The genuineness of the traditional site has been defended by Chateaubriand (Itiiiiraire de Paris d Jerusalem), Williams (The Holy City), Krafft (Die Topographie Jerusalems), Tisohen- dorf i^Reise in den Orient), de Vogai {Les Sglises de la Terre- fiainte), Sepp (Jenimlevi), Clermont-Ganneau (L'Authenticite da Saint-Sepulcre), Sanday (Sacred Sites 0/ the Gospels), and others. It has been attacked by Korte (Reise nach dein gclobten Lande), Robinson (BRP, and Bibliolheca Sacra for August and November 1847), Tobler (Golgnthn), Wilson (The Lands of the Bible), Barclay (The Citi/ of the (irroi Kim,). Schaff (Through Bible Lands), Ckmdet (Tent ll'.ni- in J'nI.'sllnr), and others.
4. The theory that Golgotha is the skull-shaped knoll above Jeremiah's giotto, outside tlie present north wall, near the Damascus gate, was first sug- gested by Otto Thenius in 1849. A similar view was put forward independently by Fisher Howe [T/ie True Site of Calvary) in 1871. Since that time the theory has come rapidly into favour, and has been accepted by Gen. C. E. Gordon, Sir J. W. Dawson, Dr. MeiTill, Dr. Schaft', Col. Conder, and others. It answers all the require- ments of the Gospel narratives, being outside the walls, nigh to the city, in a conspicuous position, near a frequented thoroughfare — the main north road, and near to ancient Jewish rock-hewn tombs, one of which was discovered by Conder about 700 ft. west of the knoll. The so-called ' Gordon's Tomb,' about 230 ft. from the summit of the knoll, is thought by Conder to be a Christian tomb of the Byzantine age ; but Schick says it ' was origin- ally a rather small rock-cut Jewish tomb, but be- came afterwards a Christian tomb.' The great cemetery of Jewish times lay north of the city.
Moreover, Jewish tradition regards this hill as the place of public execution, and the Jews still call it 'the Place of Stoning.' Christian tradi- tion also, as old as the 5th cent., fixes this as the place of the stoning of Stephen. The fact that Christ was put to death by the Roman method of crucifixion and not by the Jewish method of ston- ing does not break the force of this argument, for there is no reason to suppose that Jerusalem had two places of public execution. No other place would have been so convenient to the Romans for this purpose, starting, as they probably did, from Antonia. The castle seems to have been itself a part of the outer ramparts on the north-east, with the north wall of the temple area stretching from it to the east and the second city wall to the north- west. There must have been some feasible route for the soldiers of the garrison, who were con- stantly going back and forth between this fortress and Csesarea. There was no such route to the east or south. To go west would have taken them through the heart of the crowded city, with its vol.. 1.— 42
narrow streets and its perils from the mob. What more natural than that there should have been a road leading directly from Antonia to the open country northwards ? Here, accordingly, only a short distance north of the city, we find the re- mains of a Roman road.
• If executions were to take place near the city, I think they must have been carried out on the line of such a road, where tile soldiers would have free ground to act upon in case of an emergency, without being hampered by crowded streets, and where only one gate would be between them and their strong- hold, and that one entirely under their own control ' (Merrill).
Literature.— Artt. 'Golgotha' in Hastings' DB and Encye. Bibl., 'Sepulchre, The Holy,' in Eneyc. Brit.v, 'Grab, daa
p. 483 £f.; PEFSt, 1892, pp. 120ff., 177, 188, 206; Wilson, Golgotha and the tloly Sepulchre, 1906 ; and works cited in the article. W. W. MoORE.
GOMORRAH (mby, Vo/noppa [fem.] or Ti/jLoppa [neut.]).—
The word should be fem. in Greek as in Hebrew, but the final « led to its being treated aa neut. plural. In the LXX it is fem. 9 times, neut. 5 times, and in 6 passages the gender is indeterminate. In the NT it is fem. in 2 P 26 and Mt lOi* [CDJ, but neut. in id. (NAB).
The name occurs in the NT in Mt W\ Ro 9=^ 2 P 2^ Jude'. (In Mk 6" it occurs in a sentence wrongly inserted in A and some Lat. MSS, whence it found its way through the TR into the AV). In every case it is coupled with Sodom, as it is invariably in the OT. It is to be noticed, how- ever, that Sodom is mentioned alone in Mt U™-, Lk 17=", Rev 118. Not ^^jy gg^ i^ut in Lk 10'=, the parallel passage to Mt 10'^ Gomorrah is omitted. It seems probable, therefore, that in St. Matthew the insertion of the name is editorial and not original ; and, moreover, the text is uncertain ; KAB Vo/.i.dppat', C roii.6ppas, D Vo/i6pas ; again HC insert 7^ before To//., while ABl) omit it. Our Lord, then, used ' Sodom ' (or ' the land of Sodom ') alone ; in Ro 9=" the passage is a direct quotation from Is P ; while the OT expression ' Sodom and Gomorrah ' is found only in the two late, and closely connected, writings, Jude and 2 Peter.