Calvary – Beloved Term or Borrowed Description?

“King of my life, I crown Thee now,
Thine shall the glory be;
Lest I forget Thy thorn-crowned brow,
Lead me to Calvary.”
(Quaker hymn from 1921)

The well-known name Calvary has not been used in English Bible translations since 1862 when the word began to be translated as “place called Skull”. To some this may seem like a controversial conspiracy of modern translations. However Calvary appeared in only one verse between 1526-1862: Luke 23:33. Going back even farther to the very first full English Bible of 1382 we would find four verses that included Calvary: Luke 23:33; Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22 and John 15:17. Does that indicate some deeper textual conspiracy by Elizabethan English translators? But Calvary is not a textual variation issue at all and won’t appear in discussions about original sources. If we trace the interesting maze of transmission through copies and translations we will find that there are in fact seven different spellings (at least), involving four different languages, and Old Testament references as well.

The supposed loss of Calvary is not some insidious corruption; rather it is a good example of the regular challenge every translator faces in handling proper names, especially ones which became a name based on the term’s definition.

Etymology – Latin and Middle English:

Calvary is a transliteration (borrowing the letters) of the Latin word calvaria. The Latin Vulgate was the first full translation of the Greek and Hebrew Bible by Eusebius Hieronymus Jerome in 404 AD. Jerome translated calvaria for the Greek word (κρανίον) kranion, which means “skull” (the Greek term is the root for our English cranium). The term calvaria in Latin means “skull” and appears in four New Testament passages in the genitive form: calvariae. The Vulgate became the most widely known and used Bible for over 1,000 years.

John Wycliffe in 1382 translated the first English Bible from Latin (he did not have access to Greek manuscripts of the full NT) and he decided to transliterate (borrow) the Latin word – which he spelled three times as Caluerie and once as Caluarie. He used this Latin name in Luke 23:33, as well as in Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22 and John 15:17, just as Jerome had done in the Vulgate.

These four passages are parallel references regarding the location of where Christ was crucified: the three other than Luke also state the Hebrew name (Γολγοθᾶ) Golgatha. In Hebrew the word means “skull.” The writers of the Gospels explain the Hebrew name as the place called kranion, so these three writers of Greek used both transliteration of the Hebrew name, which means “skull” and also translation of it with the Greek word that means “skull”.

OT Connection – Hebrew:

Uses of the Hebrew ( גֻּלְגֹּלֶת ) golgoltha appear in three OT verses. In Judges 9:53 Abimelech’s “golgoltha” was crushed by a millstone! Also 2Ki. 9:35 and 1Ch. 10:10 use the term, which English versions translate as “skull” or “head”. Interestingly, the Vulgate translation only used calvaria in the OT for 2Ki. 9:35. In the other two passages Jerome chose other Latin words for “head/brain” (caput & cerebrum).

English Translations – Elizabethan Era:

Moving ahead to 1526 William Tyndale completed the first English translation from the original languages. He was able to base his work on the Greek New Testament, which had just recently been published by Erasmus as a parallel Greek- Latin NT in 1516. Tyndale kept the Latin name Caluary ONLY in Luke 23:33, for the other three places he translated as “place of dead mens sculles”.

A team of translators in 1611 produced the King James Version following Tyndale’s text for about 90% of their translation. For the three non-Luke Gospel passages referring to Calvary the KJV translated as “place of a skull,” and they maintained the Latin name for Calvary only in Luke 23. But in this first KJV publication of 1611 it was spelled as Caluarie, and presumably stayed as such for over 150 years.

I could not find access to the five other KJV revisions between 1611 and 1769 so it’s hard to know if the spelling in English was changed sooner, but by 1769, the 6th revision of the KJV, the English spelling of the place where Christ was crucified appeared as the now recognized, Calvary. Currently printed KJV Bibles today are the 1769 publication; mine includes a footnote in Luke 23:33 for the word Calvary, showing the connection to the other passages (fn: “or, The place of a skull”.)

Of the many English versions that I have access to it is Young’s Literal Translation in 1862 that was the first to translate all four passages regarding Golgotha/Calvary, rather than transliterate the Latin name in just one verse. The YLT is not well known, but the American Standard Version is, and it was published in 1901 without using the Latin Calvary either.

Side Note – lesser known texts:

For many people the main interest is why the KJV chose the spelling that it did. There are a few more potential threads to follow, but all require some speculation.

Miles Coverdale had to finish the Tyndale Bible in 1535 due to the Catholic Church executing his colleague as a heretic for making the Bible accessible in the language that people understood. Coverdale adjusted the spelling to Caluery in Luke 23, and “place of deed mens sculles” in the other three Gospels. The Matthew’s Bible, a revision just two years later in 1537 by John Rodgers, spells Caluarye, but the Great Bible of 1539 went back to Tyndale’s spelling, Caluary.

The KJV 1611 might have been influenced by The Geneva Bible of 1560, which spelled it as Caluerie, similar to Wycliffe. Geneva only used it in Luke 23 as well. For the other three Gospels Geneva translated similar to Tyndale, “place named of dead mens skulls” (and they italicized dead mens, indicating this was implicit meaning they felt was helpful to make explicit).

The Geneva was the first English Bible able to be mass produced, since the persecution leading up to Tyndale’s martyrdom had passed. Influential writers like Bunyan, Knox, Cromwell and Shakespeare used the Geneva Bible during this crucial generation. English spelling and grammar had standardized greatly since the Middle English of Wycliffe, evidenced by the variety of spellings in the four translations between Wycliffe and Geneva. I theorized that the KJV 1611 may have combined their spelling choice between that of Tyndale and Geneva to end up with yet another option. But a friend pointed to another possibility.

The Bishop’s Bible could be part of the transmission line. Printed in 1568 it was available to the KJV team. In personal discussions with friends who feel strongly about the history of the KJV I was told that the KJV translators held a philosophy defined as, “Depart as little as possible from the wording of the Bishop’s Bible.” I have not researched this premise for myself.

The Bishop’s transliteration of Calvary as Caluarie does match with the KJV 1611 spelling in Lk. 23:33. Bishop’s also translates the other three passages rather than borrow the Latin name there. But Bishop’s calls it place of “dead mens skulles,” and in two of the verses they put [dead mens] in brackets, whereas the KJV omits it to just “of skulls”. Bishop’s and the 1611 spell “skulles”, Tyndale and the Geneva spell “sculles”; and since Bishop’s followed Coverdale and Tyndale in keeping the explanatory “dead mens.” It was the 1611 that was first to shorten the phrases in the non-Luke passages. Maybe there is a connection between Bishop’s and KJV, but it is not definitive regarding Calvary.

In case you have struggled to trace all these changes, here is a recap: Golgatha (Hebrew) -> Kranion (Greek) -> Calvaria (Latin) -> Caluerie (Wycliffe/ Geneva) -> Caluary (Tyndale/Great) -> Caluery (Coverdale) -> Caluarye (Matthew’s) -> Caluarie (Bishop’s/KJV 1611) -> Calvary (KJV 1769) -> Skull (YLT).

The Lingering Question:

Wycliffe still stands alone (unless there are others to compare) for borrowing the Latin Caluerie consistently in ALL four Gospels. I don’t know that we can be sure who used whom exactly after that. The main question is not so much why drop the name Calvary after 1862, but why drop the borrowed name in 1526 in ONLY three of the passages? The Latin Vulgate was consistent in translating the name in all four passages as “place of a skull”. Tyndale was using the Greek text so it makes sense that he would NOT be inclined to borrow Latin as Wycliffe did, so why did Tyndale borrow it for only ONE verse. Furthermore, if Bishop’s/KJV were not relying on Tyndale why did they also transliterate in just ONE verse in 1568/1611?

Old Latin – a possible answer:

One further line of reasoning I was presented is that there are even older Latin manuscripts which were an influence to the KJV translators, more than Jerome’s or previous English translations. That is a hard thing to confirm. I know of no available full Latin Bible that predates Jerome. What little research I have done shows that there are less than 50 manuscripts referred to collectively as the Vetus Latina. They were based on the Greek translation of the Hebrew OT (the Septuagint) – thus a 2nd generation distant from the original Hebrew manuscripts. There was no complete compilation of Old Latin, just individual manuscripts with portions of NT books. The need for a comprehensive translation from the Hebrew OT and Greek NT is what motivated Jerome to become a translator.

I admit I have never tried to study the old Latin texts, and I was doubtful of finding access to any. But after some digging I came across a site with a digital facsimile of the Codex Bezae, which is a parallel Greek/Latin manuscript. The Latin is pre- Jerome and this copy is dated sometime in the fourth or fifth century. It is called the Bezae Codex because it came into the possession of Theodore Beza in 1581 in Cambridge. This Bezae Codex facsimile contains Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, Acts and a few verses of 3rd John. Based on this copy of old Latin it is therefore possible to check if the old Latin text differs from the Vulgate in the four passages that mention the location outside Jerusalem named for its appearance of a skull.In Luke 23:33 (pg. 538) you can see Greek: topon kalumenon kranion. And Latin: in locum qui vacatur calvariae (“the place which is called a skull”).

And in John 19:17 (pg. 315) the same Greek and Latin terms are used again. Greek: legomenon kraniou topon. Latin: dicitur calvarie locum (“which is said skull place”), also here you see the Hebrew name (G: golgota / L: colcotha)

Note: the genitive “of” case ending in Greek is –iou and in Latin is –iae (or –ie). Interestingly for the old Latin we see both genitive endings used, whereas Jerome consistently used –iae. Normally for proper nouns the case endings are not borrowed, but rather the root only. So Calvaria would be expected to reduce to Calvari. Tyndale and Coverdale made this change, and eventually the KJV revised their spelling from the Latin genitive ending Caluarie, to Calvary as well.

The Codex Bezae manuscripts are written in all CAPS (Uncials), with different handwriting, and with no spaces! It’s a challenge to read but you can see that CALVARIAE appears in this pre-Jerome portion; the same Latin word in all four Gospel passages of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. If the the KJV translators were referencing old Latin manuscripts, there is no discernible connection as to their choice to borrow the Latin Caluarie in just one Gospel passage.

Below is a comparison of Wycliffe and Tyndale for the same two references — notice how Wycliffe borrows in both and Tyndale borrows in one and translates in the other. The change from Calvaria being used in four verses to only one verse seems to have happened in the time between these two English translations:

Current application – working with first-Scriptures:

Spellings of places commonly change, not only across languages, but even within the same language. The important thing is that they point to the correct location. In this case the location has a meaning based on what it resembled: a skull-like high point, or a place that bones of human remains were scattered — either way, a horrible place of death. It is not wrong if we want to use a Latin name in our church title today, or even to have an alternate name to refer to Golgotha (although I would argue that Kranion would make a better alternative). But it is certainly appropriate to use a definition that gives the original meaning. We do not want to inadvertently sanitize or deemphasize the significance of what Christ did on our behalf on Golgatha/Kranion/Calvaria, and borrowing a word with no inherent meaning can have that affect — as demonstrated by anyone expressing shock at modern versions that “dare to change” Calvary to Skull.

My translation work with Bibles International has provided me the opportunity and joy of helping a dozen different teams in three countries of Asia. These are minority groups, most of whom are doing translations for the first time. Many of them are still influenced by larger trade languages around them and a familiarity with the spellings of biblical names in those translations. I have specifically work on translation of the Gospels in five projects.

Here are the decisions that our teams made related to Luke 23:

• The Bualkhaw team chose to borrow all English names directly: Calvary.
• For the Falam language, the team decided to use Kalvary due to familiarity with English, but to spell in a way that is natural in Falam. (and having one phoneme for the /k/ sound is much better than the confusion of English’s /k/ /c/ and /q/!)
• Note: For Burmese, Adoniram Judson in 1833 also borrowed the Latin in Lk. 23. But Burmese is difficult to correlate so it is spelled quite different: (ကရာနိ)​ kayani. Whereas the more recent, understandable MSB 2013 Burmese translation uses (ခေါင်းခွံ) hkaung hkwan, “head shell.”

For the many people groups not familiar with English or Latin — particularly those that have never had the Bible in their language before — borrowing foreign words would unnecessarily obscure the meaning.

• That is why in the Uppu language we used Lum’kok Dunnuo,
• And in the Taisun language: Luruh Hmun,
• Also in the Rvwang language: Vgosharø.
• Note: In the Thai Standard Version (2011) and also the Thai KJV translation (2003), yes, it’s based on the English rather than the Greek/Hebrew, both of these translations say (กะโหลกศีรษะ) kaholksirsa in Luke 23:33, “skull head”.

In the later group of translations the readers will know exactly what the meaning is without needing any explanation or background knowledge of Latin etymology. Ultimately our minds should return to the most important point; Christ bore the horror of torture and execution that we deserved to offer us the salvation that we could never deserve. Hallelujah for Golgotha! (Another borrowed Hebrew word, meaning “Praise Yahweh”)

Appreciating Previous Translators:

I have Logos Bible software at my fingertips, as well as online libraries, and sites that I had never heard of before digging into this word study. The difficulty of doing checks for consistent spelling and key terms in Bible translation pre-computer age would have most likely eliminate me from being involved in translation work — on account of the massive patience required, not to mention attention to detail and magnificent recall! The earliest translators did their work by hand, so producing any copy of God’s Word was a monumental undertaking; we should be humbled today at how easily we can access a printed or electronic copy!

One obvious take away from this study is to praise the Lord for these men who pioneered the work in multiple languages so that our people group could know God’s Word for ourselves. For the English speaking people that was less than 1400 years after Christ. Here we are today in A.D. 2025 and there are still almost 2,000 languages (of more than 7,200) with still no completed portion of God’s Word.

A word study should not be for curiosity alone, nor to prove a point in favor of or against any one translation. The history of translating Golgotha helps us appreciate the consistency of translators throughout history who have accurately used “place of a skull” to remind us of the location where our Lord provided a substitutionary atonement. And we should be motivated to “continue the Reformation” by making Christ’s redemption known to every language and ethnicity.

Joel Wagner is a Translation Consultant serving with Bibles International in SE Asia

Additional Resources:

All of these early English translations can be accessed online, note as well the helpful list of unique phrases in the Textus Receptus and the KJV.

For more biblical phrases that came into English from Latin or were coined during early English translation see this article. (Note that there are no Proper Names on this list.)

English theological terminology certainly owes a lot to the Latin language. One of the amazing, beautiful things about a multi-lingual world is how much we can learn and expand our understanding from other languages. There are very few Proper Nouns however that have come over in the biblical text from Latin to English. Even our word Trinity, which is from Latin, does not appear in the Biblical text. Here is a collection of familiar Latin terms.