinced of the validity of the late Bargil Pixner’s theories about an Essene Quarter on what is today called Mt. Zion in the southwest corner of the Old City. I am now quite sure this entire theory is incorrect. I knew Bargil well and spent many pleasant hours with him on dozens of visits to Jerusalem. I also helped him edit two of his major articles, both of which I have linked on my University Web site: Jerusalem’s Essene Gateway and The Church of the Apostles Found on Mt. Zion. I highly recommend these fascinating treatments even though I have changed my views. I have a photo from the early 1990s taken in Jerusalem where we were discussing some of these very matters. It is of great sentimental value to me. I came to love and respect Father Pixner very deeply.

I have learned from various people over the years and I have continued to refine my conclusions but Dr. Shimon Gibson, with whom I have worked on various archaeology projects since 2000, has been one of my greatest teachers in this regard. He and I still differ on a number of these “sites,” such as the location of Golgatha and the tomb where Jesus was buried (he supports the traditional location of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre), but I think he is dead right about one of them, and as far as I know this is his discovery, namely the proper location of Jesus’ trial before Pilate. In fact, the more I study it the more sure I have become that this is one site in Jerusalem, as yet totally unknown to tourists and pilgrims, that we can authenitically identify with events in Jesus’ life.

Gibson locates this judgment seat of Pilate, the Roman governor, and the scene of the trial, just outside the western wall of the Old City, with the Praetorium inside the wall through a gate leading inside the palace (John 18:28). It is unlikely Pilate would be staying in the barracks of the Antonia Fortress, near the first station of the cross on the Via Dolorosa inside the Old City, which is the traditional locaton. I remember visiting that site as a teenager, my first trip to the Holy Land, maintained by the Sisters of Sion. I was profoundly moved as our tour guide narrated how Jesus was scourged and mocked in the courtyard of the Antonia, where the stone pavement, today known as the “Lithostrotos,” is still visible three meters below the present street level. Pilate, as well as Herod Antipas, who was in town for the Passover, would have been in the palaces, on the luxurious west side of the city, the royal quarters his father had built, not doing duty in the fortress barracks. I have marked the spot of the scene with a red square on this map, just to the west of the Old City wall:

Although the Oxford map does not show it, the vast palace grounds would be just inside the wall, running south the entire length to the Hinnom Valley, as I have marked here in white. In the painting below, that artist Balage Balogh did for for The Jesus Dynasty, he puts the palace grounds just inside the wall and also shows the gate leading inside to the royal grounds:

Here in the model of Herodian Jerusalem that has now been moved to the Israel Museum. You can see how the various buildings of the palace might have looked in their splendor, just inside the city wall. It was inside this area that Jesus was taken for his interrogation and scourging at daybreak the day he was executed. The crowd of his accusors waited outside, as they would be eating the Passover that evening (John 18:28).

Shimon Gibson helped to excavate this entire western wall area many years ago under Magen Broshi. He has studied it in great detail and has been able to identify its main features. Of our four New Testament gospels it is John alone who seems to know the precise topography of the scene. The way this area looks today appears in the photo below. You can still see the steps, intact from Herodian times, leading up to the platform where Pilate sat and the area where the gate led into the Praetorium. The platform was called called Gabbatha (John 19:13) and the flat stones making up the floor are still in place. Following the interrogation inside Jesus was brought back outside on this judgment seat to face his accusors. He was then taken down these steps and led to the place of crucifixion, that I believe was on the Mt. of Olives.

Balogh produced this wonderful painting that accurately reconstructs how things would have looked. He did a great deal of research on the archaeology of the site based on Gibson’s findings, as well as careful attention to clothing and other features:

Whenever I read the gospel accounts of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, especially in the gospel of John, I have these images and pictures vividly in my mind. It is one of those rare juxtapositions between imagination, place, and text. I hope some of my readers can manage to visit this site someday. In my estimation it is truly holy ground and as yet it is pristine and untouched by church, shrine, or tourist vendor.

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