Mount of Olives
The ridge east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron valley from the temple. Jesus rode into the city over it, taught and prayed on it in his last week, and according to Acts was taken up from it.
The Mount of Olives faces Jerusalem from the east; Zechariah describes it as “before Jerusalem on the east” (Zechariah 14:4). David went up it weeping when he fled from Absalom (2 Samuel 15:30). Jesus approached the city by way of Bethphage and Bethany, villages on the mount, and rode down it on a donkey (Mark 11:1; Luke 19:37). In his last week he sat on the mount opposite the temple and spoke of its destruction (Mark 13:1–3), and Luke says that he spent the nights there (Luke 21:37). After the last supper he went out to it, to Gethsemane, where he was arrested (Mark 14:26, 32, 46). Acts places the ascension on the mount, a Sabbath day’s journey from the city (Acts 1:9–12).
In the fourth century churches were built there. Eusebius says that the mother of the emperor Constantine raised one on the mount of the ascension (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 3.41–43), and the pilgrim Egeria describes services at a place on it called the Imbomon, “whence the Lord ascended into heaven” (Egeria, Itinerary 43.5).
What happened here
- AD 30 or 33, estimated dateJesus Enters Jerusalem
A few days before the Passover Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey from the Mount of Olives. Crowds spread cloaks and branches on the road and hail him with words from Psalm 118, as the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
- AD 30 or 33, estimated dateGethsemane and the Arrest
After the supper Jesus prays in distress at Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives while his disciples sleep. Judas arrives with an armed party and identifies him with a kiss. Jesus is seized and the disciples flee.
- AD 30 or 33, estimated dateThe Ascension
Luke reports that the risen Jesus, after telling his apostles to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, was taken up from the Mount of Olives and hidden by a cloud. Acts places this forty days after the resurrection.