No biblical sites can be identified with high degree of certainty, only few identification can be considered proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. [01]
One reason is that Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, sent his mother Helena, in 320s, to travel around to identify Biblical sites. Helena (questionably) “discovered” long lost biblical toponyms and many impressive artifacts, such as the ‘true cross’ and “Nails of the Crucifixion”!
St. Helena’s 4th-century identification of biblical sites and relics, including the True Cross and the Holy Sepulchre, is considered historically questionable due to the 300-year gap since the crucifixion, the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the reliance on miraculous identification methods. While she established key sites like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, many discoveries are based on later legends.
Another reason is that “because the earliest Christian writings are evangelistic in character, rather than simply historical, the date and place of many events in the Gospel story must be worked out as well as possible from incomplete evidence. Innumerable legends and doubtful identifications have arisen from this circumstance.” [02]
This led an imaginary biblical map, which has been used as a guide to identify lost biblical sites, including Old Testament toponyms.
Examples:
1- Moriah: The mount on which Abraham offered Isaac.
Moriah ( Hebrew : מוריה) is the name given to a mountain or mountain range in the book of Genesis. It is referred to as the place of the sacrifice of Isaac. Its exact location is currently a matter of debate. Traditionally Moriah has been interpreted as the name of a specific mountain, rather as a name of a series or chain of mountains. [03]. On the other hand, It is believed by the Samaritans that the near-sacrifice actually took place on Mount Gerizim, near Nablus in the West Bank.[04]
2- Golgotha: The place of Jesus’ crucifixion.
There is no consensus as to the location of Golgotha (or Calvary). Traditionally Golgotha has been associated with a place now enclosed within one of the southern chapels of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a site said to have been recognized by the Roman empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, during her visit to Palestine in 325. Other locations have been suggested: in the 19th century, Protestant scholars proposed a different location near the Garden Tomb on Green Hill (now “Skull Hill”) about 500m north of the traditional site. the historian Joan Taylor has more recently proposed a location about 175m to its south-southeast. [05]
[01] — Miller, J. M. (1983). Site Identification: A Problem Area in Contemporary Biblical Scholarship. Zeitschrift Des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (1953-), 99, 119–129.
[02] — Conant, K. J. (1958). The Holy Sites at Jerusalem in the First and Fourth Centuries A. D. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 102(1), 14–24.
[03] — it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriah
[04] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriah
[05] — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary
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