Editing Akeldama

{{Short description|Historic site in Jerusalem}}
{{For|the album by The Faceless |Akeldama (album)}}
{{See also|Potter's field}}
{{Infobox cemetery
| name         = Akeldama
| native_name  = 𐡇𐡒𐡋 𐡃𐡌𐡀  
| image        = חקל דמא, מבט מגשר הסינמטק.JPG
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| alt          = 
| caption      = 
| map_type     = Jerusalem
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| established  = 
| abandoned    = <!-- or | closed = -->
| location     = [[Jerusalem]]
| coordinates  = {{coord|31.76841|N|35.23288|E|region:IL|display=ti|format=dms}}

| type         = [[Potter's field]]
| style        = 
| owner        = [[St. Onuphrius Monastery]]
| size         = 
| graves       = 
| interments   = 
| cremations   = 
| leases       = 
| website      = 
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}}
[[File:Akeldama (12780084274).jpg|thumb|200px|right|Aceldama: [[St. Onuphrius Monastery]].]]
'''Akeldama''' (Aramaic: חקל דמא or 𐡇𐡒𐡋 𐡃𐡌𐡀 ''Ḥaqel D'ma'', "field of blood"; Hebrew: חקל דמא; Arabic: حقل الدم, ''Ḥaqel Ad-dam'') is the [[Aramaic]] name for a place in [[Jerusalem]] associated with [[Judas Iscariot]], one of the original [[twelve apostles]] of [[Jesus]].

==Variant transliterations==
Most English-language versions of the Bible transliterate the term as ''Akeldama'' (e.g. [[American Standard Version]] (ASV), [[English Standard Version]] (ESV), [[Good News Translation]] (GNT), [[Modern English Version]] (MEV), and [[New International Version]] (NIV)) or as ''Akel Dama'' ([[New King James Version]] (NKJV) and 1599 [[Geneva Bible]]). ''Aceldama'' is used by the [[King James Version]] (KJV), [[Darby Bible]] and [[Wycliffe Bible]]. ''Hakeldama'' is used by the [[Common English Bible]] (CEB), [[New Revised Standard Version]] (NRSV) and [[Orthodox Jewish Bible]] (OJB), whilst the [[Complete Jewish Bible]] (CJB) uses ''Hakel-D'ma''. The [[Jerusalem Bible]] has ''Hakeldama'' but uses the English translation ''Bloody Acre'' in place of ''Field of Blood'', which is otherwise consistently used as the English translation. In [[Koine Greek|Greek]], it is called Ἁκελδαμάχ (''Hakeldamach'').<ref>All translations of Acts 1:19 except Jerusalem Bible taken from [[BibleGateway.com|biblegateway.com]], accessed 31 July 2015</ref> 

==New Testament connection==
{{further|Judas Iscariot#Death}}
Christian tradition connects the place with Judas Iscariot, who betrayed [[Jesus]] for 30 pieces of silver. There are two accounts of his death.

The [[Gospel of Matthew]] describes how Judas returned the money to the Temple authorities before hanging himself. Deeming it as blood money, and therefore illegal to put into their treasury, they used it instead to buy a field as a burial ground for foreigners: thus the place gained the name "the Field of Blood" ({{bibleverse|Matthew|27:7}}, and possibly with allusions to {{bibleverse|Zechariah|11:12–13}} and {{bibleverse|Jeremiah|18:2–3}} and {{bibleverse|Jeremiah|32:6–15}}).

According to the [[Acts of the Apostles]] ({{bibleverse|Acts|1:18–19}}) Judas "acquired a field with the reward of his unjust deed, and falling headfirst he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out. This became known to all who lived in Jerusalem, so that in their own language they called that field Hakeldama, that is, 'Field of Blood.{{'-}}"

The implication in Matthew is that the location name refers to the blood of Jesus, whereas in Acts the name refers to the blood of Judas.<ref>Arie W. Zwiep, ''Judas and the choice of Matthias: a study on context and concern of Acts 1:15–26'' (Mohr Siebeck, 2004) page 150.</ref> 
[[Barnabas Lindars]] holds the Acts narrative to be prior, and that although the incident is not created out of the Old Testament passages the text of [[Book of Zechariah|Zechariah]] 11:12ff is "freely used to fill up the gaps in the story ... to the early Christian exegetes a perfectly legitimate [[wikt:hermeneutical|hermeneutical]] procedure".<ref>Barnabas Lindars, ''New Testament Apologetic'', London, 1961, p122</ref>

According to [[I. Howard Marshall|Ian Howard Marshall]], Acts may be recording the (inaccurate) story as told within Jerusalem.<ref>I Howard–Marshall, ''Acts'', Tyndale, 1980, pp 64–65</ref>

===Identification===
In his ''[[Onomasticon (Eusebius)|Onomasticon]]'' (ed. Klostermann, p.&nbsp;102, 16), [[Eusebius]] says the "field of Haceldama" lies nearer to "[[Tophet|Thafeth]] of the [[Gehenna|Valley of Ennom]]". But under the word "Haceldama" (p.&nbsp;38, 20) he says that this field was pointed out as being "north of [[Mount Zion|Mount Sion]]". [[St. Jerome]] changed this to "south of Mount Sion" (p.&nbsp;39, 27).

==History==
[[File:Aceldama.png|thumb|right|200px|The monastery at Aceldama in the 1870s, from ''[[Picturesque Palestine]]'']]
[[Image:Aceldama PA180083.JPG|thumb|200px|The monastery at Akeldama.]]
It continued to be used as a burial place for non-Jews up to the early 19th century.<ref name="CE">{{CathEncy|wstitle=Haceldama}}</ref>

===Crusader period===
During the era of the [[Crusades]], it was used to bury the fifty or more patients who died each day in the hospital run by the [[Knights Hospitaller]] in Jerusalem.<ref>Adrian J. Boas, ''Archaeology of the military orders'', (Taylor & Francis, 2006) page 49.</ref>

In the 12th century, the [[crusade]]rs erected beyond the field, on the south side of the valley of Hinnom, a large building now in a ruined condition, measuring seventy-eight feet in length from east to west, fifty-eight feet in width and thirty in height on the north. It is roofed and covers towards the southern end several natural grottoes, which were once used as sepulchres of the Jewish type, and a ditch is hollowed out at the northern end which is sixty-eight feet long, twenty-one feet wide and thirty feet deep. It is estimated that the bones and rubbish accumulated there form a bed from ten to fifteen feet thick.<ref name="CE" />

===Ottoman period===
Akeldama has been the property of the [[Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem]] since the 16th century.<ref name="CE" />

[[Image:Aceldama PA180088.JPG|thumb|200px|St. Onuphrius Monastery: close-up of the entrance. Above the doorway is a stone carving of St. Onuphrius bowing to an angel. Noticeable are his long beard, the fact that he is naked except for leaves around his loins and his legs.]]

In 1892 the [[Greek Orthodox Church]] built [[St. Onuphrius Monastery|a monastery]] at the site, named after Saint [[Onuphrius]]. Many burial caves have been identified in and around the monastery.

==The Akeldama tombs==
One of Jerusalem's main cemeteries during the [[Second Temple period]] is a burial complex carved into dense limestone bedrock of a steep slope descending into the meeting point of the Hinnom and Kidron Valleys, 90 meters east of the monastery wall.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Baruch |first1=Yuval  |last2=Wiegmann |first2=Alexander  |date=2013 |title=New Discoveries Concerning Jewish Burial Caves from the Second Temple Period in Jerusalem |journal=Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=429–451 |doi=10.1628/219222713X13874428011246}}</ref> They were first systematically studied in 1901.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Macalister |first1=RA Stewart|date=1901 |title=The Rock-Cut Tombs in Wady er-Rababi, Jerusalem |journal=[[Palestine Exploration Quarterly]] |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=145–158 |doi=10.1179/peq.1901.33.2.145 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2217077}}</ref> In 1989 a construction project was halted when bulldozers revealed the presence of burial caves cut into the rocks; construction was halted, and the [[Israel Antiquities Authority]] allowed archaeologists to investigate.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Avni |first1=Gideon |last2=Greenhut |first2= Zvi |date=1996  |title=The Akeldama tombs: three burial caves in the Kidron Valley, Jerusalem |url=http://www.centuryone.com/9789654060189.html |publisher=[[Israel Antiquities Authority]] |pages=129 |isbn=9789654060189}}</ref><ref>[http://www.antiquities.org.il/site_Item_eng.asp?id=168 Akeldama], Israel Antiquities Authority website, accessed 25 September 2018</ref>

The ''Tomb of the Shroud'' in Akeldama is "one of very few examples of a preserved shrouded human burial" dating to the first century, with the bone samples yielding evidence of the pathogens ''[[Mycobacterium tuberculosis]]'' and ''[[Mycobacterium leprae]]'', the latter being "the earliest case of leprosy with a confirmed date in which ''M. leprae'' DNA was detected".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Matheson |first1=Carney D.  |last2=Vernon |first2=Kim K.  |date=2009 |title=Molecular Exploration of the First-Century Tomb of the Shroud in Akeldama, Jerusalem |journal=[[PLoS One]] |volume=4 |issue=12 |pages=e8319 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0008319 |pmid=20016819 |pmc=2789407 |bibcode=2009PLoSO...4.8319M |doi-access=free }}</ref>

== See also ==
* [[Language of Jesus]]
* [[St. Onuphrius Monastery]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons}}
{{EBD poster|Haceldama}}
* [https://madainproject.com/akeldama Akeldama (includes a list of tombs with photographs)], Madain Project
* {{EBD|wstitle=Aceldama}}
* [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07103b.htm CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Haceldama]
* [http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=726&letter=A&search=akeldama "Aceldama"] in ''[[The Jewish Encyclopedia]]'' (1906)
* Avi Mashiah and Tamar Nativ, [http://www.iaa-conservation.org.il/Projects_Item_eng.asp?subject_id=10&site_id=3&id=133 Akeldama: The Conservation of a Crusader Burial Structure], [http://www.antiquities.org.il/home_eng.asp Israel Antiquities Authority Site] - [https://web.archive.org/web/20140626044723/http://iaa-conservation.org.il/index_eng.asp Conservation Department]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Buildings and structures in Jerusalem]]
[[Category:Cemeteries in Jerusalem]]
[[Category:Judas Iscariot]]
[[Category:New Testament places]]
[[Category:Tombs of apostles]]