Biblical Sites in the Holy Land Testify of Christ 

 
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By Scott Taylor, Church News

When it comes to pinpointing sacred biblical sites in the Holy Land and beyond, sometimes the most certain thing about the historical location is the uncertainty.

Was the baby Jesus born in Bethlehem in a cave — at the present-day spot of the 14-point silver star inlaid in a marble floor of a grotto underneath the Church of the Nativity? Or perhaps elsewhere in the system of grottos that extend under the adjacent Chapel of Saint Catherine? Or somewhere else in or around Bethlehem, the small village that has since grown to a city of more than 30,000?

 
Was the Savior crucified and then entombed at the two locations enveloped by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with the tomb cut away over the centuries to be encased by a shrine called the Aedicule? Or might the Crucifixion and burial have taken place at or near Skull Hill and the Garden Tomb respectively, both outside the walls of the Old City?

And when individuals want to “walk where Jesus walked” while traversing the walkways of old Jerusalem, do they understand that the city has been built among layers of stone, soil and debris from changing and conquering peoples and periods — Roman, Byzantine, Crusader and Ottoman, just to name a few? With the Old City’s “layers” going 20 to 30 feet deep in some locations, one might instead “walk over where Jesus walked.”

 
Actually, exact Old and New Testament locations shouldn’t really matter — on so many levels. What matters — as expressed recently by an Apostle, a scholar and Latter-day Saints living or studying in the Holy Land — is that the spirit and importance of the events that took place can be felt and confirmed, whether one is on-site, nearby or halfway around the world.

Making a Site Sacred

Eric Huntsman, academic director at Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, acknowledges the ongoing discussions and debates between historians and archaeologists about identifying sites with biblical significance.

“Although we can’t always identify precisely where an event occurred, first we’re in the vicinity of it — and so there is what I often call a ‘spiritual echo’ of these great events that happened,” Huntsman said. “But second, whatever site we are visiting can serve as a ‘visual cue.’”

 
He points to the Garden Tomb as a prime example, commenting on the way it is kept, with plants and trees and peacefulness in the middle of busy Jerusalem. “It’s easy for us to re-create in our mind’s eye what it was like for Mary Magdalene that first Easter morning,” he said.

When talking about sacred sites, Huntsman also likes to emphasize that — regardless of where a biblical actually happened — the faith of the worshippers coming to commemorate important events has created a sacredness of its own over the centuries.

“For almost 2,000 years, Christian pilgrims have been coming to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, sometimes on their knees, and their faith has made that site sacred,” he said.

 
Meanwhile, many evangelical Protestants and Latter-day Saints are drawn to the Garden Tomb, whether that is the actual tomb or not, he added. “The experiences we have there as we read the scriptures, as we sing, as we pray and as we remember the Resurrection of our Lord — that has made it a sacred space as well.”

Building on Locations

Some of the earliest efforts to identify biblical locations date back to the early fourth century, when Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

 
Aided by word-of-mount accounts, Helena started to identify different locations of New Testament events, the start of what has become the labeling of “traditional” sites, with many being adorned by churches and basilicas, as in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of the Nativity.

From there, the Holy Land became the destination of the faithful in pilgrimages and crusades and the hopeful in excavations and commercial development.

Ruins of meridian-of-time fishing villages along the Sea of Galilee today can be found next to Byzantine cathedrals or modern-day guesthouses. Small biblical villages — such as Nazareth, of several hundred residents — have expanded to bustling cities of tens of thousands of people today.

 
Over hundreds and even thousands of years, the combination of early pilgrims’ accounts, ancient literary sources, ongoing archaeology and modern-day scholarly work have continued to both call attention to longtime traditional sites and bring light on additional locations.

The Uchtdorfs’ Visit

Huntsman and his wife, Elaine Huntsman, accompanied Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and his wife, Sister Harriet Uchtdorf, on their assignment to the Holy Land. The Apostle and and Sister Uchtdorf spoke at a devotional for students at the BYU Jerusalem Center on Friday evening, April 21. On Saturday morning, April 22, Elder Uchtdorf, accompanied by Elder Ronald Bäck, an Area Seventy in the Middle East, presided and taught at the Jerusalem District conference.

 
And Collin Farley, of Bountiful, Utah, has joined other BYU Jerusalem Center students studying the Holy Land and visiting sites and locations throughout the Holy City and across Israel.

“All semester while being here in the Holy Land, we’ve talked about how Jesus walked here or this is where Jesus was,” he said. “It doesn’t matter where He was, rather it matters what He did for us. It doesn’t really matter exactly where at certain sites he did something. What is important is that He did those things, that He lives, and that He still helps us today.”

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