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Bible Dictionaries
Calvary
People's Dictionary of the Bible
or Calvary. This word occurs but once in the New Testament, Luke 23:33, A. V., to indicate the place of our Lord's execution. It is the adoption into English of the Latin word for "skull," answering to the Greek kranion, which is itself the translation of the Hebrew Golgotha. The R. V. reads, "the place which is called the skull." Some suppose it to be so named from the fact that, executions being performed there, skulls were found there. It is more probable that it was a bare round spot, in shape something like a skull; hence, perhaps, the notion that it was a hill. There is no topographical question more keenly disputed than whether the spot now venerated as the site of the holy sepulchre is really the ancient Golgotha or Calvary: the latest explorations do not support the tradition, but point to a site outside the walls of Jerusalem, near the so-called Grotto of Jeremiah.
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Rice, Edwin Wilbur, DD. Entry for 'Calvary'. People's Dictionary of the Bible. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/rpd/c/calvary.html. 1893.
