{"id":1791,"date":"2023-02-02T20:48:31","date_gmt":"2023-02-02T19:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2025-06-11T09:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T07:56:37","slug":"likely-olive-press-in-gethsemane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/likely-olive-press-in-gethsemane\/","title":{"rendered":"Likely Olive Press in Gethsemane"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Likely Olive Press in Gethsemane<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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A ritual bath from the Second Temple period was recently found in Gethsemane by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The authority states that there was probably some kind of olive press for making oil in the area.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Archaeologist Amit Re\u2019em next to the ritual bath. Photo: IAA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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G<\/span>ethsemane is the garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem where Jesus and his disciples prayed the night before Jesus\u2019 crucifixion. The name comes from the Hebrew words Gat (press) Shemanim (oils) and can be translated olive press. According to the Gospel of Luke 22:44, Jesus\u2019 anguish in Gethsemane was so great that \u201chis sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gethsemane was an important destination for early Christian pilgrims. In his work Onomastikon (which is traditionally dated before the year 324), the historian and theologian Eusebius of Caesarea states that Gethsemane was located at the foot of the Mount of Olives. He added that the Christians were in the habit of going there to pray. A ritual bath from the period of the Second Temple was found a few years ago in what may be the olive grove where Jesus spent his last night of anguish and accepted his mission before being arrested and then crucified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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First 2000-year-old find<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In December 2020 the Times of Israel wrote that the discovery of the ritual bath may mark the first find from the Gethsemane in the New Testament. The Second Temple-era ritual bath found at the site is the first evidence linking the site to the period when Jesus lived.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time, we have archaeological evidence that something was here during the Second Temple period in the days of Jesus\u201d, said Israel Antiquities Authority\u2019s Jerusalem director Amit Re\u2019em to the newspaper. \u201cThe find points to the possibility of an oil press at the site, which seems consistent with the New Testament name of the place. During the time when Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem, Gethsemane would have been a field outside the walls of the city, full of olive trees, at the foot of the Mount of Olives.<\/p>\n

Ritual baths from the Second Temple period are not particularly unusual for archaeologists to find. \u201cThere are dozens of similar baths in the land of Israel \u2014 if not hundreds\u201d, Re\u2019em told The Times of Israel. \u201cBut this ritual bath, also known as a mikveh, represents the first physical archaeological evidence of the traditional site of Gethsemane,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Probably an oil press<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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According to Amit Re\u2019em, there was likely some kind of olive press, for producing oil in the middle of the field, but so far this had not been discovered. Re\u2019em tentatively said that the discovery of the ritual bath outside the walls of Jerusalem \u2013 that is, not in a residential area \u2013 points to an implicit need for ritual purity.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Jewish law, you must be purified before you produce wine or olive oil\u201d, Re\u2019em said, \u201cso it is very likely that during the time of Jesus there was an oil press at this place.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery of the bath occurred during the construction of a tunnel to link the modern Church of the Nations to the Kidron Valley in the prospect of a new visitor center. Since then, the Israel Antiquities Authority and students from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum have conducted and completed salvage excavations at the site.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Likely Olive Press in Gethsemane A ritual bath from the Second Temple period was recently found in Gethsemane by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The authority states that there was probably some kind of olive press for making oil in the area. Archaeologist Amit Re\u2019em next to the ritual bath. Photo: IAA Gethsemane is the garden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historic-flashback","category-did-you-know"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.israelreport.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}