Jerusalem, an old Canaanite settlement in the uplands of Judaea, enters history rather offhandedly in the biblical narrative: David, king of Israel, then resident at nearby Hebron, decides to make this Jebusite city his capital. No reason is given—even today the site has obvious security advantages—and indeed Jerusalem shows no particular religious associations until David buys a Jebusite threshing floor atop Mount Moriah just north of his new "City of David" and builds an altar there, where the Lord had stayed the hand of his avenging angel. This spot may have been an earlier Canaanite high place, but it now became the site of a grandiose temple possibly planned by David and certainly built by his son Solomon.

The Temple of Solomon was an enormous structure with interior courtyards of progressively limited access, in the midst of which stood an ornately adorned sanctuary. Outside...