Bible Tours to the Garden of Gethsemane

The garden of Gethsemane was well known to the disciples of this time, as it is close to the natural route from the Temple to the summit of the Mount of Olives and the ridge leading to Bethany. As you can gather, the name in Hebrew means “oil press”. Oil is still pressed from the fruit today and is even used for the sanctuary lamps in Gethsemane and the pits used for making rosary beads, giving the garden a timeless and inspiring heritage. Beside the garden is the Church of All Nations, built over the rock on which Jesus is believed to have prayed in agony before he was betrayed by Judas Iscariot and arrested. About 100 metres north of the church is the Grotto of Gethsemane, where Jesus and his disciples often camped at night. In this natural grotto, it is believed, the disciples slept while Jesus prayed. A bible land tour through this rich and beautiful garden is sure to provide you with an experience for your soul as you walk around and take in these magnificent landmarks.

On your biblical land tour you can look just beyond a fence of iron tracery and see gnarled trunks of eight hoary olive trees creating a spiritual atmosphere for visitors on bible tours to the garden of Gethsemane. The present Gethsemane trees, however, were not standing at the time of Christ. The historian Flavius Josephus reports that all the trees around Jerusalem were cut down by the Romans for their siege equipment before they captured the city in AD 70. Research, reported in 2012, showed that three of the eight ancient trees dated back from the middle of the 12th century and all eight originated as cuttings from a single parent tree. The Gethsemane olive trees are quite possibly descendants of one that was in the garden at the time of Christ. This is because when an olive tree is cut down, shoots will come back from the roots to create a new tree. Whatever the datings of these ancient trees may be, the existent trees provide an immeasurable sense of what it was like in the time of Christ.

Take a Bible tour to the garden of Gethsemane, named in the New Testament as the place where Jesus went with his disciples to pray the night before he was crucified. “Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” And He took with Him, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed.” (Matthew 37-26:36) Sitting at the foot of the Mount of Olives, the tranquil garden has magnificent ancient olive trees that are producing olives to this day.