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Read the serialized novel "Jezebel's Tomb" by David Hilzenrath 
David Hilzenrath will be online to discuss Jezebel's Tomb on Friday, Nov. 16, at 1 p.m. To submit questions or comments in advance, click here. If you can't join the discussion in real time, you can check back later for the transcript.
About the StoryIn 1883, a Jerusalem merchant claimed to have purchased from a Bedouin an unusual text found in a cave near the Dead Sea. He was on the verge of selling it to the British Museum for £1 million when he was denounced as a fraud.
Disgraced and destitute, he committed suicide. His artifact was lost to history.
Generations later, the forgotten man holds the key to a Jerusalem bombing and a 2,000-year-old mystery. Read more ...
» Click here to download the full text of "Jezebel's Tomb."
» A related discussion is under way in washingtonpost.com's On Faith blog.
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He was inspired by two enigmas from the realm of biblical archaeology: a 19th Century antiquities dealer who was hounded to his death, and a deteriorating scroll etched in copper, unearthed in the Judean Desert in 1952, describing an ancient hidden treasure.
The research for Jezebel's Tomb spanned years and miles, taking Hilzenrath from archaeological sites in the Middle East to the library of the Harvard Divinity School and beyond.
The author is grateful for permission to quote from the following:
Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha,© 1989 by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. Used by permission.
Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation To The Traditional Hebrew Text.© 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society, with the permission of the publisher.
The Copper Scroll: Overview, Text and Translation,by Al Wolters, © 1996 by Sheffield Academic Press. By kind permission of Continuum International Publishing.
The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged New Updated Edition, translated by William Whiston, © 1987 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., Peabody, Massachusetts. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible,© 1952 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
The Holy Qur'an,translated by M.H. Shakir, used with the permission of Tahrike Tarsile Qur'an, Inc.
The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version,edited by Robert J. Miller, © 1992 by Polebridge Press. Used by permission of Polebridge Press.
Book cover photography (c) 2007 by Dave Bartruff/Corbis.
Photo of David Hilzenrath by J. Hilzenrath.
Read the serialized novel "Jezebel's Tomb" by David Hilzenrath 