Golgotha and the burial of Adam between Jewish and Christian tradition

The curious name of Golgotha, and its translations provided by the evangelists, became a focal point for interpretation, opening the door for new Christological concepts to become affixed to it. As these novel Christological interpretations accrued around Golgotha, they would eventually crystallise, and become a fixed part of the commemoration of Jesus in Palestine. Starting with Ori­ gen, third and fourth century Christian authors strongly associate the place of Jesus’s crucifixion with the burial place of Adam. Golgotha and the burial of Adam between Jewish and Christian tradition


Golgotha and the burial of Adam between Jewish and Christian tradition
Text and monument* DOI: https://doi.org/10. 30752/nj.100583 Despite the fact that, as we shall see below, Origen and other early Christian authors claim that the identification of Golgotha as Adam's burial place is a 'Hebrew' trad ition, the genesis of the connection between Adam and the site of Jesus's crucifixion and its relationship to other early Jewish and Christian traditions about the location of Adam's burial remain unclear. This presents us with an opportunity to examine the inter face and relationship between the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha that appear frequently in early Christian writings of the third and fourth centuries and Jewish traditions concerning the death and burial of Adam. So doing may help to shed fresh light on Jewish-Christian relations in antiq uity through the various trad itions about the location of Adam's burial. Previous attempts * The text of this article is a revision and combination of an Oslo Lecture in New Testament given at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oslo with some por tions of a presentation given at the 'Trans formations in Stone' symposium at Lund University in early 2020. The research pre sented here comes out of a larger pro ject that examines the earliest Christian commemorative architecture dedicated to the life of Jesus in Palestine and the recep tion of traditional sites associated with the events of the Jesus's life that they enshrine, which will be published as a monograph titled From the Passion to the Church of the to address this question, though they have provided valuable insights, have been compli cated by several factors, including problem atic assumptions about the dates and relative chronology of the various traditions about Adam's burial, textcritical issues, and shift ing scholarly perceptions that have problem atised earlier understandings of the 'Jewish' or 'Christian' authorship of some of the texts. 1 Our study will thus need to be attentive to these problems. As our investigation below will reveal, we can identify several different strains of trad itions about Adam's burial. Different Jew ish and Christian strains of tradition locate Adam's burial 1. where he was cre ated, at an unspecified location outside Eden; 2. where he was created, which is specifically within Paradise (Eden); 3 where he was cre ated, which is an unspecified location within Jerusalem; 4. in Jerusalem at Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified; 5. at Machpelah (Hebron, Kiryat Arba); 6. on Mount Moriah; or 7. some combination of the above traditions. The relationship between these traditions can variously be characterised in terms of recep tion, development, competition, response, or a combination thereof.
As our investigation will demonstrate, several of these traditions were circulating concurrently, and some sources specifically indi cate an awareness of the existence of mul tiple competing traditions. In the fourth century, the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha was widely received and attested in Christian sources. However, it is also clear that the Kiryat Arba tradition was current in Jewish circles at this time, and was known to Christians as well. At some point, the Mount Moriah tradition also began to circulate. It is worth considering the dynamics of this competitive traditioning process. It is also important to understand the interface of the Golgotha, Kiryat Arba, and Mount Moriah traditions in connection with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the traditional site of Golgotha was located and incorporated into the architecture. As we shall see, there are ways in which the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was interpreted in antiJewish or supersessionist modes. In fact, elements of super cessionist ideology are incorporated into the architecture itself. In light of this, it will be necessary to consider the traditional 'place' of Golgotha in the inner courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and its role in the traditioning process as well. This is because, by situating Adam's burial on Mount Moriah, the former site of the Jewish Temple, or at Hebron, site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, Adam's legacy could be firmly connected to specifically Jewish sites rather than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Christological connection between Jesus and Adam could be undercut.

Origen and the burial of Adam at Golgotha
Although the evangelists use the Aramaic name 'Golgotha' to refer to the place of crucifixion, and speak of it as though it was a known toponym, the name does not appear in any known Jewish sources that can be securely dated prior to the reign of Constantine. 2 However, an explanation for the nomenclature of the place of crucifixion can be found in early Christian literature, in which it is frequently connected to the burial place of Adam. The earliest extant tradition connecting Golgotha to Adam can be found in Origen's Commentary on Matthew,126. Since it is the earliest and most significant attestation to the tradition, it is fitting to cite it in full here. It has been preserved in a Greek fragment as well as in the Latin translation.
The Latin text in translation reads: But the 'place of Calvary' is said not to have any expansive meaning whatever, so that he who was to die for humanity died there. For some such tradition has reached me that the body of Adam, the first man, was buried there [Calvary] where Christ was crucified so that 'just as in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive'; so that at that place, 'which is called the place of Calvary, that is the place of the head', the head of the human race found resurrection with all people through the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour, who suffered there and arose. (Origen, Commentary on Matthew 126) 3 For Origen, the 'skull' is 'the head of the human race', that is, Christ. This idea clearly draws upon the concept of Jesus's supremacy depicted in terms of his being the 'head' (κεφάλη) in the Pauline corpus (1 Cor. 11:3;Eph. 1:22;Col. 1:18). Indeed, Origen's interpretation of Golgotha is deeply rooted in Pauline Adam Christology, citing 1 Corinthians 15:22. This is made possible by the name of the place and Origen's con nection of that name to a tradition locating Adam's burial on Golgotha. Golgotha, and its significance as the place of the crucifixion, is thus remembered in light of the Pauline trad ition of Adam Christology. 4 The Greek fragment of this passage calls the Adamic burial tradition a 'Hebraic trad ition' that has 'come down', 5 a claim that is missing from the Latin text. Scholars are understandably divided over the origin of this tradition. Some scholars have argued for a JewishChristian genesis. 6 Bellarmino Bagatti, for example, regarded the Adamic Golgotha tradition as JewishChristian, par ticularly on the basis of evidence drawn from lateantique Adamic literature, especially the Cave of Treasures, which locates Adam's burial at Golgotha, in the 'center of the earth' (22:1-23:25; see Bagatti and Testa 1978: 27-30). 7 The Cave of Treasures is a Syriac text that pre sents a narrative centred upon major figures in Genesis from Adam and Eve to Abraham. Its story connects Adam not only to Jesus's death through Golgotha, but also Jesus's birth, since the titular cave of treasures is a cave near Paradise in which Adame deposits treasures, including gold, incense, and myrrh. These items would eventually be recovered and given to the infant Jesus by the 45:12,46:12). Ignazio Mancini has likewise argued that the origin of the trad ition of Adam's burial at Golgotha is Jewish Christian, since it differs from the traditions about the location of Adam's burial place 5 Again, note that the Latin lacks the men tion of the Hebraic origin of the tradition. However, the question as to whether the tradition that is mentioned here is of Jewish origin is valid and worth pursuing whether or not Origen explicitly identi fied it as handed down by Hebrews (Gk Ἑβραῖοι παραδιδόασι). preserved by 'the synagogue', by which he seems to mean rabbinic literature (Mancini 1984: 167). However, Joan E. Taylor has presented strong arguments against the positions of Bagatti and Mancini. Arguing against Mancini, she notes that the fact that the Adamic burial tradition referenced by Origen differs from traditions seen in rabbinic lit erature is not evidence that it is thereby JewishChristian (Taylor 1993: 127). Taylor also rightly observes that Bagatti's reliance on the Syriac Cave of Treasures to establish the JewishChristian origins of the Adamic Golgotha tradition is problematic, owing to the late date of the text and to its question able status as a 'JewishChristian' text, since at best, it is a Christian text making use of an earlier Jewish source (ibid. p. 128).
As previous scholarship has recognised, the Cave of Treasures is indeed quite late, probably dating from the fifth or sixth cen turies ce at the earliest, 8 several centuries after Origen's time. The Adamic Golgotha tradition had already become common in Christian circles by the end of the fourth century ce (see discussion below), presum ably invigorated by the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Thus, it is likely that the Cave of Treasures is a later reception of the tradition, not evidence of an Taylor has argued that the Adamic Golgotha tradition could have originated from a misunderstanding by Origen (Taylor 1993: 124-31). She notes that, in Jewish trad ition, rather than Golgotha, Mount Moriah or Hebron are regarded as the burial place of Adam. 9 Moreover, Jewish tradition regards Mount Moriah as the axis mundi, whereas in Christian tradition it is Golgotha. This, combined with the fact that Golgotha was located under a temple dedicated to Venus in Origen's day, allowed for confusion. According to Taylor, If we know that Jews did not believe that Adam was buried under the temple of Venus, but under Mount Moriah or Hebron, how then did Origen come to make a mistake? Origen may have confused a 'temple' (the Jewish Temple) possibly referred to by his source with the temple of Venus which had stood on the site of Golgotha since the days of Hadrian. Or else it is possible that his resiting of an event located by some Jews on the Temple Mount was polemical: it made the Adam Christology of Paul more poignant. (Taylor 1993: 130-1) The intriguing hypothesis that the Gol gotha burial tradition is a Christian reworking of an earlier Jewish tradition that Adam was buried on Mount Moriah has since been fol lowed by other scholars (e.g. Skarsaune 2002: 205;Gonen 2003: 123;Krewson 2017: 106). In a similar vein, Isaiah M. Gafni has recently argued that Second Temple Jewish trad ition located the burial of Adam in Jerusalem (Gafni 2019: 36-7), and that the Christian 9 See also Krewson 2017: 106. tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha was a development of that tradition (pp. 38-42). In order to explain the existence of the tradition of Adam's burial at Hebron (Kiryat Arba) in Rabbinic literature, Gafni suggests that the Hebron tradition developed in response to the Christian siting of Adam's burial at esp. 42).
What makes the hypotheses espoused by both Taylor and Gafni attractive and compelling is that, rather than simply view ing the existence of multiple, differing trad itions about the location of Adam's burial in Jewish and Christian sources as coincidental, siloed developments, both Taylor and Gafni have instead suggested that it is preferable to understand these various traditions in rela tionship to one another. Moreover, both sug gest that the relationship between the various traditions about Adam's burial in late antiq uity can potentially be interpreted as com petitive. While there is much to commend in both of these hypotheses, a clearer picture of the precise relationship between the various traditions could potentially be gained. There is a need for greater clarity concerning the relative chronology of the Adam burial trad itions. Logically, if one trad ition is a response to another, the tradition that is being responded to must predate the response. Moreover, as we shall see below, the earliest Jewish sources locate Adam's place of burial within Paradise, and do not identify Paradise with Jerusalem. Thus, in order to track the path and reception of the tradition of Adam's burial, we will need to examine the sources.

The burial of Adam at Machpelah and Moriah in Jewish sources
We begin with the Machpelah traditions. The burial of Adam and Eve at Machpelah at Mamre (Hebron, Kiryat Arba) is attested in b. Erub. 53a, Genesis Rabbah 58:4, 9, and Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer (PRE) 20.9. It is also attested by Jerome, the celebrated Christian thinker and translator of the Vulgate Bible, who resided at Bethlehem at the tail end of the fourth century (Commentary on Matthew IV, on Matt. 27:33). 10 In b. Erub. 53a (cf. b. Sotah 13a), there is a discussion of Mach pelah. According to a tradition preserved there which is attributed to Rabbi Isaac, Hebron (where Machpelah is located) is called Kiryat Arba ('the city of four') because four couples are buried there: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah. This is essentially the same trad ition as that known to Jerome, as he men tions that Adam was buried at Hebron along with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ( Jerome's Epistles 108.11). Likewise, Genesis Rabbah 58:4 identifies Adam and Eve as being the first of the four righteous fathers and moth ers buried at Kiryat Arba. The agreement between these sources is certainly noteworthy. However, these sources (PRE, the Babylonian Talmud, Genesis Rabbah, and Jerome) are all relatively late, postdating both Origen and the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Intriguingly, the origin of the trad ition is not entirely shrouded in mystery, since it seems to be based on the toponym Kiryat Arba, as per b. Erub. 53a. As Dieter W. van der Horst writes, the origin of this exegetical tradition is to be sought in the fact 10 On the chronology of these texts in rela tion to Jerome, see van der Horst 2014: 3-4. Pieter van der Horst suggests that Targum Neofiti, which translates Gen. 23:2 as 'Sarah died in the city of the four patriarchs' might be an earlier version of the tradition (2014: 3-4), but this is an inference several steps removed and far from certain. Nevertheless, van der Horst's basic point that the tradition must have been in circulation by the end of the fourth century in order for Jerome to have known it is certainly correct.  ( Johnson 1983), it appears as though these texts evince an early instantiation of the Mount Moriah burial tradition. However, the matter is severely complicated by textcritical issues and problems that occur when the GLAE and Vita are inappropriately conflated. According to the traditions preserved in GLAE, Adam's body was brought to Paradise after his death (38:4). Abel's body was also brought (40:3-4) to the same place, and both Adam and Abel were 'buried according to the command of God in the regions of Paradise (Gk μέρη τοῦ παραδεισου) in the place from which God had found the dust'. 19 This data provides us with yet another Jewish tradition about the location of Adam's burial, as GLAE situates Adam's burial place in the 'regions' of Eden, the very place where Adam was first created. This tradition probably stems from or at least alludes to the statement in Genesis 3:19 in which God tells Adam that he will 'return to the ground; for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return'. As we discuss below, this tradition of Adam's burial in Paradise is paralleled in Jubilees 4:29.
Some scholars identify the place where Adam is buried in the Life of Adam and Eve with the site of the Jerusalem Temple ( Johnson 1983: 254, 270 n. 3;cf. Dow 2008: 137-8). It is important to recognise that the ideas that Adam was buried where he was created and in (what would become) Jerusalem at Mount Moriah are not neces sarily mutually exclusive, since Jerusalem could be identified as the place where Adam was created (as seen in PRE above), or the site of Paradise. M. D. Johnson notes sev eral places in the GLAE and the Latin Life of Adam and Eve (Vita) which mention a place with an oratory (GLAE 5:3; Vita 30:2) or an altar (GLAE 33:4). He identifies this place with that where Adam was created and buried (GLAE 40:6), and refers to rabbinic sources that locate Adam's oratory on Mount Moriah (Midrash Psalms 92:6; Pesiqta Rab bati 43:2; PRE 23, 31). Of particular note is Adam's instructions for where he should be buried as narrated in the Latin recension: 'if I should die, bury me against the East in the great dwelling place of God' (Vita 45:2). Combining this data, Johnson concludes 'There can be little doubt that the same site is intended in all such references and that the location is to be understood as the place of the Jerusalem Temple, where rabbinic sources fix the location of Adam's oratory' ( Johnson 1983: 254).
The argument for identifying the place of Adam's burial with Mount Moriah in the GLAE requires further critical investigation.
There are a few issues to address. The Latin version of the Life of Adam and Eve locates Adam's burial place on Mount Moriah, so long as we understand 'the great dwelling place of God' to be the place of the Jerusalem Temple. However, textcritical scholarship on the Life of Adam and Eve has shown that the Latin version is a late recension of the text, the result of extensive editorial activ ities. 20 In fact, while the Greek text probably represents the earliest stages of the text, the Latin version represents the latest stage of development (de Jonge and Tromp 1997: 77;de Jonge 2003: 230;Menk and Meiser 1998: 755-69). Moreover, some manuscripts dis agree with the location, having Adam instead ask to be buried 'towards open country' (in agrum) or 'on land' (in agro) (see Johnson 1983: 286 n. 45).
The date of the GLAE is difficult to deter mine. 21 The state of the question in current scholarship is summed up by Marinus de Jonge and Johannes Tromp, who have sug gested a wide range between the second and sixth centuries ce, 22 although they prefer a 20 See de Jonge and Tromp 1997: 37- Jonge and Tromp 1997: 75-7. date between the second and fourth centuries (de Jonge and Tromp 1997: 77). Furthermore, Tromp and de Jonge prefer to view the GLAE as a Christian composition, though one that incorporates Jewish traditions (de Jonge and Tromp 1997: 68-75). This hypothesis of the GLAE as a Christian composition has been further developed in more recent scholar ship by Rivka Nir (2004), on the basis of the use of incense and aromatic fragrances in the narrative, and more recently, by Antti Laato (2018), who has argued that, although there are elements of the funeral rites depicted in GLAE that can fit well in either a Jewish or a Christian setting, 'the final story must have been mediated by a Christian author(s)' and that the description of the funeral rites in GLAE 'contains traces of antiGnostic argu mentation' (p. 68). Anne Marie Sweet has argued for a date no earlier than the second century ce (1992: 26). Johnson prefers a date towards the end of the first century ce (1983: 252), which is quite close to the earlier end of de Jonge and Tromp's range. By contrast, Nir has argued for a date closer to the later end of the range that Tromp and de Jonge propose, placing the GLAE in the fourth to fifth centuries ce (Nir 2004: 45 Moreover, there are significant problems with the passages in the GLAE that some have argued present Temple imagery in con nection with the place in which Adam was created and buried. The key passages are 5:3, which mentions a 'house into which he [Adam] used to enter to pray to God', and 33:4, which mentions an altar. The narrative involving this altar is difficult to interpret, and may describe an altar located at the place where the events of chapter 33 take place, or a visionary altar that Eve sees upon the death of Adam. The mention of the 'prayer house' in 5:3 is a late addition to the text and was not included in the main text of the critical edition of the GLAE (Tromp 2016: 126-7). 25 It is not found in the earliest manuscripts. Given the difficulty of dating the original composition of the GLAE with precision to Origen's time, it is unlikely that this late addi tion can be considered a witness to a tradition that would have been current in or prior to 25  the third century ce. The altar mentioned in 33:4 is located at the place where Adam dies, but this is not where he is buried. The pri mordial humans are expelled from Paradise in chapters 28-9, and we are told in 29:6 that Adam 'went out of Paradise'. Then, in 38:3-4, the text describes the angels taking Adam's body from where it lay into Paradise. Thus, within the narrative of the GLAE, the altar mentioned by Eve in 33:4 is not located at the place where Adam is buried, but at the place where he died. We are left to conclude that GLAE located Adam's burial in the regions of Paradise.
The account of Adam's burial in GLAE is paralleled in a text that is more securely dated to the Second Temple period: the book of Jubilees. Jubilees 4:29, like the Life of Adam and Eve texts, narrates Adam's death. According to the author, 'All his children buried him in the land where he had been created'. 26 Much like the burial tradition in GLAE, this tradition seems to be rooted in an inference based on Genesis 3:19 (see also Jubilees 3:25) (cf. VanderKam 2018: 265). There is no indication here in Jubilees that the land where Adam was created was Jerusalem. However, we must also note that Jubilees appears to locate Adam's place of cre ation as somewhere other than Eden. This is because Adam is created before the Garden, and lived in the place where he was created for forty days before being moved into the Garden ( Jubilees 3:9) (see VanderKam 2018: 215). All that we can conclude from this is that, according to Jubilees, Adam was buried where he was created (following Gen. 3:19), but the location of his creation is unspecified. Notably, it is unlikely that Adam's place of creation was the site of the sanctuary, since as VanderKam notes, Jubilees appears to 26 Translation from VanderKam 2018. be concerned to show that Adam and Eve remained outside the Garden after their creation, because the Garden is depicted and understood as a sanctuary in the context of Jubilees (VanderKam 2018: 215).
To summarise, the earliest datable trad ition in Jubilees has Adam buried where he is created, but the location of his creation is unknown, though it was explicitly not a sanc tuary. The critical text of GLAE, that is, the earliest stratum of the Life of Adam and Eve texts, situates Adam's burial in the regions of Paradise. Later additions to the Life of Adam and Eve tradition do, however, appear to identity that site with the site of a Temple, and thus possibly Mount Moriah. The Mount Moriah tradition is generally difficult to date, but is most likely to be relatively late. The Machpelah tradition has a more certain date, since it is attested by Jerome towards the end of the fourth century ce.
Symeon Logothete (c. 10th century ce) cites a passage in the writings of Julius Africanus (2nd to 3rd centuries ce) which locates Adam's tomb generally in 'the land of Jerusalem', and associates it with a 'Hebrew' tradition 27 (see LipatovChicherin 2019: 151-78): 'It is said that Adam was the first to be buried in the ground, from which he had been taken. And his tomb was in the ground of Jerusalem, according to what is reported in a Hebrew tradition.' 28 The trad ition is no more specific about the location of the tomb than 'the ground of Jerusalem'. If the tradition's attribution to Julius Africanus is authentic, it would be the earliest known instantiation of the location of Adam's burial specifically in Jerusalem. As other scholars have noted, there is probably a connection between the tradition cited in the fragment of Julius Africanus (as cited by Symeon Logothete) and the narrative of Adam's burial in Jubilees, since Jubilees 4:29 also nar rates Adam's burial in the ground where he was created (LipatovChicherin 2019: 156;Wallraff 2007: 43n1). Moreover, the idea that Adam was the first to be buried, implying that Abel was buried after Adam despite hav ing died first, also coheres with the narrative of Jubilees (4:29).
The relationship between the Julius Afri canus fragment concerning the burial of Adam and Jubilees 4:29 may thus best be understood as one of reception, though we can not know if it is a direct reception of Jubi lees 4:29 itself or of some shared tradition. Therefore, it is both plausible and convinc ing to suggest that the 'Hebrew' tradition that the fragment mentions may be the same one known from Jubilees, or perhaps Jubilees itself. However, we must recall that Jubilees does not specifically locate Adam's death in Jerusalem, and that what we see in the Julius Africanus fragment thus reflects a develop ment in the tradition.
Nikolai LipatovChicherin has reason ably suggested that, since 'Hebrew' is an eth nic rather than a religious designation and not necessarily interchangeable with 'Jewish', that the 'Hebrews' in question might be 'Hebrew Christians' (LipatovChicherin 2019: 158). He also observes that Basil of Caesarea identifies this tradition as having been pre served in the Church (Commentary on Isaiah 5.141), indicating a Christian genesis. When combined with Origen's identification of the 'Hebrew' origin of the tradition, this evi dence supports the hypothesis of a Jewish Christian (or 'Hebrew Christian') genesis for the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha (LipatovChicherin 2019: 158). As a result, the possibility that the Julius Africanus frag ment may have Golgotha specifically in mind cannot be ruled out. That said, the possibility that no specific place in Jerusalem was in view in the version of the tradition of Adam's bur ial related in the Julius Africanus fragment also cannot be ruled out. However, while it is tempting to view this fragment as an early attestation of the tradition of Adam's burial on the Temple Mount, we must remember that (assuming that this fragment's attribu tion to Julius Africanus is authentic), the evi dence for the Jewish tradition of the burial of Adam on the Temple Mount is late, and its circulation in this period is unattested.

Analysing the various traditions
It is difficult to parse the relationship between the various strands of Jewish trad itions concerning the location of Adam's burial and the Christian tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha. The relative chronology of the development of the traditions is also complex. Here is a summary of what we have found. The earliest datable tradition is the one found in Jubilees 4:29, in which Adam is buried where the ground was taken for him to be formed. However, although it would be natural to assume that Eden was where this occurred, the narrative of Jubilees specifically has Adam formed outside Eden (3:9), where he lived for forty days before entering the garden. Thus, the location of Adam's burial and creation is left unspecified. Wherever the author of Jubilees imagined Adam's burial to take place, it was specifically not a sanctu ary, since the theological purpose of locating Adam outside Eden for forty days is tied to the notion that Eden was a sanctuary.
The tradition that Adam was buried in Jeru salem may well first appear in a Christian source, as it is reported in a fragment attrib uted to Julius Africanus. If the attribution is correct (a matter that cannot be certain given the late date of the source of the fragment), Julius Africanus may also be the earliest wit ness to a tradition of specifically locating Adam's burial in a known location. However, the location is simply Jerusalem. No specific site within the city is identified. Around the same time as Julius Africanus, Origen iden tified the site of Adam's burial as Golgotha. Both Origen and Julius Africanus claimed a 'Hebrew' origin for the tradition(s) that they reported. However, what that claim actually means, and the question of its authenticity are complicated matters and not immediately clear.
The GLAE (as attested by the critical edi tion of the Greek text) locates Adam's burial within Paradise. However, this text is par ticularly difficult to date. Although the most commonly used English edition of the Life of Adam and Eve texts dates it to the first century ce ( Johnson 1983: 249), subsequent scholarship has tended to date it much later, some time between the second and sixth cen turies ce. Furthermore, serious questions have been raised about whether the text is better understood as a Jewish text or as a Christian text making use of Jewish traditions and ele ments, with some weighty arguments now perhaps tipping the balance towards the lat ter (Tromp 1997;Nir 2004;Laato 2018). Subsequent versions of the Life of Adam and Eve, both in the Greek textual tradition and in the Latin version (Vita), contain elements that can be interpreted as though they pre suppose a temple context for Adam's burial, and thus perhaps a Mount Moriah setting. However, these additions almost certainly postdate the Golgotha tradition. Moreover, it is clear that they are modifications of an ear lier tradition of Adam's burial in Paradise. It is important to remember that, if the GLAE is a Christian composition, it might well utilise earlier Jewish traditions. Nevertheless, with out evidence, it is entirely speculative to date any such hypothetical preexisting traditions prior to the initial authorship of the GLAE.
The tradition of Adam's burial at Kiryat Arba (Hebron) is well attested in a number of lateantique rabbinic sources (b. Erub. 53a; Genesis Rabbah 58:4, 9; PRE 20.9). These texts and the traditions that they witness are notoriously difficult to date with precision. However, there is a datable Christian recep tion of the Kiryat Arba tradition in Jerome, who appears to genuinely report a Jewish tradition that must have already been in cir culation by the late fourth century ce. Other relatively late rabbinic sources locate the burial of Adam on Mount Moriah (Midrash Psalms 92:6; Pesiqta Rabbati 43:2; PRE 23, 31). Attempts to support an early date for the Mount Moriah tradition are problem atic, since no reliably datable evidence exists, and the citations from GLAE and Vita of ex amples of Temple imagery are complicated by text critical and tradition historical issues. While it is certainly possible that these late texts contain early traditions, a lack of evi dence renders attempts to project traditions attested only in late sources speculative. Thus, of the traditions of Adam's burial site that we have discussed, the Mount Moriah tradition may well have been the latest to appear.
What is the relationship, if any, between these traditions? It is difficult to imagine that all of these traditions were wholly inde pendent of one another, and that Jews and Christians who were interested in the ques tion of Adam's burial were not aware of the various other traditions that circulated. In fact, the evidence actually seems to indicate that there was awareness of the multiplicity of traditions about the location of Adam's tomb: Jerome knows both the Golgotha and the Kiryat Arba traditions, the later editors of the Life of Adam and Eve texts appear to know the tradition of Adam's Temple burial while using or editing a text that locates Adam's tomb in Paradise, PRE clearly witnesses both the Kiryat Arba and the Mount Moriah traditions, and Julius Africanus, for whom Jerusalem was the place of Adam's burial, knew the tradition attested in Jubilees that Adam was buried where he was created. I suggest that a nuanced perspective on the relationship of the traditions of the location of Adam's burial should recognise the phe nomenon of the development of traditions, sometimes including the combination of multiple traditions, as well as the phenom enon of the competition of traditions.
The suggestion offered by the various scholars discussed above that there may be polemic involved in the development of com peting traditions is insightful. Certainly, if we understand that there were different trad itions in competition with one another, as we see clearly in the writings of Jerome, for example, who knows both the Golgotha and the Kiryat Arba traditions, these traditions could have been born from polemic, or could have been employed for polemical purposes. For example, given the apparent relatively late dates of its attestation, it is at least plau sible that the Mount Moriah tradition arose in Jewish circles in late antiquity in response to the Christian use of a tradition of Adamic burial at Golgotha, which had become well known in Palestine by the fourth century ce, and to the incorporation of Golgotha into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. These sites also competed in other ways: Mount Moriah was, after all, seen as the centre of the world in Jewish tradition, 29 while for Christians, 29 Note, for example, the notion of Jerusa lem as the centre of the world in Second Temple literature ( Jubilees 8:19, in which Mount Zion is the centre of the world; Philo, Legatio ad Gaium 294), as well as the later Rabbinic concept of the Temple specifically as the centre of the world (for example, in the Tanhuma to Leviticus, Qedoshim 10).
this was Golgotha (see Alexander 1997). 30 That said, we need not understand the rela tionship of the Christian traditions of Adam's burial to the Jewish traditions of Adam's bur ial solely in terms of polemic or response. In some cases, the relationship is better charac terised as reception and development, as with Julius Africanus's use of the Jubilees tradition that Adam was buried where he was cre ated, with the development that the place in question was Jerusalem, and the subsequent development of Julius Africanus's tradition witnessed by Origen, locating the tomb spe cifically at Golgotha. The Kiryat Arba tradi tion may well have had polemic al value, as Gafni (2019: 42)  given his apparent dislike of the Golgotha tradition (see discussion below).

The reception of the Adamic Golgotha tradition in fourth-century Christian exegesis
Golgotha looms so large in early Christian imagination and memory that we cannot hope to cover every single reference to it in any depth in an article of this length. As such, this discussion will focus particularly on sources with Palestinian provenance or con nections. This will give us a more manage able dataset, and allow us to at least draw some broader inferences about Golgotha in the Palestinian tradition. It will also allow us to consider and examine the interaction and relationship between Christian and Jewish streams of trad itions specifically within Palestine. The Adamic Golgotha tradition first wit nessed by Origen is received and further elaborated in fourthcentury Christian writ ings. That interest was probably stimulated by the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the second decade of the fourth century, and by the visible prominence of the rock of Golgotha in the inner courtyard of the Holy Sepulchre compound. As the continued presence and use of the Chapel of Adam in the modern Church of the Holy Sepulchre witnesses, this tradition has become a fixed dimension of the commemoration of Jesus at this particular place. 31 A review of some of the key examples from the fourth century of this tradition will help us to better under stand the reception, development, and use of the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha in the age of Constantine and beyond.  mentions the Adamic Golgotha tradition in his polemical discussion of Tatian's belief that Adam can not be saved. 32 The course of this polemic (Panarion 46) leads Epiphanius to raise the Adamic Golgotha tradition in the theological context of his refutation of Tatian: And so we must be surprised at someone (like Tatian) who knows -as I too have found in the literature -that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified on Golgotha, nowhere else than where Adam's body lay buried. For after leaving Paradise, living opposite it for a long time and growing old, Adam later came and died in this place, I mean Jerusalem, and was buried there, on the site of Golgotha. This is probably the way the place, which means 'Place of a Skull', got its name, since the contour of the site bears no resemblance to a skull. … Why the name 'Of the Skull' then, unless because the skull of the firstformed man had been found there and his remains were laid to rest there, and so it had been named 'Of the Skull'? By being crucified above them our Lord Jesus Christ mystically showed our salvation, through the water and blood that flowed from him through his pierced side -at the beginning of the lump beginning to sprinkle our forefather's remains, to show us too the sprinkling of his blood for the cleansing of our defile ment and that of any repentant soul; and to show, as an example of the leavening and cleansing of the filth our sins have left, the water which was poured out on the one who lay buried beneath him, for his hope 32 Concerning Tatian on the salvation of Adam, see Peterson 2008: 125-58 (142-52). Tatian was a secondcentury Christian who was the author of the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four canonical Gospels. and the hope of us his descendants. Thus the prophecy, 'Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light', was fulfilled here. (Panarion 46.5.1-9) 33 In Epiphanius's estimation, the name 'Golgotha' cannot be explained by reference to the physical features of the place that was identified as Golgotha in the fourth century, and thus the name must refer to an actual skull (see Jacobs 2016: 144). As mentioned above, this passage appears in the course of a refutation of Tatian's stance on the salvation of Adam. 34 The potential soteriological sig nificance of the imagery of water and blood flowing from the side of the crucified Christ (5.7; cf. John 19:34; see also 1 John 5:6) at the very place where Adam lay buried is not lost on Epiphanius. Accordingly, he writes of the 'sprinkling' of the water and blood poured out from Christ on 'our forefather's remains' (5.8) as having 'mystically showed our salvation' (5.7). Moreover, the water 'poured out on the one who lay buried beneath' is 'an example of the leavening and cleansing of the filth our sins have left ' (5.8 Epiphanius relies heavily upon the Johannine theological tradition of the New Testament in his interpretation and reception of Gol gotha ( John 19:34; cf. 1 John 5:6), while also making reference to the Pauline tradition (Eph. 5:14;Pan. 5.9). This helps to develop the Adam-Christ typological interpretation of Golgotha in a new direction. Epiphanius, in whose day the rock of Golgotha was vis ible, granted literal theological significance as well as symbolic significance to the place of Golgotha as the site of the crucifixion as well as the place of the literal skull of Adam. As a result of his interpretation of Gol gotha as the place where Adam was buried and subsequently cleansed by the water and blood of Christ 'for his hope and the hope of us his descendants' (5.9), Epiphanius con siders Golgotha to be the place where the 'prophecy' of Ephesians 5:14 (' Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light' 35 ) was fulfilled. While Origen saw Golgotha's location as fitting for both the place of Adam's burial and Christ's crucifixion, its significance was mostly symbolic. For Epiphanius, by means of his reference to the Johannine water and blood tradition, the matter is more visceral. The water and blood shed from Christ's side were poured out on Adam's remains, exempli fying the redemptive effect of Christ's death for humanity and demonstrating, against Tatian, the salvation of Adam.
Epistle 46, written circa 386 ce by Jerome to Marcella in the name of his close associ ates in Bethlehem, Paula and Eustochium, mentions the Adamic Golgotha tradition in a form that is remarkably similar to that known by Epiphanius. It states, Tradition has it that in this city, nay, more, on this very spot, Adam lived and died. The place where our Lord was crucified is called Calvary, because the skull of the primitive man was buried there. So it came to pass that the second Adam, that is the blood of Christ, as it dropped from the cross, washed away the sins of the buried protoplast, the first Adam, and thus the words of the apostle were fulfilled: 'Awake, you that sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.' ( Jerome, Epistle 46.3) 36 Here, Golgotha again serves as a geo graphical point of contact between the mem ory of Christ and the biblical conception of Adam, as the place where Christ was cruci fied and where Adam was buried. The simi larities to Epiphanius's reception of Golgotha are notable. The notion of the blood of Christ falling on the remains of Adam and cleansing his sins and the fulfilment cita tion of Ephesians 5:14 are both present here. However, Jerome writes in his Commentary on Ephesians, I know that I have heard someone preach ing about this passage in church. As a theatrical marvel he presented a model never before seen by the people so that it was pleasing. He said of this testimony, that it is said that Adam was buried at Calvary where the Lord was crucified. The place was called Calvary [i.e. skull], therefore, because the head of the ancient man was buried there. At the time when the Lord was crucified, therefore, he was hanging over Adam's grave and this prophecy was fulfilled which says, ' Awake,' Adam, 'who are asleep and arise from the dead,' and not as we read, ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὁ Xριστός that is, 'Christ will rise like the sun on you,' but 36 Translation from Fremantle 1892: 61; on the date, see p. 60.
ἐπιψαύσει, that is, 'Christ will touch you.' That was because, of course, by the touch of his blood and hanging body Adam would be made alive and would arise. That type was also truly fulfilled at the time the dead Elisha awakened the dead. Whether these things are true or not I leave to the reader's decision. They were certainly pleasing at the time they were spoken among the peo ple who received them with applause and by stamping their feet. I mention one thing which I know: that understanding does not fit with the interpretation and coherence of this passage. ( Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 5:14) 37 This work is dated to 386-8 (Heine 2002: 7). 38 Thus, if there was a shift in Jerome's thinking on the Adamic Golgotha trad ition and its interpretation here, it must have come about in a relatively short period of time. LipatovChicherin has argued that the unnamed preacher was John of Jerusalem or one of his followers. Thus, the quick shift in Jerome's attitude can be attributed to his falling out with John of Jerusalem (Lipatov Chicherin 2019: 173-4). This offers one reasonable explanation for the dissonance between his Commentary on Ephesians and Epistle 46. However, another possibility is that Epistle 46 may represent the views of Paula and Eustochium on Golgotha, in whose name the letter is written, rather than those of Jerome (cf. Laato 2014: 174-8 Jerome states that he heard the Adamic Golgotha burial tradition and its connection to Ephesians 5:14 in a sermon in a church setting. This is significant in and of itself for the study of the transmission and reception of extrabiblical traditions in early Christianity. Common church gatherings and sermons could be settings for the popular oral trans mission of traditions, both antiquarian and exegetical. Several elements in common with Epiphanius' reception and interpretation of Golgotha/Calvary are constant here: the notion that the name of Golgotha is related to its status as the burial place of Adam, the belief that Christ's blood was poured out on Adam's remains to salvific ends, and that this fulfilled the tradition cited in Ephesians 5:14. Given these consistencies, it is reasonable to suggest that these common elements were a part of the form in which the tradition typic ally circulated in Palestine by the final quarter of the fourth century ce. The tradition of remembering the event of the crucifixion at Golgotha in light of Adamic Christology had made its way into the Syriac tradition by the midfourth cen tury, as seen in Ephrem the Syrian's Hymn on Virginity 16.10: 'Very sad was the Tree of Life that saw Adam hidden from him. Into the virgin earth he sank and was buried, but he arose and shone forth from Golgotha.' 39 The Commentary on Isaiah attributed to Basil of Caesarea (in Cappadocia) also con tains a number of extrabiblical traditions 39 Translation from McVey 1989: 332. concerning Adam, including some discussion about the Place of the Skull (Golgotha). 40 Even further afield, other references to Adam's burial at Golgotha dated to the fourth century are found in the works of John Chrysostom (Homiliae in Joannem 85 on John 19:16-18), and Ambrose (Expositio Evangelii secundum Lucam 10.114). Notably, Ambrose identifies 'the Hebrews' as the source of the Golgotha burial tradition, in agreement with Origen. The mere fact that this tradition is cited at all by these influential Christian thinkers based outside of Palestine speaks to how widespread it had become before the close of the fourth century. The notion that it stemmed from 'Hebrews' again highlights the perceived connection that this tradition has to Jewish sources. Whether or not the tradi tion actually stemmed from a 'Hebrew' source (i.e., from ethnic Jews or JewishChristians) is beyond the point here. The tradition was received, perhaps as a result of Origen's instan tiation of it, as having a 'Hebrew' source. This underscores the perception of the antiquity of the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha, as well as the Christian claim to the legacy of Adamic traditions.
It is striking that Golgotha is so strongly remembered in the early Christian trad ition in light of Paul, despite the fact that Golgotha is never mentioned in the Pauline texts of the New Testament. There are two ways in which the memory of Golgotha has been thoroughly coloured by Paul in the early Christian tradition: first, through direct refer ences to Pauline literature in Christian recep tion and interpretation of Golgotha, 41 and 40 On the authorship of the Commentary on Isaiah by Basil, see LipatovChicerin 1993: 42-8. 41 By 'Pauline', I mean to refer not only to the undisputed epistles, but the New Testa ment Pauline corpus in general, which were second, through the Christ-Adam typology in Pauline mode that infuses popular early Christian interpretation of Golgotha follow ing Origen. The tradition of tying Adam to the memory of Golgotha is clearly inspired and influenced by Paul's Adam-Christ typology (1 Cor. 15:21-2, 45-9; Rom. 5:12-21). By the midfourth century, Ephesians 5:14 had entered into the collective memory of Gol gotha. Despite its lack of mention of either Adam or Golgotha, both the nomenclature of the place and the Adam-Christ tradition came to be interpreted in light of it. This, in my opinion, represents an evolution of the collec tive memory of the site that gained in popu larity in the second half the fourth century, well after the traditional rock of Golgotha had been visibly incorporated into the pre cincts of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Ephesians 5:14 is mentioned in connection with Golgotha by PseudoAthanasius, 42 Epiphanius, Jerome, Paula and Eustochium, and by the unnamed preacher discussed by Jerome in his Commentary on Ephesians 5:14. The use of Ephesians 5:14 in connection with Golgotha is curious, given that it mentions neither Adam nor Golgotha. It does not even mention the crucifixion. The image is one of resurrection, and the 'sleeper' is identified as Adam, whose remains lie at Golgotha, and is redeemed by the blood of Christ who is cru cified in the same place, allowing for the hope of Adam's resurrection. to Adam in the fourth century, there is some evidence that indicates that visitors neverthe less made the connection for themselves. The Jerusalem Breviarius is a short pilgrimage guidebook to Jerusalem that postdates the fourth century in the two extant recensions (A and B) in which it has been preserved. However, when one compares the two recen sions, it becomes clear that they are both later recensions of an earlier text. John Wilkinson has convincingly reconstructed that earlier version of the Breviarius by subtracting the unique material added by both manuscript traditions (A and B), leaving only the base text, which is shared in common by the two (Wilkinson 2002: 3-4, 117-21). Based on its content, the base text is best dated to the late fourth century. This fourthcentury version of the Breviarius describes the area of Golgotha as it existed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre complex (Breviarius 2). According to the anonymous author, 'There Adam was formed. There the Lord was crucified'. 43 This is a curious variation on the Adam-Christ Golgotha tradition, since it identi fies Golgotha as the place where Adam was formed, but does not mention Adam's burial at the same site, though it does explicitly draw a parallel between Adam's formation and Jesus's crucifixion on the same spot.
This text needs to be understood in light of the earlier tradition that Adam was bur ied where he was formed, first attested in Jubilees 4:29, which states that 'all of his [Adam's] children buried him in the land of his creation'. 44 It also later appears in GLAE 40:6, which explicitly states that Adam (and Abel along with him) was 'buried according to the command of God in the regions of Paradise (Gk μέρη τοῦ παραδείσου) in the place from which God had found the dust' (see the discussion of this tradition above). If this was combined with the wellattested tradition already known in Christian circles by the third century that Adam was buried at Golgotha (see above), one would naturally come to the conclusion that Adam must also have been formed at the same place. This is one of the closest connections between Jewish and Christian Adam traditions in fourthcen tury Christian literature. It is thus very likely that the tradition that Adam was formed at the traditional site of Golgotha, located in the fourth century in the inner courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is witnessed here by the Jerusalem Breviarius, is a Christian reception and redeployment of the earlier Jewish tradition about Adam being buried where he was created. In this case, the relationship between the traditions at play is one of reception, development, and combination.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre: Jewish Adam traditions and Christian supersessionism in architectural form 45
The traditional site of Golgotha, along with the traditional site of Jesus's burial, were incorporated into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the reign of Constantine. Construction took place between 325 and 335, coinciding with the dates of Constantine's 45 The presentation of the architecture here is derived from a combination of the key archaeological studies of Coüasnon 1974;Patrich 1993;Gibson and Taylor 1994;ShalevHurvitz 2015: 43-77 bicennalia and tricennalia. The church con sisted of a large complex. Moving from east to west, a visitor would have entered from the Jerusalem cardo through a monumental entryway leading into an atrium. From the atrium, one would enter the Martyrion, an apsed basilica boasting a nave and four aisles, which was oriented from east to west. The apse featured twelve columns. Exiting the Martyrion on the west side via one of two gates just north and south of the apse, our visitor would come to a triporticoed inner courtyard. The Rock of Golgotha was dis played in the southeast corner of this court yard. Beyond the courtyard was the Anastasis, which was half of a 24sided polygonal, domed rotunda with small apses on the north, south, and west sides. Inside the Anastasis was a semicircular interior wall which cre ated an ambulatory space surrounding the Aedicule, a structure which was the focus of the entire complex. The Aedicule housed the remains of a rockcut tomb, which was (and still is) the traditional site of Jesus's burial and subsequent resurrection. On the surface, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre presents testimony in architectural form to the cruci fixion, burial, and subsequent resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. By moving through the structure beginning from its monumental eastern entrance off the cardo on the eastern end, one's journey would come to its comple tion at the Aedicule. Much like Solomon's Temple, which progressed in increasing sanc tity from the outer court through to the Holy of Holies, so too do the structures of the Holy Sepulchre progress in sanctity, terminating in the tomb chamber. It is important to consider what is miss ing from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. None of the official architecture or space in the church commemorated Adam or his burial in the fourth century. Architectural space devoted to Adam did not appear at the Holy Sepulchre complex until the time of Modestus, despite the popularity of the Adamic Golgotha tradition in the third and fourth centuries ce. As mentioned above, official Adamic commemorative space, in the form of the Chapel of Adam, probably first appeared at the time of Modestus in the seventh century ce. Thus, so far as the architecture is concerned, the Adamic tra dition is a late addition to the narrative. However, the Adam Golgotha tradition saw a rapid increase in popularity in the fourth century, which is almost certainly due to the renewed interest in Golgotha resulting from the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The preservation and further generation of Christological Adamic tradi tions connected to Golgotha were thus an unintended consequence of its construction, eventually resulting in the fixing of the tradi tion in the official memory of the site through the construction of the Chapel of Adam in late antiquity.
According to Eusebius, the 'New Jerusalem', by which he means the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, faced the Jerusalem of old, 'which after the murder of the Lord had been overthrown in utter devastation, and paid the penalty of its wicked inhabit ants' (Life of Constantine 3.33). This anti Jewish vitriol is an unfortunate instantiation of the reception of the New Testament pas sages which appear to place the blame for Jesus's death upon the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem, 46 combined with Jesus's predic tion of the destruction of the Temple (Mark 13:1-2; Matt. 24:1-2; Luke 21:5-6). The implication was that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was the successor to the Jewish Temple. The date of the dedication of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was the very same as the biblical date of Solomon's dedica tion of the original Jerusalem Temple (1 Kgs. 8, esp. vv. 1-2). 47 The selection of this particu lar date intentionally presented the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the successor to the Temple, and thus, the church as the heir to Jerusalem. The presentation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as the successor to the Temple was further bolstered by the fact that, as John Wilkinson has shown, it was built according to the plan of Ezekiel's vision of the heavenly temple (in Ezek. 40;Wilkinson 1993: 23-7 and1999: 62-4). Thus, it rep resented the 'triumph' of Christianity over Judaism and the ideology of supersession in architectural form.

Conclusion
The name of Golgotha, translated but not explained in the canonical New Testament, attracted exegetical interest in early Christian literature. By at least the third century, Golgotha was associated in Christian mem ory with the burial place of Adam. This asso ciation was facilitated by the nomenclature of the place where the crucifixion took place. The Adamic Golgotha tradition was widely disseminated in the fourth century, prob ably invigorated by the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
The relationship of the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha to Jewish traditions about Adam's final resting is a complicated matter. We have discerned several different trad itions about Adam's burial in both Jewish and Christian sources. As discussed above, the earliest extant tradition about Adam's tomb locates it at the place where Adam was cre ated, in Jubilees 4:29. Although the specific location is not given by the author of Jubilees, we can discern that it was not Eden, nor was it a sanctuary, and thus not the Temple, and probably not Mount Moriah. This early tradition that Adam was buried where he was formed found later reception in sources as diverse as Julius Africanus, the GLAE, and the earliest recension of the Jerusalem Breviarius. Assuming that the citation frag ment is authentic, the tradition that Adam was buried in Jerusalem, which is also where he was formed, is attested by Julius Africanus (second to third centuries ce). This trad ition develops further, so that Origen con veys a trad ition that locates Adam's burial specifically at Golgotha, indicating that the Golgotha tradition was in circulation by the third century at the latest. This trad ition is popularised and further developed exegeti cally and theologically in the fourth cen tury ce by various Christian authors and by the incorporation of the traditional site of Golgotha into the interior courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The tradition that Adam was buried in Paradise, which is where the dust was taken for Adam's for mation, is attested in GLAE, a text that is increasingly understood as a Christian com position making use of Jewish traditions and elements. The dates of this text and of the Paradise burial tradition are difficult to dis cern; plausible dates stretch from the second to sixth centuries.
By the late fourth century, a Jewish trad ition siting Adam's burial site at Hebron had emerged and was in circulation. Its first clear appearance postdates the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the fourth century and the earliest witness to the Adam Golgotha tradition in the third century.
Another Jewish tradition appears in later rab binic literature, which locates Adam's burial at Mount Moriah. The exact chronological relationship of these two traditions that are witnessed in the texts to the Golgotha trad ition or to the construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is uncertain, since it is hypothetically possible that these trad itions emerged long before the extant texts in which they first appear. However, we should recognise that these traditions were in com petition with the Golgotha tradition, which was symbolically represented by the visible presence of the traditional site of Golgotha within the Constantinian Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Moreover, the first datable appearance of the Kiryat Arba (Hebron) trad ition in the late fourth century, and its clear connection with Jewish heritage through Abraham and Sarah's burial place, does suggest that the Kiryat Arba tradition is likely to have functioned as a Jewish response or alternative to the Golgotha tradition and as a response to its Christological claims, including the Pauline Adamic Christology associated with Golgotha in third and fourthcentury Christian exegesis. Insisting on Adam's burial at the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs would have laid a Jewish claim to the legacy of Adam (and thus, humanity) while simultaneously undermining the power of the symbolism of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the tradition of Adam's burial that was alleged to take place on the spot where it was built.
For Christians, passages from Pauline epistles, naturally including the Adamtypo logy passages in 1 Corinthians 15:21-2, 45-9; Romans 5:12-21, played an important role in the way that Jesus was remembered in connection with the tradition of Adam's burial at Golgotha. However, Ephesians 5:14 was widely attached to the Adamic burial tradition at Golgotha, for reasons that are The Tomb of the Patriarchs at Hebron, Palestine. not immediately apparent. The association of Ephesians 5:14 with Golgotha is so strong that the evidence may suggest that this pas sage could have been utilised in the liturgical readings associated with Golgotha or with the Passion narrative. 48 Egeria, a Christian woman and author who travelled to Palestine on pilgrimage in the late fourth century, mentions in her itnerarium (travel diary) that there were readings from the letters of the apostles that took place at the commemora tive services at Golgotha (Itinerarium Egeriae 37.5), so this is certainly a possible explan ation for what is otherwise an enigmatic exe getical tradition.
The architecture of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre represents an innovation in the reception and memory of Golgotha. Through its architecture, it communicates supersessionist concepts, presenting itself as the eschatological New Jerusalem, the new Temple, triumphing over Jewish Jerusalem and its ruined Temple. In the mind of Eusebius and countless other Christians who visited the site in antiquity, the juxtaposition of this 'New Jerusalem' over against the ruins of the Jewish Temple was an instantiation of the Christian antiJewish accusation of the Jewish people as (in Eusebius's words) the 'murderers' of Christ, whose death was com memorated within the walls of that same 'New Jerusalem' through the inclusion of the traditional site of Golgotha within its inner courtyard.
Our investigation has revealed Golgotha to be a site of some significance for Jewish-Christian relations and for the development of competing traditions. Commemorative activity related to the site of Jesus's death at Golgotha could be potentially charged with antiJewish rhetoric and sentiments, 48 Thanks are due to Halvor Moxnes for this suggestion.
as we have seen in the form of Eusebius's 'New Jerusalem' ideology. Writing in the sec ond century, well before the construction of the Church of Holy Sepulchre, Melito, the bishop of Sardis, uses the traditional loca tion of Golgotha in the middle of the city of Jerusalem to further his rhetorical indictment of 'Israel', saying that Jesus was 'murdered' in the middle of Jerusalem specifically by 'Israel' (Peri Pascha 72,cf. 93,94). Egeria describes a commemorative Good Friday service that took place at the traditional site of Golgotha in the late fourth century (Itinerarium Egeriae 37.5-7), which revolved around public read ings of New Testament Passion narratives. These readings elicited an extreme emotional response, such that Egeria relates that 'there is no one, either older or younger, who on that day in those three hours does not bewail more than can be reckoned that the Lord has suffered those things for us' (Itinerarium Egeriae 37.7). 49 While Egeria's statement and description are not antiJewish in them selves, when we combine the sort of emo tional commemorative activity that Egeria describes surrounding the death of Jesus with the notion that Jews were the 'murderers' of Jesus, as we have seen in the writings of Melito and Eusebius, it is easy to imagine just how potent the resulting antiJewish rhetoric and symbolism could be. In light of this, the rise of competing locations for the burial of Adam in Jewish trad ition at either Hebron or Mount Moriah, over against Golgotha, makes very good sense. Even if these traditions arose prior to our earliestknown instantiations of the Golgotha tradition, or to the construc tion of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, they still could have, and probably did, 49 Translation from McGowan and Bradshaw 2018: 178. function as competing Jewish alternatives to the Golgotha tradition. The apparent circula tion of the Kiryat Arba tradition in the late fourth century probably functioned in this way, whether or not that was when it first emerged. As discussed above, these traditions did not appear nor circulate in vacuums, and there is good evidence that ancient authors could be aware of different Adamic burial traditions, and could use, develop, combine, or reject them to suit their purposes. The 'codification', so to speak, of the trad ition of Adam's burial at Golgotha through the construction of the Chapel of Adam within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during the time of Modestus in the seventh century (Taylor 1993: 132-4;Coüasnon 1974: 50;Jeremias 1926b: 78) could potentially be understood in part as another phase in the competitive traditioning process. Whereas the AdamGolgotha tradition had previ ously existed in oral and written form, with the construction of the Chapel of Adam, the oral and written Adam traditions crystallised and were given concrete, tangible witness in architectural form. While the traditional site of Golgotha existed in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre right from its construction, it was not until the construc tion of the Chapel of Adam in the seventh century that the tradition of Adam's burial was given 'official' architectural codification. This tradition has continued to capture the Christian imagination throughout the ages, whether through the iconography of the skull of Adam at the foot of Jesus's cross in artwork depicting the crucifixion from the medieval period on (Bagatti 1977), or through the ongoing use of the Chapel of Adam, which is visited by countless pilgrims to this day. In the words of Jonathan Z. Smith, 'In Jerusalem, story, ritual, and place could be one' (Smith 2010: 86).  Jordan J. Ryan, Ph.D., McMaster University 2016, is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Wheaton College, where he teaches in the Biblical Studies and Archaeology programs. He is a staff member of the Tel Shimron excavation, and has previously also been a member of the excavations at Magdala. His recent research has focused primarily on ancient synagogues and on early commemorative churches.