Language Studies

Aramaic Thoughts

Aramaic in Mark - Part 2

In Mark 15:22, Mark identifies the place where Jesus was crucified as "Golgotha, which means place of a skull (Gk: kranion)." The identical identification is made in Matthew 27:33. Luke identifies is simply as "the place that is called The Skull" (23:33), using only the Greek. John also identifies the place as "the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha" (19:17). The Aramaic word gulgoltha is the equivalent of the Hebrew word gulgolet.

Given the translation "skull" that is found almost universally in English versions (ESV, NLT, HCSB, NIV, RSV, KJV, NKJV, etc.) the place is usually identified as a "low skull-shaped mound) outside the walls of Jerusalem (Swete, Mark, 379). But, given that the Hebrew word is used in the Old Testament, and that the Aramaic word appears in the Targumic versions of the Old Testament, it may be of some help to see how the word is used in the Old Testament before we concur too quickly with the usual identification.

The Hebrew word gulgolet appears in Judges 9:53, where it refers to the death of Abimelech: "And a certain woman threw an upper millstone on Abimelech’s head (Hebrew ro’sh—the usual word for head) and crushed his skull. In 2Kgs 9:35, it refers to part of the remains of Jezebel: "But when they went to bury her, they found no more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands." In 1 Chronicles 10:10, it refers to Saul, when the Philistines put "his head in the temple of Dagon." Those are the only places gulgolet is used where it could conceivably be translated "skull." Every other place where it is used (Exodus 16:16; 38:26; Numbers 1:2,18, 20,22; 3:47; 1 Chronicles 23:3,24) it is used in the sense of "a person counted." Hence, the ESV for example, translates gulgolet in each case as "person" or "head" or "individual." In two of the three apparently exceptional cases (Jdg 9:53,1 Chronicles 10:10), the translation "head" is more apt than "skull," since in neither case was it the naked, dried skull that was involved, but rather the head of the individual. Even in 2Kgs 9:35, the reference is probably to the head of Jezebel, which would certainly have been mutilated, but was not reduced to nothing more than the bare cranium.

This raises the legitimate question as to whether, by the name Golgotha, the gospel writers (and the first century inhabitants of Jerusalem) meant a roughly skull-shaped mound. In his commentary on Mark, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross, Robert H. Gundry, argues that the name actually refers to a polling places, that is, a place where heads are counted. To bolster this view, he points out that the Hebrew word paqad (to count, to appoint, to muster) is used regularly with gulgolet in the Old Testament. Further, this use of gulgoltha is found in a number of places in the rabbinic literature. Also based on the rabbinic literature, there seems to have been such a polling place located on the Mount of Olives. Since the Mount of Olives was located outside the city of Jerusalem to the east, it would also fit with the description clear from the gospels that Jesus was crucified outside of the city.

While this conclusion is not definite, and is contrary to the received wisdom on the location of the crucifixion, it is nonetheless an intriguing possibility to consider.

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