Jesus Tomb
Jesus Tomb Details
This photo is of a plaque just outside Jesus tomb.
The plaque details Jesus tomb as if looking down from above. The somewhat blurry words on the right
of the photo are repeated and explained
below:
#1 = "Entrance to outer room, hewn in rock." This is the entrance to the tomb visible in the previous photo.
#2 = "Low threshold to graves." This is just a step down to the right half of the tomb, which is slightly lower than the left half.
#3 = "Short low rock walls."
#4 = "Finished loculus (burial place)." This is where Jesus' body lay for 3 days.
#5 = "Pillow cut in rock." Instead of dropping off at a right angle, the rocky mass had been smoothed and sloped into a pillow for the head.
#6 = "Weeping chamber". This is a flat area intended for the mourners to sit and mourn while looking at the body on the other side of the short rock walls (#3).
#7 = "Rough ledge."
#8 = "Unfinished loculus." How do we know it was unfinished? The rocky mass on the right side had not yet been sloped and smoothed into a pillow (#5), indicating that the tomb was almost but not quite finished and therefore still new when it was used. This is a small but important detail since John 19:41 states that Jesus was laid in "a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid."
#9 = "Small window" (visible in the previous photo) that would have been covered when the stone door is rolled into place.
#1 = "Entrance to outer room, hewn in rock." This is the entrance to the tomb visible in the previous photo.
#2 = "Low threshold to graves." This is just a step down to the right half of the tomb, which is slightly lower than the left half.
#3 = "Short low rock walls."
#4 = "Finished loculus (burial place)." This is where Jesus' body lay for 3 days.
#5 = "Pillow cut in rock." Instead of dropping off at a right angle, the rocky mass had been smoothed and sloped into a pillow for the head.
#6 = "Weeping chamber". This is a flat area intended for the mourners to sit and mourn while looking at the body on the other side of the short rock walls (#3).
#7 = "Rough ledge."
#8 = "Unfinished loculus." How do we know it was unfinished? The rocky mass on the right side had not yet been sloped and smoothed into a pillow (#5), indicating that the tomb was almost but not quite finished and therefore still new when it was used. This is a small but important detail since John 19:41 states that Jesus was laid in "a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid."
#9 = "Small window" (visible in the previous photo) that would have been covered when the stone door is rolled into place.