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What if you could transport yourself back to the first century, walking the dusty streets of Jerusalem, late on Thursday night before Passover? And what if you were tagging along behind eleven men led by Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane? You'd leave the Upper Room and go deep into the Kidron Valley to the garden. There the temple police and a half-crazed crowd arrive brandishing torches. Jesus is taken to the palace of Annas and then to the High Priest Caiaphas. What insight do we gain from history, archaeology, and most importantly the New Testament about where they lived? In the morning Jesus would be sent to the Chamber of Hewn Stone. What was this place and why is it important to the Passion narratives? On to Pilate's Judgment Hall where new archaeological evidence questions its traditional location. You pick up the trail again on the Via Dolorosa and follow Jesus to Jerusalem's killing field. There you find the Savior dying on a Roman cross. In just a few hours you have followed him from the Upper Room to Joseph's tomb and have gained valuable insight into each stopover to help you on your own journey to Calvary.

Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general population who have seen a Jesus movie or an Easter play and remember Roman soldiers hammering the nails. However, for early Christians, the detail that Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers under the direction of a Roman governor threatened their desire for a stable existence in the Roman world. Beginning with the writings found in the New Testament, early Christians sought to rewrite their history and shift the blame for Jesus's crucifixion away from Pilate and his soldiers and onto Jews. During the second century, a narrative of the crucifixion with Jewish executioners predominated. During the fourth century, this narrative functioned to encourage anti-Judaism within the newly established Christian empire. Yet, in the modern world, there exists a significant degree of ignorance regarding the pervasiveness--or sometimes even the existence!--of the claim among ancient Christians that Jesus was executed by Jews. This ignorance is deeply problematic, because it leaves a gaping hole in our understanding of what for so long was the direct underpinning of Christian persecution of Jews. Moreover, it excuses from blame the venerated ancient Christian authors who constructed and perpetuated the claim that the Jews executed Jesus. And on an unconscious level, it may still influence Christians'understanding of Jews and Judaism.