And they took Jesus and led Him away, and carrying the cross by Himself, He went out to the place called Place of a Skull (which is called in Hebrew 'Golgotha'), where they crucified Him, and with Him two others: on this side and on that side, but in the middle Jesus.Nowadays, it is common to assume that the Golgotha of the Gospels was a sort of hill located a good distance from the hustle-and-bustle of Jerusalem (hence the common appellation: ‘Mount Calvary’). Many artists and filmmakers have followed suit: sometimes to the extent of showing it as a very high and steep ridge, as Mel Gibson does in his famous film The Passion of the Christ. There are even hymns entitled There is a Green Hill Far Away or On Golgotha's Hill Christ the Son.
- John 19:16b-18
Close reading of the Gospel accounts themselves however do not say anything about the location, whether it was a hill – or for that matter, that the ‘Skull Place’ was an elevated area at all; they all just say something to the effect that it was a “place (Greek topos) called ‘Skull’.” This may be one of the cases where popular conception can color our reading of the Scriptures.
