New insights unearthed -- How the early Jewish-Christians coped after the crucifixion of Jesus; why Nero tried to purge them; why the emperor's insatiable greed for money forced Jerusalem into a ruinous civil war and how the first Christians emerged with a new vitality that would one day sweep away Rome's profusion of pagan gods and temples. The Bible offers sketchy answers to these and many more questions. But when integrated with the perspective of early Jewish, Roman and Christian writers, the result is a chronological, three-dimensional documentary that both explains and enriches the Book of Acts and other New Testament writings. The most complete account to date of the turbulent, traumatic first century that laid the groundwork for Western Civilization for the next two millennia.