lace of bare skulls_." Therefore the name does
not refer to the form of the hill, _but to the bare skulls upon
it_.[525:1] Now "_there is no such word as GOLGOTHA anywhere in Jewish
literature, and there is no such place mentioned anywhere near Jerusalem
or in Palestine by any writer_; and, in fact, there was no such place;
there could have been none near Jerusalem. The Jews buried their dead
carefully. Also the executed convict had to be buried before night. No
bare skulls, bleaching in the sun, could be found in Palestine,
especially not near Jerusalem. _It was law, that a bare skull, the bare
spinal column, and also the imperfect skeleton of any human being, make
man unclean by contact, and also by having either in the house._ Man,
thus made unclean, could not eat of any sacrificial meal, or of the
sacred tithe, before he had gone through the ceremonies of purification;
and whatever he touched was also unclean (Maimonides, Hil. Tumath Meth.,
iii. 1). Any impartial reader can see that the object of this law was to
prevent the barbarous practice of heathens of having human skulls and
skeletons lie about exposed to the decomposing influences of the
atmosphere, as the Romans did in Palestine after the fall of Bethar,
when for a long time they would give no permission to bury the dead
patriots. This law was certainly enforced most rigidly in the vicinity
of Jerusalem, of which they maintained "Jerusalem is more holy than all
other cities surrounded with walls," so that it was not permitted to
keep a dead body over night in the city, or to transport through it
human bones. Jerusalem was the place of the sacrificial meals and the
consumption of the sacred tithe, which was considered very holy
(Maimonides, Hil. Beth Habchirah, vii. 14); there, and in the
surroundings, skulls and skeletons were certainly never seen on the
surface of the earth, and consequently there was no place called
"_Golgotha_," and there was no such word in the Hebrew dialect. It is a
word coined by the Mark narrator to translate the Latin term
"_Calvaria_," which, together with the crucifixion story, _came from
Rome_. But after the Syrian word was made, nobody understood it, and the
Mark narrator was obliged to expound it."[526:1]

In the face of the arguments produced, the crucifixion story, as related
in the Gospels, cannot be upheld as an historical fact. There exists,
certainly, no rational ground whatever for the belief that the affair
took place _