Perhaps where Jesus was crucified
Biblical scholars raised a curious theory – Golgotha (which means forehead place and skull), the hill on which Christ was crucified, is also the place of David’s famous battle with Goliath, which ended with David burying the giant’s head, The Jerusalem Post writes. It is believed that if archaeologists start digging, they will find the skull of Goliath. Researchers are looking for credible evidence that the skull was buried at Calvary, which is where Jesus was crucified according to the New Testament.
No excavations have yet taken place; the area is literally within the boundaries of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. However, experts say that even if the excavation does not lead to the discovery of a skull, this is still the place where the historic battle took place. “David took the severed head to Jerusalem,” says Rick Schenck of Bethlehem College and Seminary. – Strange, because Jerusalem was not David’s capital, but a city of God’s enemies. What has he done with the giant head, the head of the Bronze Serpent? Perhaps he impaled her on the hill outside the city, visible to all.
Hundreds of years later, Jesus was crucified at the “place of the skull.” But why was this place called Golgotha in Jesus’ time? The text does not tell us, but it is intriguing that this name sounds like Goliath. Whether or not Goliath of Geth is the etymology of Calvary, that is where Goliath’s head was taken. It was on this very hill where Jesus’ feet were pierced by the nails.” There are various interpretations of the name Calvary and its origin. Jerome considered it a place of executions by beheading. Tertullian describes it as a place resembling a head, and Origen associates it with legends concerning the skull of Adam. One legend states that Shem and Melchizedek took Adam’s body from Noah’s ark and were led by angels to Golgotha—a skull-shaped hill—at the center of the earth, where Adam had previously crushed the serpent’s head after the fall of man. Adam’s skull is believed to be buried in this place. Golgotha is also seen as the sacred center of the world – the “navel of the earth”.
Photo: David and Goliath (Michelangelo / Public Domain)
