Gethsemane

They went "to the Mount of Olives," say Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the first two add, "to a place named Gethsemane." They went to the "other side" of the Kidron Valley, says John 18:1, "where there was a garden, in which He entered with His disciples."

For as long as we know, Christians have located the site at the foot of the Mt. of Olives on the other side of the Kidron Valley: a location that fits all four gospels.

Near the intersection between the busy valley road and the one that comes down from the mountain (a good candidate for the Palm Sunday route), we go down a flight of steps and find, next to Mary's tomb, a cave (or "grotto"). Its east side contains a rectangular extension, in the south wall of which is a niche. This may have caught the end of a wooden beam, such as people once used to apply pressure on a pile of wicker sacks containing crushed olives. For a full discussion, see Taylor. For an example, see the pictures below, taken at Maresha (Beit Guvrin) in the Shephelah.

Around 380 AD, Christians built a church here, identifying a piece of bedrock as the place of Jesus' prayer. This must have been the "elegant church" that was new when the nun Egeria saw it. On Holy Thursday night, she wrote, "at the first cock's crow one descends [from the top of the mountain], singing hymns, to the place where the Lord prayed, as it stands in the Gospel: 'And he went a stone's throw away and prayed, etc.' In this place stands an elegant church." After the prayer, the hymn and the reading from the Gospel, she continues, "everyone, down to the smallest children, made the descent with the bishop to the foot, to Gethsemane," where they then read the passage describing "the Lord's arrest." Egeria's "Gethsemane" would have been the cave: it is farther down, and a stone's throw away.