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3 books match the query 'Solomon, King of Israel'

cover of Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam

Demonizing the Queen of Sheba

Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam

Jacob Lassner

University of Chicago Press, 1993

Over the centuries, Jewish and Muslim writers transformed the biblical Queen of Sheba from a clever, politically astute sovereign to a demonic force threatening the boundaries of gender. In this book, Jacob Lassner shows how successive retellings of the biblical story reveal anxieties about gender and illuminate the processes of cultural transmission.

The Bible presents the Queen of Sheba's encounter with King Solomon as a diplomatic mission: the queen comes "to test him with hard questions," all of which he answers to her satisfaction; she then praises him and, after an exchange of gifts, returns to her own land. By the Middle Ages, Lassner demonstrates, the focus of the queen's visit had shifted from international to sexual politics. The queen was now portrayed as acting in open defiance of nature's equilibrium and God's design. In these retellings, the authors humbled the queen and thereby restored the world to its proper condition.

Lassner also examines the Islamization of Jewish themes, using the dramatic accounts of Solomon and his female antagonist as a test case of how Jewish lore penetrated the literary imagination of Muslims. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba thus addresses not only specialists in Jewish and Islamic studies, but also those concerned with issues of cultural transmission and the role of gender in history.
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cover of Hidden Critique of Solomon in the Hebrew Bible

Hidden Critique of Solomon in the Hebrew Bible

Pekka Särkiö

SBL Press, 2025

The period of Israel’s united kingdom under King Solomon is portrayed in 1 Kings 3–11 as ideal in order to arouse hope for the restoration of Israelite kingship. Conversely, postexilic writers were faced with traditions that blamed the division of the united kingdom on Solomon’s sins. Pekka Särkiö explores how the writers of the Hebrew Bible used scribal tools and creativity to weave these disparate perspectives together with a subtle, hidden critique that stretches through the Torah, Prophets, and Writings. This in-depth study reveals the expressions, themes, and structures that evoke Solomon’s foreign wives, his excessive wealth, his respect for other gods, his pride, and his elevation to a venerated character. The resulting texts allow the coexistence of hope for the future and the concerns of northern survivors who blamed Solomon for the exile and the divided kingdom.
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cover of The Two Houses of Israel: State Formation and the Origins of Pan-Israelite Identity

The Two Houses of Israel

State Formation and the Origins of Pan-Israelite Identity

Omer Sergi

SBL Press, 2023

The Two Houses of Israel: State Formation and the Origins of Pan-Israelite Identity bridges the gap between the biblical narrative of the great united monarchy ruled by David and Solomon and archaeological and historical reconstructions of a gradual, independent formation of Israel and Judah. Based on a thorough examination of the material remains and settlement patterns in the southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age and on a review of the relevant historical sources, this book provides a detailed reconstruction of the ways in which Israel and Judah were formed as territorial polities and specifically how the house of David rose to power in Jerusalem and Judah. Omer Sergi further situates the stories of Saul and David in their accurate social and historical context in order to illuminate the historical conception of the united monarchy and the pan-Israelite ideology out of which it grew. Sergi provides a new history of the early Israelite monarchies, their formation, and the ways in which these social and political developments were commemorated in the cultural memory of generations to come.

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