“Show me, my women, like a queen”: Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V, scene II.
white lead powder: For details of makeup, see Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology.
“woman at the window” plaques: Photos can be found in Isserlin, Israelites; Tubb, Canaanites; and on the cover of McKinlay, Reframing Her.
“My life begins to dissolve like mist”: In Shulamit Kalugai, Nashim (Women) (Yavne, 1936). This is my own translation. The original Hebrew can also be found with a different translation in Hebrew Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Kaufman, Hassan-Rokem, and Hess.
“Is it peace, Zimri”: 2 Kings 9:31.
Jehu takes on the role of the pruner: Olyan, “2 Kings 9:31.”
“Throw her down”: 2 Kings 9:33.
“And they threw her down”: Ibid.
“Go see to this cursed woman”: 2 Kings 9:34.
“Men feared death itself less”: Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife.”
“May they have no resting place among the shades”: Text of the sarcophagus of King Ezmunazar in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts.
“no more of her than her head and her feet”: 2 Kings 9:35.
Today, henna is still used: For a remarkable collection of information on henna, see the Encyclopedia of Henna, online at www.hennapage.com/henna/encyclopedia/index.html.
187–88 “This is the word of Yahweh when”: 2 Kings 9:37.
“You shall bake barley cakes with human dung”: Ezekiel 4:12.
“They shall be dung upon the face of the earth”: Jeremiah 8:12.
“Behold I will corrupt your seed”: Malachi 2:13.
“your houses shall be made into a dunghill”: Daniel 2:5.
“The repugnance, the retching, thrusts”: Kristeva, Powers of Horror.
9. Babylon
191–92 “king of multitudes of men”: Text of the Black Obelisk in Miller and Hayes, History of Ancient Israel and Judah.
“If you are with me, cut off the heads”: 2 Kings 10:6.
“You are righteous”: 2 Kings 10:9.
“See my zealousness for Yahweh”: 2 Kings 10:16.
“the priests and worshippers of Baal”: 2 Kings 10:19.
“I killed Joram the son of Ahab”: Text of the Dan Stele, a.k.a. the King David Inscription since it contains the earliest nonbiblical reference to King David found so far, in Biran and Naveh, “Aramaic Stele.”
“They multiply falsehood and violence”: Hosea 7:11.
“avenge the blood of Jezreel”: Hosea 1:4.
“I built a pillar by the city gate”: Text of Sargon inscription in Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts.
more than four million people were displaced: See Oded, Mass Deportations.
“By the rivers of Babylon”: Psalm 137:1.
“Exiles cross borders”: Said, “The Mind in Winter.”
“no other gods before me”: Exodus 20:3.
“there is no god but me”: Isaiah 44:6, also 43:10–11 and 45:5. Note that the later chapters of Isaiah, known as Deutero-Isaiah, were written in exile in the sixth century B.C. and were added on to the prophetic text.
“The text was substituted for the land”: Smith, Origins of Biblical Monotheism.
“a world full of gods”: Hopkins, World Full of Gods.
the Gnostic gospels: These include a Gospel of Mary, written in the voice of Mary Magdalene. See King, Gospel of Mary of Magdala.
Australia’s aboriginal peoples: See, for example, Chatwin, Songlines.
golden spruce that was revered by the Haida: See Vaillant, Golden Spruce.
Peer Gynt’s famous onion: Cox, Seduction of the Spirit. The reference is to Act V, scene 5, of Henrik Ibsen’s verse play Peer Gynt, in which the hero searches for the core of his identity by peeling an onion but finds only layer after layer.
10. Carthage
rabbinic lore: For more, see Wiener, Prophet Elijah.
a kind of educational punishment: Helner, “Zealous Spirit.”
“restore the tribes of Israel”: Ben Sirah/Ecclesiasticus, 48:10.
“I will send you Elijah”: Malachi 4:5.
John the Baptist: Some Palestinian Christians celebrate Elijah in yet another guise, identifying him with Saint George, the horseback saint who slew his dragon at Ramle, on the coastal plain between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean, as the original Elijah fought the dragon of polytheism.
“Elias truly shall come first”: Matthew 17:10–13.
“We also sent forth Ilyis”: in Koran, tr. Dawood.
El Khadr: The mysterious figure of El Khadr, also known as Il-Khidr, acts as the guide to Moses in Sura 18 of the Koran. For more on his legend in Palestine, see Augustinovic, El-Khadr and the Prophet Elijah.
“A whirlwind sweeps him up”: Trible, “Odd Couple.”
the bombed-out rubble of war: Tyre, still rebuilding after the destruction of the Lebanese civil war of 1975–90, was again bombed by the Israel Defense Forces in the summer of 2006 in an attempt to destroy the Hezbollah militias.
Carthage: See in particular Aubet, Phoenicians and the West.
Bibliography
Ackerman, Susan. “And the Women Knead Dough: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth-Century Judah.” In Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. Peggy L. Day. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
———. Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992.
———. Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel. New York: Doubleday, 1998.
Ackroyd, Peter. “Goddesses, Women, and Jezebel.” In Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. Averil Cameron and Amélie Kuhrt. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1983.
Aguiar, Sarah Appleton. The Bitch Is Back: Wicked Women in Literature. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001.
Ahlström, Gösta. Royal Administration and National Religion in Ancient Palestine. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1982.
Albertz, Rainer. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. Vol. 1. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.
Albright, William F. Archaeology and the Religion of Israel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1942.
Alfa, Cristina León. Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy. Newark, N.J.: University of Delaware Press, 2003.
Allen, Virginia M. The Femme Fatale: Erotic Icon. Troy, N.Y.: Whitston, 1983.
Almond, Gabriel A., R. Scott Appleby, and Emmanuel Sivan. Strong Religion: The Rise of Fundamentalisms Around the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Anderson, Francis I. “The Socio-juridical Background of the Naboth Incident.” Journal of Biblical Literature 85 (1966).
Appler, Deborah. A Queen Fit for a Feast. Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 2004. Online at wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/.
Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. New York: Ballantine, 1993.
Atwood, Margaret. “Spotty-Handed Villainesses: Problems of Female Bad Behavior in the Creation of Literature.” Online at www.web.net/owtoad/vlness.html. 1994.
Aubet, Maria Eugenia. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Augustinovic, Agostino. El-Khadr and the Prophet Elijah. Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Press, 1972.
Avigad, N. “The Seal of Jezebel.” Israel Exploration Journal 14 (1964). Avi-Yonah, Michael. “Mount Carmel and the God of Baalbek.” Israel Exploration Journal 2 (1952).
Bach, Alice. Women, Seduction, and Betrayal in Biblical Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Baly, Denis. “The Geography of Monotheism.” In Translating and Understanding the Old Testament, ed. Harry Thomas Frank and William L. Reed. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1970.
———. The Geography of the Bible. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.
Barkay, Gabriel.
“The Iron Age II–III.” In The Archaeology of Ancient Israel, ed. Amnon Ben-Tor. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Beach, Eleanor Ferris. “The Samaria Ivories, Marzeach, and Biblical Text.” Biblical Archaeologist 56; no. 2 (1993).
———. “Transforming Goddess Iconography in Hebrew Narrative.” In Women and Goddess Traditions in Antiquity and Today, ed. Karen L. King. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.
———. The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005.
Becking, Bob. “Only One God: On Possible Implications of Biblical Theology.” In Only One God?: Mmonotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah, ed. Bob Becking et al. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
Bellis, Alice Ogden. Helpmates, Harlots, Heroes: Women’s Stories in the Hebrew Bible. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.
Ben-Barak, Zafira. “The Status and Rights of the Gebira.” In A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings, ed. Athalya Brenner. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
Berenson, Alex. “After the Siege, a City of Ruins, Its Dead Rotting.” New York Times, August 28, 2004.
Bergen, Wesley J. “The Prophetic Alternative: Elisha and the Israelite Monarchy.” In Elijah and Elisha in Socioliterary Perspective, ed. Robert B. Coote. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992.
Billinghurst, Jane. Temptress: From the Original Bad Girls to Women on Top. Vancouver, B.C.: Greystone, 2003.
Binger, Tilde. Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel, and the Old Testament. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
Biran, Avraham, and Joseph Naveh. “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan.” Israel Exploration Journal 43 (1993).
Bird, Phyllis A. Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities: Women and Gender in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.
———. “The End of the Male Cult Prostitute: A Literary-Historical and Sociological Analysis of Hebrew Qades-Qedesim.” In Congress Volume, Cambridge 1995 (Fifteenth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament), ed. John Adney Emerton. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1997.
Brenner, Athalya, ed. The Feminist Companion to the Bible. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993.
———, ed. A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
Brichto, Herbert Chanan. “Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex.” Hebrew Union College Annual 44 (1974).
Bronner, Leah. The Stories of Elijah and Elisha as Polemics Against Baal Worship. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1968.
Brueggemann, Walter. The Land: Place as Gift, Promise, and Challenge in Biblical Faith. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977.
Budde, Karl. Religion of Israel to the Exile. New York: Putnam, 1899.
Burns, John Barclay. “Devotee or Deviate: The Dog (keleb) in Ancient Israel as a Symbol of Male Passivity and Perversion.” Journal of Religion and Society 2 (2000).
Calasso, Roberto. The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. New York: Knopf, 1993.
Camp, Claudia V. “i and 2 Kings.” In The Women’s Bible Commentary, ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster Press, 1992.
———. “The Strange Woman of Proverbs: A Study in the Feminization and Divinization of Evil in Biblical Thought.” In Women and Goddess Traditions in Antiquity and Today, ed. Karen L. King. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.
———. Wise, Strange, and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With a Thousand Faces. New York: Pantheon, 1949.
Carmody, Denise Lardner. Biblical Woman: Contemporary Reflections on Scriptural Texts. Belleville, Mich.: Crossroad, 1988.
Cassuto, Umberto. The Goddess Anath: Canaanite Epics of the Patriarchal Age. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1971.
Cavendish, Richard. The Powers of Evil in Western Religion, Magic and Folk Belief. New York: Putnam, 1975.
Chatwin, Bruce. The Songlines. New York: Viking, 1987.
Clément, Catherine, and Julia Kristeva. The Feminine and the Sacred. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.
Cline, Eric H. The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age. Chicago: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
Collingwood, R. G. The Idea of History. New York: Clarendon Press, 1946.
Coote, Robert. “Yahweh Recalls Elijah.” In Traditions in Transformation: Turning Points in Biblical Faith, ed. Baruch Halpern and Jon D. Levenson. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1981.
———. Elijah and Elisha in Socioliterary Perspective. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992.
Cox, Harvey. The Seduction of the Spirit: The Use and Misuse of People’s Religion. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.
Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973.
Cumont, Franz. The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism. New York: Dover, 1956.
Day, John. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.
Day, Peggy L., ed. Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.
de Vaux, Roland. The Bible and the Ancient Near East. New York: Doubleday, 1971.
Djikstra, Bram. Evil Sisters: The Threat of Female Sexuality and the Cult of Manhood. New York: Knopf, 1996.
Djikstra, Meinart. “El, the God of Israel—Israel, the People of YHWH” and “Women and Religion in the Old Testament.” In Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah, ed. Bob Becking et al. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001.
Eisenstadt, S. N., ed. The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations. Albany: SUNY Press, 1986.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harper and Row, 1961.
Exum, J. Cheryl. Plotted, Shot, and Painted: Cultural Representations of Biblical Women. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1965.
Fewell, Danna Nolan, and David M. Gunn. Gender, Power, and Promise. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1993.
Finkelstein, Israel, and Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001.
Fisher, E. J. “Cultic Prostitution in the Ancient Near East? A Reassessment.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 6 (1976).
Fitzgerald, A. “The Mythological Background for the Presentation of Jerusalem as a Queen and False Worship as Adultery.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 34 (1972).
Fleming, Daniel E. The Installation of Baal’s High Priestess at Emar: A Window on Ancient Syrian Religion. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992.
Fontaine, Carol. “A Heifer from Thy Stable: On Goddesses and the Status of Women in the Ancient Near East.” In The Pleasure of Her Text: Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts, ed. Alice Bach. Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1990.
Forbes, R. J. Studies in Ancient Technology. Vol. 3. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1955.
Fraser, Sir James. The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion. New York: Macmillan, 1911.
Friedman, Richard Elliot. Who Wrote the Bible? New York: Summit Books, 1987.
Frost, Stanley B. “Judgment on Jezebel, Or a Woman Wronged.” Theology Today 20, no. 4 (1964).
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: Free Press, 1992.
———. Reading the Women of the Bible. New York: Schocken, 2002.
Gaines, Janet Howe. Music in the Old Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
Girard, René. Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore
: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
———. “Generative Scapegoating.” In Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation, ed. Robert G. Hamerton-Kelly. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1987.
Gnuse, Robert Karl. No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
Goodfriend, Elaine Adler. “Could keleb in Deuteronomy 23:19 Actually Refer to a Canine?” In Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995.
Gottwald, Norman K. All the Kingdoms of the Earth: Israelite Prophecy and International Relations in the Ancient Near East. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
Gray, John. I and II Kings: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970.
Greenberg, Moshe. “On the Political Use of the Bible in Modern Israel: An Engaged Critique.” In Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature, ed. David P. Wright, David Noel Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1995.
Gross, Beverly. “Bitch.” Salmagundi 162 (1994).
Gruber, Mayer I. “Women in the Ancient Levant.” In Women’s Roles in Ancient Civilizations: A Reference Guide, ed. Bella Vivante. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999.
Hackett, Jo Ann. “Can a Sexist Model Liberate Us?—Ancient Near Eastern ‘Fertility’ Goddesses.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5 (1989).
Hadley, Judith. “From Goddess to Literary Construct.” In A Feminist Companion to Reading the Bible: Approaches, Methods and Strategies, ed. Athalya Brenner and Carole Fontaine. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.
Halpern, Baruch. David’s Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001.
———. The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.
———. “‘Brisker Pipes Than Poetry’: The Development of Israelite Monotheism.” In Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel, ed. Jacob Neusner, Baruch A. Levine, and Ernest S. Frerichs. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1987.
Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen Page 21