HKB
in the Hebrew, or in the dialect spoken by the Hebrews of Palestine, is evident from the following particular points, noticed by Dr. Isaac M. Wise, a learned Hebrew scholar:
The Mark and Matthew narrators call the place of crucifixion "Golgotha," to which the Mark narrator adds, "which is, being interpreted, the place of skulls." The Matthew narrator adds the same interpretation, which the John narrator copies without the word "Golgotha," and adds, it was a place near Jerusalem. The Luke narrator calls the place of crucifixion "Calvary," which is the LATIN Calvaria, viz., "the place of bare skulls." Therefore the name does not refer to the form of the hill, but to the bare skulls upon it*.[525:1] Now "*there is no such word as GOLGOTHA anywhere in Jewish literature, and there is no such place mentioned anywhere near Jerusalem or in Palestine by any writer; and, in fact, there was no such place; there could have been none near Jerusalem. The Jews buried their dead carefully. Also the executed convict had to be buried before night. No bare skulls, bleaching in the sun, could be found in Palestine, especially not near Jerusalem. It was law, that a bare skull, the bare spinal column, and also the imperfect skeleton of any human being, make man unclean by contact, and also by having either in the house. Man, thus made unclean, could not eat of any sacrificial meal, or of the sacred tithe, before he had gone through the ceremonies of purification; and whatever he touched was also unclean (Maimonides, Hil. Tumath Meth., iii. 1). Any impartial reader can see that the object of this law was to prevent the barbarous practice of heathens of having human skulls and skeletons lie about exposed to the decomposing influences of the atmosphere, as the Romans did in Palestine after the fall of Bethar, when for a long time they would give no permission to bury the dead patriots. This law was certainly enforced most rigidly in the vicinity of Jerusalem, of which they maintained "Jerusalem is more holy than all other cities surrounded with walls," so that it was not permitted to keep a dead body over night in the city, or to transport through it human bones. Jerusalem was the place of the sacrificial meals and the consumption of the sacred tithe, which was considered very holy (Maimonides, Hil. Beth Habchirah, vii. 14); there, and in the surroundings, skulls and skeletons were certainly never seen on the surface of the earth, and consequently there was no place called "Golgotha," and there was no such word in the Hebrew dialect. It is a word coined by the Mark narrator to translate the Latin term "Calvaria," which, together with the crucifixion story, came from Rome. But after the Syrian word was made, nobody understood it, and the Mark narrator was obliged to expound it."[526:1]