SOME places have too much history for their own good. Jerusalem is certainly one of them. Visitors sense its spiritual significance; they admire — or are repelled by — its cosmopolitanism, its mixing of different and often clashing cultures. But, above all, it is hard not to be overwhelmed, even oppressed, by the sheer weight of history encountered there. Like some impossibly ancient geological feature, Jerusalem is made up of layer after layer of time.

Making sense of that spiritual stratigraphy, much less distinguishing between myth and history, is incredibly hard. In Jerusalem, the past is always present, but there is so much of the stuff that it can seem all but impossible to get a grip on it. Thank goodness, then, for experts such as Jodi Magness, who are willing to take up the challenge of providing a guide. Now a distinguished professor at the University of North Carolina, she first came to the city as a student forty years ago. Jerusalem Through the Ages is the outcome of a lifetime’s work. It is deeply learned, hugely informative, and deserves a wide readership.

Starting 4000 years ago and finishing with the fall of the Crusader kingdom in 1187, this is a hefty text, and little wonder. Skilfully weaving together literary sources – including biblical material — with the latest archaeological research, Professor Magness provides a state-of-the-art account of the field.

The result is often surprising. Assumptions are bound to change, for instance, when one realises that the word Jerusalem actually means “foundation of the god Shalem” and recalls a pre-Israelite divinity, the god of twilight, who may have been worshipped on the site of the Temple Mount. The book also illustrates just how much we are still learning about the city. Thrillingly, within the past decade, archaeologists have uncovered a roadway that still retains the surface laid down by Pontius Pilate. There is, in other words, every possibility that Jesus genuinely walked this route, touched these stones, and shared our sensation of slowly climbing, step by step, through the city.

The decision to explore this ancient street, opened to the public in 2019, was — and remains — highly controversial. It was discovered as part of a broader and highly politicised archaeological project, which seeks almost exclusively to recover evidence of ancient Jewish Jerusalem. In the process, other stories are neglected, and the property of current Palestinian residents is often disregarded and even damaged. Nor, as Professor Magness shows, is this the first time that the fabric of the place has prompted dispute. It was, she argues, the emperor Hadrian’s attempts to raise a new temple to Jupiter which provoked the Bar Kokhba Revolt of AD 132. So, too, she notes that the First Crusade was inspired, not least, by the Fatamid Caliph’s decision in 1009 to dismantle the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Jerusalem Through the Ages is full — almost too full — of such insights. Anyone who is able to visit the city in the future will be enormously helped to understand the complex building history of the walls, the streets, the markets, the churches, and the Temple Mount itself. The book is not, in truth, always an easy read. Archaeological terms of art are not always explained on their first use. A helpful attempt to show how words are pronounced is not maintained consistently. Details repeat and recur, while the author engages in intricate (and, occasionally, hard to follow) arguments with other experts. Tellingly, chapter three is described as “a review” — and it is not alone in reading a little like a scholarly survey.

In the end, this book is perhaps best understood as an archaeological site: something to be sifted and sorted in the expectation that important finds will emerge. But it is a brilliant book, none the less: one that demands to be read. Attentive readers will never see Jerusalem — or the Bible — in the same way again. That is a singular achievement.
 

The Revd Dr William Whyte is a Fellow and Tutor of St John’s College, Oxford, and Professor of Social and Architectural History in the University of Oxford.

Jerusalem through the Ages: From its beginnings to the Crusades
Jodi Magness
OUP £30.99
(978-0-19-093780-5)
Church Times Bookshop £27.89