Queen Jezebel’s name has become synonymous with feminine beauty and wiles, a seductress who murdered without blinking and who attempted to turn the Israelites from their true God to pagan deities. She is definitely the Bad Girl of the Bible. Next to her, Delilah pales in comparison—she merely pried out of Samson the secret of his strength and gave him a haircut,. Jezebel built temples to her false gods, killed YHWH’s prophets en masse, made life hell for gloomy old Elijah, and dared to conduct business in her husband’s name.
Now an archaeological discovery indicates she was, indeed, a powerful queen. Jezebel, a Phoenician by birth, had her own seal.
Originally discovered in Israel in 1964, the intricate seal was suspected all along to belong to Queen Jezebel, but confusion over the letters engraved on the stone left some uncertainty. Recently, closer scrutiny of the seal's engraving revealed markings characteristic of royal objects.
"The lion-sphinx with female head and female Isis-Hathor crown, which is unique, this clearly points to a queen," said Marjo Korpel, an Old Testament scholar at the University of Utrecht who conducted the research.
The seal confirms that Jezebel, who eventually met a gory demise, was a powerful figure in the ancient world who conducted business independent of her husband.
Complete results of the University of Utrecht study are published in a recent volume of the Journal for Semitics.
With her own seal, Queen Jezebel was able to exert a powerful influence upon people around her, much like the Egyptian queens, Korpel said.
"The biblical texts already prove that she was a powerful woman. The queens in Egypt ... all have in common their prominent roles in religion, politics and representational art, and their status as principal wife. This also seems to count for Queen Jezebel," said Korpel.
Unlike Egypt, however, Biblical Israel did not look favorably upon powerful women.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
Gee, you think?
"Jezebel" is about the worst thing a fundamentalist preacher like Flip Benham can call a woman who stands up to him as did a Tuscaloosa abortion clinic director. And a woman who doesn’t know here rightful place in God’s world—who isn’t submissive, silent, obedient and submissive, confining her activities to the kitchen, the nursery and the church but never daring to teach men—is possessed by a "Jezebel spirit." In other words, any woman who dares to differentiate herself from a doormat, is a Jezebel.
I admit to having some doubts about the biblical portrayal of her myself. I’ve pointed out many times to fundamentalist Christians that the bible is ONE desert tribe’s version of history, and pretty slanted to their point of view. Commit genocide? YHWH told them to do it. Enslave an entire tribe? Ditto. Kill your young daughter as Jeptha did? Well, he’d vowed to sacrifice the first living thing he set eyes on upon coming home, if God granted him victory. No way out of it. Too bad it was his nameless young daughter (fundies excuse this nasty episode by saying it was to teach us a lesson about rash vows; all I can think of was that all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving YHWH spared Isaac but couldn’t think of a better way to punish Jeptha than killing an innocent girl). Samson is a hero, even though he causes a war and does a lot of nasty things to the philistines who actually put up with a lot of crap from him? It’s all okay because he’s YHWH’s chosen champion.
Jezebel came to Israel as a Phoenician princess to marry King Ahab. Yes, Phoenicia, the same land that gave birth to Queen Dido form the Aeneid, indicating that this was a country which accepted women as rulers. She was a pagan, worshipping Baal and his consort Asherah (who, coincidentally was also YHWH’s consort before she was edited out of existence, another name for Astarte. She may well have been a priestess—her father was named Ethbaal, according to Josephus, and may well have been a priest-king. In any case, with Ahab’s support, she built temple to Baal. Unlike Ruth, who chooses to become a Jew when she accompanies her mother-in-law home to Israel and accepts her god, Jezebel is true to her own beliefs. And since worshiping fertility deities is a a lot more fun than offering livestock to YHWH for any one of hundreds of sins, the people joined in enthusiastically.
In contrast to the familiar gods and goddesses that Jezebel is accustomed to petitioning, Israel is home to a state religion featuring a lone, masculine deity. Perhaps Jezebel optimistically believes that she can encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of those Baalites who already reside in Israel. Perhaps Jezebel sees herself as an ambassador who could help unite the two lands and bring about cultural pluralism, regional peace and economic prosperity.
http://phoenicia.org/...
Needless to say, this puts her on the bad side of YHWH’s prophets, who proceed to preach against her. She retaliates by killing them. Pretty standard behavior for royalty of that era, really. Elijah remains alive to be a thorn in her side.There’s a whole lot more to Jezebel’s story, none of it very admirable, but today I am close to understanding how Jezebel felt. It’ a small thing, really. But it irks me no end.
A local Baptist church has rented the auditorium of the elementary school I drive by every time I go to the store ort the mall or out to grab a bite to eat. I can live with that. Under SCOTUS decisions, it a public school rents to non-religious groups, they have to rent to religious ones. I could even live with the signs on the side of the road indicting this was where the church met. But they have now hung a banner on the building itself, and it’s there 24/7. and they have erected a permanent sign, that my be on school grounds (the banner certainly is—it hangs from the roof. SO far I have settled for merely flipping off the banner and the sign every time I pass it. But I really feel like making a phone call and requesting to rent a classroom on Saturday nights so that I can start a coven. Whaddya bet I get told no? I won’t do it because it would upset my MiL and my husband, and because I can’t afford a lawyer but I am sorely tempted to remove the offending banner late some night.
These days, with the Religious Right omnipresent, objecting to Harry Potter because it supposedly is a recruiting tool for WIcca and screaming denunciations of The Golden Compass film as promoting atheism (yes, they’ve been on Glenn Beck ), even though the religious aspecst have been toned down and it’s been reset from a Victorian feel to a late 30s Fascist loo., I am beginning to understand why Jezebel got fed up with the prophets. I, too, am fed up. With James Dobson. With Pat Robertson. With John Hagee and his militant Christian Nationalism. With Creflow Dollar, my local televangelist who drives a Mercedes. With toothy-grinned, squinchy-eyed Joel Osteen and his Prosperity Gospel (at least he isn’t into politics, and compared to the others, he’s practically liberal). With Tony Perkins of FRC. With Fred Phelps. With Bill Donahue of the Catholic League. With that idiot priest from Texas, Father Frank Pavone. With the loonies who spend their lives yelling at women entering Planned parenthood and any other clinic that does abortions. With being afraid that when we get a Dem in the White House, a d we are able to pass a federal law legalizing abortion so that even if Roe is overturned, women’s right to reproductive choice is protected, we will see a renewed war on clinics. More bombings. More murders. More arson. More attacks.
I am tired of being afraid. Before she became a synonym for feminine evil and women’s wickedness, Jezebel was a queen. She stood for female power, female deity and female sexuality and pride. I have a Jezebel spirit, like that clinic director, and I am proud of it. I am not gonna lie down and take calmly a renewed assault on women’s rights by the Religious Reich I am ready for the fight, when it comes.
Are you?