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The struggle to uncover the meaning of "holy city" prompted Armstrong to write the historically comprehensive and engaging Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. In it, she explores the almost 4,000-year-old history of this sacred and controversial city called Ir David by Jews, New Jerusalem by Christians, and al-Quds, "the Holy," by Muslims.
Her exploration was a formidable task. Jerusalem's conquered and conquerors change quickly as the city is ruthlessly destroyed over and over again-along with its inhabitants, its temples, mosques, churches, and holy shrines.
Of all of Jerusalem's victors, including the Muslims, Armstrong faults the Christians for creating the rift that has endured through the present day. "Ever since the Crusades, which permanently damaged relations between the three religions of Abraham, Jerusalem has been a nervous, defensive city," says Armstrong.
Armstrong's previous book, the best-selling The History of God, was heralded for its lucid synthesis of the search for the sacred and the shaping of the concept of God by the three dominant monotheistic religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. She has succeeded again, weaving religious myth with historical research in an accessible style. Moreover, Armstrong provides a foundation that is useful in understanding the motivation, the thinking, the belief system of the religious groups that have identified and continue to identify with Jerusalem as the place where the divine meets with the mundane world.
Jerusalem is valuable not only because of its detailed historical analysis but because the author illuminates, as well, Jerusalem's spiritual significance. Armstrong's book is a plea for that significance to surface in Jerusalem today.
Janice Penkalski teaches and writes in Lexington, Kentucky.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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