A spellbinding history of the hidden world below the Holy City—a saga of biblical treasures, intrepid explorers, and political upheaval “A sweeping tale of archaeological exploits and their cultural and political consequences told with a historian’s penchant for detail and a journalist’s flair for narration.” —Washington Post In 1863, a French senator arrived in Jerusalem hoping to unearth relics dating to biblical times. Digging deep underground, he discovered an ancient grave that, he claimed, belonged to an Old Testament queen. News of his find ricocheted around the world, evoking awe and envy alike, and inspiring others to explore Jerusalem’s storied past. In the century and a half since the Frenchman broke ground, Jerusalem has drawn a global cast of fortune seekers and missionaries, archaeologists and zealots, all of them eager to extract the biblical past from beneath the city’s streets and shrines. Their efforts have had profound effects, not only on our understanding of Jerusalem’s history, but on its hotly disputed present. The quest to retrieve ancient Jewish heritage has sparked bloody riots and thwarted international peace agreements. It has served as a cudgel, a way to stake a claim to the most contested city on the planet. Today, the earth below Jerusalem remains a battleground in the struggle to control the city above. Under Jerusalem takes readers into the tombs, tunnels, and trenches of the Holy City. It brings to life the indelible characters who have investigated this subterranean landscape. With clarity and verve, acclaimed journalist Andrew Lawler reveals how their pursuit has not only defined the conflict over modern Jerusalem, but could provide a map for two peoples and three faiths to peacefully coexist.

The exciting field of biblical archaeology has revolutionized our understanding of the Bible -- and no one has done more to popularise this vast store of knowledge than Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, who revealed what we now know about when and why the Bible was first written in The Bible Unearthed. Now, with David and Solomon, they do nothing less than help us to understand the sacred kings and founding fathers of western civilization. David and his son Solomon are famous in the Bible for their warrior prowess, legendary loves, wisdom, poetry, conquests, and ambitious building programmes. Yet thanks to archaeology's astonishing finds, we now know that most of these stories are myths. Finkelstein and Silberman show us that the historical David was a bandit leader in a tiny back-water called Jerusalem, and how -- through wars, conquests and epic tragedies like the exile of the Jews in the centuries before Christ and the later Roman conquest -- David and his successor were reshaped into mighty kings and even messiahs, symbols of hope to Jews and Christians alike in times of strife and despair and models for the great kings of Europe. A landmark work of research and lucid scholarship by two brilliant luminaries, David and Solomon recasts the very genesis of western history in a whole new light.

Like many modern-day Christians, Dr. Collins struggled with what seemed to be a clash between his belief in the Bible and the research regarding ancient history--a crisis of faith that inspired him to embark on an expedition that has led to one of the most exciting finds in recent archaeology.

Analyses Solomon's birth, rise, and temple-building within scriptural, archaeological and historical contexts.

There is a little land. In that little land, there is a little city. In that city there is a little street, and on that street there is a little wall. When you stand by that Holy Wall, you can hear the footsteps of our father Abraham, and you can hear the trumpet of the Great Day to come. You hear the past and you can hear the future. You can hear the singing of the Levites. Or, you can hear us crying, going into exile. You can hear the six million crying out of the gas chambers, and you can hear the trumpet of the Great Day to come. I was standing one early morning by the Holy Wall, and I was saying Kaddish for my father. But when you stand by that Holy Wall, you say Kaddish for the whole world. Sometimes you feel like saying Kaddish for your own soul, and sometimes you feel like saying Kaddish for tomorrow. Then you hear the words “Yisgadal V’yiskadash Shmei Raba — May G-d’s Name become great and sanctified,” and you remember there is one G-d, and you know that the Great Morning is coming. You know that day and night will get together. The living and the dead, we and the whole world. This is my song, the song of tears, because on that Great Day the tears will march through the world, and the whole world will join them. The tears will clear the world and prepare the world. Everything will come together. We will all come together. It will be a new morning – a new beginning. In this remarkable and life-changing work, the reader is transported to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem to be inspired by the teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach zt”l. Masterfully adapted by Rabbi Shlomo Katz (renowned musician and creator of the best-selling and acclaimed The Soul of Chanukah: Teachings of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach), these teachings touch the soul.