Gethsemane in Jesus’s time was a working olive orchard with terraced groves and a cave press where olives were crushed and stored. Archaeological findings point to the Gethsemane grotto itself as a likely setting for Jesus’s anguished prayer in the New Testament, with his disciples resting outside among the trees. From its vantage across the Jerusalem temple, the site carried deep associations with sacrifice, light, and anointing. In this interview, Matthew J. Grey explores the history, symbolism, and gospel portrayals of the Garden of Gethsmane.
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The Setting and Location of Gethsemane
What does the word “Gethsemane” mean?
Most New Testament scholars agree that Gethsemane is a Greek transliteration of two Hebrew words—gath (meaning “to press” or “to crush”) and shemen (meaning “oil”)—that together refer to the location of an “oil press.”
This designation suggests that the place to which Jesus and his disciples retired after the Last Supper was an agricultural facility known for its production of olive oil.
According to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Gethsemane is the name of the place on the Mount of Olives where, during his final night in Jerusalem, Jesus prayed and suffered in anticipation of his approaching crucifixion.
Understanding the nature of this location can help modern readers of the New Testament imagine the first-century setting of the gospel narratives and more fully appreciate the significance of the events they describe.
What would the physical site of Gethsemane have looked like in Jesus’s time?
Based on a consistent profile from nearby archaeological sites, we would expect that the “garden” to which Jesus retired (John 18:1) was a terraced orchard of olive trees on the west slope of the Mount of Olives and that the Gethsemane where he prayed (Mark 14:32; Matthew 26:36) included a cave facility used for the crushing of the olives and the storing of the olive oil.
Terraced Olive Trees
There would have been a terraced orchard of olive trees along the sloping hillside of the Mount of Olives. This is where, during the fall harvest season, workers would have gathered the olives.
Oil Press Facility
There would also have been a facility in which the olives were pressed after being collected. These facilities typically included:
- A large basin and a grinding stone to crush the olives into a mash.
- A beam press to extract oil from the olive mash (which was contained in thin baskets placed under the press).
- A room to store jars filled with the newly pressed olive oil.
- A stepped bath (miqveh) was used by the Jewish workers so they could produce the oil in a state of ritual purity.
Because the oil supply needed to be protected from the fluctuating climate of the region (with its hot days and cold nights), these facilities were usually built indoors. In the Judean hill country, where Jerusalem is located, natural caves (or grottos) were often expanded and used for this purpose.
What is the Gethsemane Grotto?
The Gethsemane Grotto is a natural limestone cave located near the traditional site of Gethsemane that had been converted into a chapel by Christians during the Byzantine period (ca. fourth century AD) to commemorate the events of Jesus’s final night.
Excavations in the mid-twentieth century indicated that before its use as a chapel, the Gethsemane Grotto housed an oil press facility from the time of the New Testament. This observation provides compelling evidence that the place of Gethsemane mentioned in the gospels was indeed an agricultural site and helps us to better understand the physical setting of Jesus’s prayer, agony, and arrest.
Did Jesus Use the Gethsemane Grotto?
Given the presence of first-century oil production installations within the cave, it is possible—perhaps even likely—that the grotto played an important role in the gospel accounts of Jesus’s final hours.
It may, for example, be the place where the gospel writers envisioned Jesus’s disciples falling asleep or, alternatively, where they envisioned Jesus offering his prayer. If the latter, readers may be able to imagine Jesus praying and suffering among the dormant olive press installations within the cave while the disciples fell asleep among the rows of olive trees outside.
In either case, the presence of the grotto adjacent to the terraced orchard helps expand our understanding of the New Testament story in ways that go beyond its traditional depiction in biblical commentaries, art, and film.
What does the Gethsemane Grotto reveal about Jesus’s suffering?
The Gospels of Mark and Matthew state that Jesus went “into (eis) a place called Gethsemane” to pray (Mark 14:32; Matthew 26:36). If they were implying that Jesus offered his final prayers within the grotto where the dormant oil press implements were located, it may have been their way of heightening the reader’s sense of Jesus’s isolation in that moment by depicting him as being alone in a dimly lit cave as he wrestled with his coming fate (Mark 14:35–36; Matthew 26:39).
Such a setting would have recalled Old Testament episodes in which Israel’s kings and prophets withdrew to caves in moments of peril or uncertainty (e.g., 1 Samuel 22:1; 1 Kings 18:4; 2 Kings 25:4–5). By depicting Jesus in the grotto of the “oil press,” Mark and Matthew may also have been highlighting the nature of Jesus’s suffering there by depicting him “feeling heavy,” or “crushed” like the olives, as he felt the increasing weight of his messianic mission and committed to take his final steps toward fulfilling it (see Matthew 26:37–38).
Jesus was crushed under the weight of human suffering.
Interestingly, beyond the possible hints given by Mark and Matthew, ancient Christians did not tend to emphasize this connection between Jesus’s suffering and the pressing of olives that would have occurred in Gethsemane. However, within the Reformation tradition, many Christian commentators began viewing the image of Jesus being crushed in the “oil press” as symbolic of his suffering for the sins of humanity.
For such commentators, including Latter-day Saints (see Doctrine & Covenants 19:16–19; Mosiah 3:7), imagining Jesus praying in agony within the grotto—surrounded by the tools of the olive press—adds profound significance to the gospel narratives. Just as olives were crushed in the basin or beneath the beam press, Jesus was crushed in Gethsemane under the weight of human sins, sorrow, and suffering (see also Hebrews 2:18; 5:7–8; cf. Alma 7:11–12).
What did olive oil symbolize for first-century Jews?
In the biblical world, olive oil—like the kind produced at Gethsemane—was used extensively in daily life and religious ritual. For example, during the time of Jesus, oil was the primary source of light, being used as the fuel for handheld and household lamps. It was also used for:
- Healing (in its application as a salve for wounds).
- Food and dining (it being a stable of the ancient Mediterranean diet).
- Hygiene and hospitality (with scented oils being used with soaps).
- Preparing corpses for burial.
In addition to these uses in ancient daily life, olive oil played an important role in religious ritual. This included its use in the Jerusalem temple for lighting the lamps of the menorah, for accompanying various offerings, and for anointing priests as they began their service in the temple.
Another ritual application of olive oil was its use in anointing kings upon their coronation. This gesture came to inform messianic expectations in the time of Jesus, as many within the Jewish community anticipated the coming of a future messiah (Hebrew) or christos (Greek)—an “anointed one” sent by God to rule over a new kingdom.
Although none of these symbolic associations for olive oil are directly mentioned in the Gethsemane narratives, it is possible that some or many of them are implied by the gospel descriptions of Jesus praying and suffering in an “oil press” during the final hours leading up to his crucifixion.
This moment marked the culmination of his messianic mission, providing light and healing to humanity as he ushered in God’s kingdom on earth—over which Jesus himself would rule as the newly anointed king.
Why did Jesus go to Gethsemane instead of returning to Bethany that night?
The gospels aren’t explicit about why, after the Last Supper, Jesus and his disciples went to Gethsemane instead of returning to Bethany, where they usually stayed during visits to Jerusalem.
One explanation suggested by scholars is that, as pilgrims visiting the temple for the Passover festival, they were required by the Torah to spend the night of the Passover meal within Jerusalem’s city limits. Since Bethany lay outside those boundaries on the east slope of the Mount of Olives, the group may have used the orchard and grotto on the west slope as a temporary place of accommodation “within the city.”
This scenario fits well with the narratives in Mark and Matthew. Both gospels identify the Last Supper as a Passover meal and describe it as unusual that Jesus’s disciples spent the night in Gethsemane rather than in Bethany. (Luke and John, by contrast, suggest that Jesus and the disciples often retired to “the garden” on the Mount of Olives.)
If the Gethsemane grotto was indeed used by pilgrims for temporary lodging, it sheds light on the group’s experience there. Other caves in the region were also used for short-term occupation in the first century, especially by lower-class travelers who could not afford more expensive accommodations.
How did Gethsemane’s proximity to the Jerusalem Temple shape Jesus’s final night?
Because Gethsemane sits directly across the Kidron Valley, east of the Temple Mount, its location may have shaped Jesus’s experience there. The gospels do not state this connection outright, but their first-century readers may have recognized it.
On one level, the sight of the temple through the olive trees—illuminated by the full Passover moon—could have intensified Jesus’s awareness of his coming death. Like the lambs sacrificed at the temple, he would soon be offered for the deliverance of God’s people. The view may also have recalled his earlier prophecies that the temple itself would be destroyed.
On a more practical level, Gethsemane’s closeness to the temple raises another possibility. Its oil production facilities could have supplied the temple’s ritual needs or provided oil for pilgrims making offerings.
Either scenario enriches how we read the gospel accounts of Jesus’s final night.
Gospel Perspectives on the Gethsemane Narrative
How does each Gospel uniquely frame the events at Gethsemane?
Mark and Matthew
The two earliest gospels of Mark and Matthew (likely written around the 70s or 80s AD) describe Jesus and his disciples leaving the Last Supper and going “to a place called Gethsemane.”
When they arrive, Jesus asks his disciples to “stay awake and watch” while he goes off to pray. Jesus then “falls to the ground” and repeatedly petitions the Father to “remove the cup” of suffering, but he ultimately submits his will to God with the utterance, “not my will but your will be done.”
Meanwhile, Jesus’s disciples had drifted off to sleep, and the arresting party—led by Judas Iscariot—arrived to apprehend him. In these early accounts, we very much see the human side of Jesus as he is forced to accept his fate, wrestle with God’s will, and begin to take the final steps of his messianic mission.
Luke
The Gospel of Luke—the third gospel within the synoptic tradition (likely written in the late first or early second century AD)—retains much of the narrative structure found in Mark and Matthew, but makes some noticeable alterations.
This includes offering a softer portrayal of the disciples’ failures and an omission of the name Gethsemane. Most significantly, though, Luke adds the details that as Jesus prayed “in agony,” his “sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground” and an angel from heaven came “to strengthen him” (Luke 22:43–44).
To modern readers, these additions may seem to intensify Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’s suffering. This is, in fact, how Protestant readers have traditionally interpreted them. Ancient readers, however, may have understood the imagery differently. The Greek word for agōnia (“agony”), the description of “blood-like sweat,” and the appearance of the strengthening angel all echoed familiar motifs in Greco-Roman literature. Such imagery often depicted an athlete preparing to enter the arena to face a formidable opponent.
In Luke’s account, however, Jesus’s opponent is the forces of sin and death awaiting him on the cross.
John
The Gospel of John (also written in the late first or early second century AD) completely reframes the narrative of Jesus’s final night.
Rather than emphasizing Jesus’s prayer, suffering, or agony in Gethsemane (as do the synoptic gospels), John simply describes the arresting party approaching Jesus in “the garden.” There, John narrates an extraordinary encounter in which three times Jesus seems to evoke the divine name from Exodus 3:13 (I AM), forcing the arresting party (rather than Jesus) to fall on the ground (see John 18:1–8).
In doing so, John seems to have replaced a story of Jesus suffering in Gethsemane with a story highlighting Jesus’s divine identity, nature, and power, all of which are prominent characteristics of John’s gospel.
Why did Luke and John emphasize that Jesus routinely visited the Mount of Olives?
Whereas the gospels of Mark and Matthew only mention Jesus and the disciples visiting the site of Gethsemane on their final night together, the gospels of Luke and John suggest that this was a place where the group met often. This may be related to an interest of the latter two in highlighting Jesus’s divine nature.
Drawing upon several Old Testament prophecies of Yahweh (the God of Israel), one day appearing on the Mount of Olives to deliver his people, Luke and John may be suggesting that Jesus’s frequent sojourns on the slopes of the Mount—including the night before his crucifixion—at least partially fulfill these prophetic expectations.
Jesus, evoking the power of Yahweh, appears on the Mount of Olives as a symbol of coming deliverance. This message would especially make John’s reframing of the garden story a profound addition to his declaration of Jesus’s divine identity.
Archaeological Insights into Gethsemane
How did you develop your proposed reconstruction of Gethsemane?
In recent years, I have become increasingly interested in the findings of the only archaeologist who had the opportunity to excavate in the Gethsemane Grotto—a Franciscan scholar named Fr. Virgilio Corbo. Following a severe flooding of the grotto in the winter of 1955/1956, Corbo was asked by the Franciscan custodians of the site to remove the floor of the chapel and document his findings before the chapel was renovated. In addition to learning about the broader history of the grotto, Corbo found traces of the cave’s uses in the first century and concluded that it had indeed been used as an oil press facility during the time of the New Testament.
Drawing upon his limited and outdated reports, I compared his findings to more recently excavated olive press installations in an attempt to offer a tentative reconstruction of the grotto’s first-century features.
The results, I suggest, confirm Corbo’s claim that the site was used as an olive press and allow for tentative identifications of its crushing basin, beam press, storage room, ritual purity bath, and other features that would have been part of the facility in the time of Jesus. The proposed reconstruction I offer is a preliminary one, but it provides what I hope are useful and generally reliable insights into the nature of the first-century site.
What limitations do scholars face when reconstructing sites based on older excavation reports?
Unfortunately, Corbo’s documentation of his archaeological findings in the grotto was incomplete, and it is unlikely that modern archaeologists will have another opportunity to excavate the site (now restored to a functional chapel) in the foreseeable future. Therefore, any reconstruction of the cave’s first-century features is dependent on limited information and must remain tentative until future excavations can provide more data.
That being said, when we compare Corbo’s reports to the many oil press facilities that have been excavated in the region more recently, we can make reasonable suggestions—and even clarify or correct some of Corbo’s conclusions—that allow us to understand the site more clearly than previous generations.
Hopefully, future excavations, discoveries, and research will continue to refine this proposed reconstruction even further.
How did centuries of Christian pilgrimage physically change the Gethsemane site?
After Jesus’s experience in Gethsemane, the site likely retained its use as an oil press facility for several decades. This use, however, would have come to an end in AD 70, when the Tenth Roman legion besieged Jerusalem and—in the process—cut down all of the trees on the Mount of Olives to make their siege works. Subsequently, the orchard and grotto lay abandoned for over two hundred years.
Beginning in the fourth century and continuing through the Byzantine period, Christian pilgrims visiting Jerusalem had come to identify the grotto as a place associated with Jesus’s final night. To commemorate this association, they converted the first-century oil press cave into a chapel, complete with mosaic floors, a crypt, and liturgical furnishings.
For centuries, Christian pilgrims would visit the grotto and the nearby church (later rebuilt as the modern Church of All Nations) to recall Jesus’s prayer, agony, betrayal, and arrest. During later centuries, the grotto changed hands between Muslim landowners (who filled it with tombs) and the Crusaders (who reconverted it into a chapel).
Today, the recently renovated chapel remains a place revered by Catholic and Eastern Orthodox pilgrims, while Protestant tourists tend to focus their attention more on the nearby Church of All Nations.
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About the Scholar
Matthew J. Grey is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and coordinator of its Ancient Near Eastern Studies program. He earned his doctorate in ancient Mediterranean religions from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a focus on archaeology, early Judaism, and New Testament studies. For more than two decades, he has participated in archaeological excavations across Israel, Jordan, and Italy, including work as a field supervisor at the Huqoq synagogue excavation in Galilee. His research has been published by Oxford University Press, Brill, and De Gruyter, and his recent book, A Place Called Gethsemane: Seeing the New Testament Story and Site in Its First-Century Context (Deseret Book), explores the physical and spiritual setting of Jesus’s final night.
Further Reading
- Did Herod the Great Claim to Be the Messiah?
- Did the Jerusalem Temple Have Treasures?
- Does Atonement Theology Matter to Latter-day Saints?
- What Does the Book of Mormon Teach About Atonement?
- How Did Joseph Smith Use Hebrew in the Book of Abraham?
Gethsemane in Early Christianity
- A Place Called Gethsemane: Seeing the New Testament Story and Site in Its First Century Context (Deseret Book)
- The Gethsemane Grotto (Y Religion)
- Remains Found at Gethsemane (Biblical Archaeology Society)
- Researchers Unearth Ritual Bath Dated to Jesus’s Time Near Garden of Gethsemane (Smithsonian Magazine)
- Gethsemane at the Time of Jesus (Messages of Christ)
