ReViews

Beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem: The Archaeology and Early History of Traditional Golgotha

Shimon Gibson and Joan E. Taylor (London: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1994) 102 pp., $39.00

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the most complex structures in existence, essentially because it was constructed and reconstructed in so many different periods. A long list of books and articles have tried to decipher the elements in this structure as well as to interpret them in a spiritual context. The most recent book, by Gibson and Taylor, focuses on the earliest phases of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The book’s distinguished publisher, the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF, founded in 1869), has an illustrious pedigree in Holy Land studies. Indeed, it published some of the earliest efforts to understand this extraordinary structure.