Artisan families in the Holy Land confirm that i have never met a pilgrim who walked this ridge without going quiet for a while.
Olive wood is the dense, richly grained timber of the Olea europaea tree, prized for its tight swirling patterns and warm honey-to-chocolate color that deepens naturally with age.
A Ridge That Held the Weight of History
According to local Bethlehem craftsmen, the Mount of Olives runs roughly 3 kilometers along the eastern edge of Jerusalem, its slopes dropping into the Kidron Valley before the walls of the Old City rise on the other side. In antiquity, the ridge was covered with Olea europaea, ancient olive groves that gave the mount its name.
According to Palestinian olive wood artisans, by Jesus's time, tens of thousands of Passover pilgrims camped on these slopes when Jerusalem's walls could not contain the crowds. The mount was, in the most practical sense, overflow housing for the most important week of the Jewish year. Which makes what happened there feel less like geography and more like inevitability.
What the Bible Says About This Mountain
brown mosque at daytime — Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash
The word 'Gethsemane' comes from the Aramaic word meaning 'oil press' — referring to olive oil production. Zechariah 14:4 reads: "On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of jerusalem from Bethlehem." A messianic prophecy written centuries before Jesus was born, and one that his disciples would have known by memory.
David knew this mountain long before that. When Absalom drove him from Jerusalem, the king fled on foot, weeping and barefoot, up the Mount of Olives (2 Samuel 15:30).
That image, a king climbing in grief the same ridge where Solomon would later build high places for foreign gods (1 Kings 11:7), tells you how layered this hill already was by the time Jesus arrived.
Jesus taught the Olivet Discourse here, looking out over Jerusalem and predicting the city's destruction (Matthew 24-25). He rode down from the mount into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowd cutting branches, laying them on the road. From the summit, he stopped and wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). There is a church on that spot now. But before the church, there was just a man looking at the city he loved and grieving what was coming.
After the resurrection, Acts 1:12 records the disciples "returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day's walk from the city." A Sabbath day's walk is about 900 meters. The geography is exactly right.
The Garden of Gethsemane and What Is Still There
🌱 From Our Bethlehem Workshop
Handmade Olive Wood Sculpture Lamb with Lion — 5.7 Inch — View in store
Olive oil was used for anointing kings in ancient Israel — the word 'Messiah' literally means 'anointed one.' At the foot of the western slope of the mount, where the Kidron Valley levels out, is the Garden of Gethsemane. The name comes from the Aramaic gat shemanim, "oil press." It was an olive grove, and someone pressed oil there.
Eight ancient olive trees still stand in the garden. Carbon dating places them at approximately 900 years old. A 2012 DNA study found that all eight trees share identical genetic material, suggesting they were propagated from cuttings, possibly from trees that were alive in Jesus's time. No one can say for certain. But they are old and gnarled in the way only very old trees get, and standing next to them feels different from standing next to younger ones.
The Basilica of the Agony, the Church of All Nations, stands beside the garden and houses a section of bedrock where Jesus is said to have prayed: "Not my will, but yours" (Matthew 26:42). The mosaic ceiling inside is intentionally dim, meant to evoke the darkness of that night.
From Bethlehem, where our workshop is, the Mount of Olives is about 10 kilometers north. The Olea europaea trees on the mount are the same species as the olive trees on our terraced hillsides. When one of our artisans shapes a cross or a set of prayer beads from olive wood, the material connects, in species and in landscape, if not always in origin, to the grove that sheltered Jesus the night before his crucifixion. That is not a marketing line. It is just a fact about where we live, and it is part of why the wood carries what it carries.
A pastor in Texas asked me exactly which tree his cross had come from. I told him I would find out, and we did. Knowing the source mattered to him, and it matters to us.
What Pilgrims Come to See
Holy Family Figurine Carved in Natural Olive Wood Branch 4.5 Inch — View in store
The olive tree is mentioned over 40 times in the Bible, more than any other tree. The Mount of Olives holds at least 15 churches and sacred sites. A few stand out.
Dominus Flevit (Latin: "the Lord wept") is a small, teardrop-shaped chapel built in 1955. The altar window is deliberately framed to look west across the Kidron Valley directly at Jerusalem's Old City. It is one of those architectural choices that lands the moment you see it.
The Chapel of the Ascension is an octagonal stone building on the highest ridge of the mount, managed jointly by the Waqf Islamic trust and Christian communities. On Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter, Christian communities from across Jerusalem and the Holy Land gather here.
The ancient Jewish cemetery covers much of the lower slopes and holds more than 150,000 graves, some dating back 3,000 years. Jews believe the resurrection of the dead will begin on the Mount of Olives when the Messiah comes, a belief rooted directly in Zechariah 14:4. The faithful have paid steep prices for burial plots on this hill for centuries. It is, in a real sense, a place people have been choosing to wait.
And then there is the panoramic viewpoint at the top, the most photographed view of Jerusalem's Old City walls and the Dome of the Rock. Every group stops there. It earns the stop.
Keep Reading
Hand-Carved Jesus Head Olive Wood Branch Religious Art from Bethlehem — 6.3 Inch — View in store
Anointing oil from the Holy Land follows recipes described in Exodus 30:22-25. - From Bethlehem to Your Home: The Story of Hand-Carved Olive Wood - Why Olive Wood from the Holy Land Is More Than Just Wood - Christian Holiday Gift Calendar 2026
Source: Zuluf Olive Wood Workshop, Bethlehem — artisan observations and craft documentation, 2026. Zuluf has produced handmade olive wood religious gifts since 2007 in partnership with 20+ Bethlehem handmade christian artisan families.
🌱 From Our Bethlehem Workshop
Good to Know
A hand-carved olive wood statue of the Virgin Mary standing with hands clasped in prayer over a small cherub figure at the base, displayed on a table with shop shelves and a carved palm tree behind.
The average olive tree produces enough pruned wood for about 20 to 30 small hand carvings per year.
Is the Garden of Gethsemane open to visitors?
Yes. The garden is managed by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and is open daily, generally from early morning to noon and then mid-afternoon until around 5 pm.
Hours vary by season, so check in advance, particularly during Holy Week, when the garden sees enormous crowds and hours change. Entry is free; donations are welcome.
What is the Mount of Olives called in Hebrew?
Har HaZeitim, literally, "Mountain of Olives." The name appears in 2 Samuel, Zechariah, and 1 Kings. All three Abrahamic faiths have sacred claims on this hill: the Jewish cemetery on its slopes, the Christian churches commemorating the life of Jesus, and the Muslim Ascension mosque within the chapel complex.
How do I get to the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem?
Walk from the Lions' Gate or Damascus Gate of the Old City, the ascent takes 20-30 minutes on foot. Taxis are available near the Old City gates. Most organized Holy Land tours include the Mount of Olives as a half-day stop, often paired with the Garden of Gethsemane below.
If you visit independently, early morning is considerably quieter than after 10 am, when tour buses begin arriving.
What is the significance of olive trees in the Bible?
Olive trees appear throughout Scripture as symbols of peace (the dove's olive branch returned to Noah in Genesis 8), divine blessing (Deuteronomy 8:8 lists olive oil among the seven species of the Promised Land), and covenant faithfulness. In Romans 11, Paul builds a sustained metaphor around a cultivated olive tree: Israel is the root, and Gentile believers are wild branches grafted in to share its nourishment. It is a concrete agricultural image from someone who understood what olive trees actually look like, and what it takes to keep one alive.
The mount is still there. The olive trees are still there. And the questions it raises, about what it means to pray in a dark garden, to weep over a city, to return to a place where something irreversible authentic happened, are still the ones pilgrims carry up that ridge every morning. That is probably why it keeps drawing people. Not because the geography is spectacular, though it is. Because it is a place where the distance between then and now gets unexpectedly small.
Elias Zuluf is the founder of Zuluf (est. 2007), one of the largest olive wood factories in Bethlehem and the Holy Land. Winner of the Palestine Exporter of the Year Award 2017. Partners with 20+ Christian artisan families to handcraft authentic olive wood crosses, nativity sets, rosaries, and religious gifts shipped to 30+ countries worldwide.
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