The Bethany Cave, Gethsemane, and the Tomb of the Virgin

THREE places on the Mount of Olives apart from the Eleona cave require special attention. The first of these, the Bethany Cave, is a very recent rediscovery and is not yet developed into a tourist site. The latter two have never been forgotten; they are more or less part of the same complex, and are visited by a great many people every year. On the Mount of Olives, especially on the side facing Jerusalem, there are a number of different Christian holy sites. It is important not to see them as a package; if one site is genuine, then it does not mean that all are, and vice versa: if one site was invented out of nothing much, then this should not predispose us to think that all the sites must be Byzantine inventions. In the case of the Bethany Cave, it is important to establish just what it was in the Byzantine period, because its identification has been lost over the centuries. This is not necessary in the case of the Gethsemane Cave and the Tomb of the Virgin.

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