Christianity's 1,000-Year Mistake

There’s no turning back now: Christian pilgrims have been walking the Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa, for more than 1,000 years—but a leading archaeologist says they’re going the wrong way. For a millennium, pilgrims have trekked from the Antonia Fortress in north Jerusalem, where Jesus was tried by Pontius Pilate, to Calvary, supposedly tracing the route that Jesus carried the cross. Shimon Gibson, an archaeologist at University College London, has recently surveyed the Fortress and deduced that it was too small for the trial, which most likely took place near Jaffa Gate instead. Similarly, Gibson contends, Golgotha—the Rock of Calvary—is simply too unspectacular to have been logical, and that Christ’s crucifixion probably took place at a nearby site.