The Garden of Gethsemane

A brief history

Gethsemane lies at the foot of the Mount of Olives, across the Kidron valley from the Old City. The name comes from the Aramaic for an oil press, and the gospels place Jesus’ agony and arrest in a garden here on the night before the crucifixion. What is on the ground is an olive grove beside the Church of All Nations. The grove is genuinely ancient, but no olive tree standing today can be shown to have been there in the first century, and the guide does not claim otherwise.

An interesting detail

The garden is a short walk from four churches this guide documents separately — All Nations, Mary Magdalene, Dominus Flevit and the Tomb of the Virgin — which is why the Mount of Olives is the densest slope in the directory.