Is this the actual place?

The sad news from Jerusalem, which has understandably been overshadowed by the ongoing slaughter in Israel's northern neighbour Syria, is that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been closed indefinitely, in protest at changes in Israeli policy that will(intentionally or unintentionally) damage the Christian presence here. Huge claims for tax (arnona, the equivalent of British 'council tax') have been suddenly slapped on the various churches, with some bank accounts being frozen so that the municipality can seize the monies, and then in addition a bill was being proposed that would either enable the government to expropriate some church properties or at least make it more difficult for the churches to sell property in the future (depending on what reports you read).

***UPDATE: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre has now been re-opened, thank God. It seems the Israeli authorities have backed down.***

The closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a big deal for two reasons:

Don't mess with the beards

1. Several different Christian denominations (Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox...) jointly manage the church, so the decision to close it was an example of concerted Christian action from groups that traditionally have found it hard to agree on anything. So thumbs-up to the Israeli authorities for promoting the cause of Christian unity :-{)}

2. For most Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, the church is the primary holy place to visit, because it contains both the hill (actually just a big piece of bedrock) of Calvary, where Jesus was crucified, and the place of His tomb, where He was buried and then rose again from the dead.

Many news articles will say something like "the church is considered by many Christians to be the site of Jesus' crucifixion, tomb and resurrection" - and in fact most reports, books, and guides will make similar conditional statements, like "traditionally supposed to be" or "reputed", about sites associated with Jesus' story or other Biblical events. Because in most cases we can't know for sure if it is the actual place, after 2000 years of successive destructions and rebuildings, etc. With regard to Jesus' place of crucifixion and burial, however, we can be as sure as one can ever be that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the actual place it purports to be.

The reason for this, ironically, is the Roman empire's attempt to wipe out the Christian faith. When Jerusalem was rebuilt as a Roman city under the Emperor Hadrian, they deliberately built a temple of Jupiter over the place venerated by the Christians as the tomb of Jesus and they likewise set up a statue of Venus on top of Calvary. So, although the first Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built a full three centuries after the death and resurrection of Christ, the places had been conveniently marked by pagan idols. All St Helena (the mother of the Emperor Constantine) had to do was get the temple of Jupiter demolished and the tomb of Jesus was discovered underneath. Some of the basilica that she built still forms parts of the current church.

OK, you might say, but how do we know that the temple of Jupiter was built in the right place? The Emperor Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina a full century after the time of Christ, and some people might be sceptical about how the people would still know where Calvary and the tomb were; but that is only a short time in terms of oral tradition.

To use an example from my own life, I know the house in Coventry where my maternal grandmother lived as a girl. I've never been in the house, because the family moved out before I was born; in 40 years time, if I'm still alive and have my memory, I'll be able to point the house out to my sister's and brother's grandchildren and tell them about how Grandma and her family watched the bombing of Coventry during WW2. And that will be over 100 years after the event.

So if that could happen with something as insignificant as one family's house, how much more likely is it that the Christians in Jerusalem would remember a place of such huge significance as the tomb of Jesus? That is why I tend to be fairly accepting of traditional claims about holy sites, so long as the tradition can be traced back to within a couple of hundred years of the actual events.

It's also worth noting that Christianity is an avowedly historical religion, in that it is based on things that actually happened in particular times and places. Even if we can't always find the exact spot of some event (e.g. Emmaus seems to be hard to identify), we know that we at least have some idea and that we're probably pretty close.