Jerusalem: The Biography

* The Kings of Israel and Judah marched together against Mesha, the rebellious Moabite king who, in a stele, declared that he sacrificed his own son and successfully repelled the invaders. Almost 3,000 years later, in 1868, some Bedouin showed a German missionary a black basalt stone which unleashed an archaeological race between Prussia, France and England, whose agents intrigued to win this prestigious imperial prize. One tribe of Bedouin tried to destroy the stone, but finally the French won. It was worth the struggle. Sometimes contradicting, sometimes confirming the Bible, Mesha admits that Israel had conquered Moab but states that he rebelled against King Ahab and then defeated Israel and Judah – which (according to the latest translation) he calls ‘House of David’, again confirming David’s existence. He then boasts that he took from a captured Israelite town ‘the vessels of Yahweh,’ the first mention of the Israelite God outside the Bible.