from
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
Gethsemane
oil-press, the name of an olive-yard at the foot of the Mount of
Olives, to which Jesus was wont to retire (Luke 22:39) with his
disciples, and which is specially memorable as being the scene
of his agony (Mark 14:32; John 18:1; Luke 22:44). The plot of
ground pointed out as Gethsemane is now surrounded by a wall,
and is laid out as a modern European flower-garden. It contains
eight venerable olive-trees, the age of which cannot, however,
be determined. The exact site of Gethsemane is still in
question. Dr. Thomson (The Land and the Book) says: "When I
first came to Jerusalem, and for many years afterward, this plot
of ground was open to all whenever they chose to come and
meditate beneath its very old olivetrees. The Latins, however,
have within the last few years succeeded in gaining sole
possession, and have built a high wall around it...The Greeks
have invented another site a little to the north of it...My own
impression is that both are wrong. The position is too near the
city, and so close to what must have always been the great
thoroughfare eastward, that our Lord would scarcely have
selected it for retirement on that dangerous and dismal
night...I am inclined to place the garden in the secluded vale
several hundred yards to the north-east of the present
Gethsemane."