Defending Jezebel

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ahimsa
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Ahimsa

Guest
In the deep pages of the Bible, no woman gets more ink than a queen named Jezebel. Not Eve. Not Mary. But Jezebel’s ink is no love letter.
Click to expand...
In the three thousand years since this Phoenician princess came south to marry a king of Israel, her name has become synonymous with wanton sexuality – the harlot queen, the scheming seductress, the shameless painted hussy.
Click to expand...
Now, a new book reaches back to save Jezebel from what it calls a smear job, and paints her as a kind of ancient heroine in the unfinished battle of tolerance versus fundamentalism.
Click to expand...
This hour, On Point: reconsidering Jezebel, the Bible’s harlot queen.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, she didn’t mean to seek out Elijah’s death or to have most of the remaining prophets of Israel to die…

It’s all simply bad publicity.
 
Jezebel was big trouble. Where is it said that she was a harlot? Although it Baal worship involved temple prostitution, and in that scene in 2 Kg 9, where she think she’s going to seduce Jehu and “paints her eyes and adorns her head,” she gives makeup a bad name but harlot?

J. Vernon McGee, Protestant Fundamentalist, thinks Jezebel was completely a-sexual – driven by ambition and the lust for power.

Come to think of it, that would not be incompatible with harlotry. But I don’t see outright harlotry in the Scripture.

Maybe I’m missing something?
 
NotWorthy said:
Yeah, she didn’t mean to seek out Elijah’s death or to have most of the remaining prophets of Israel to die…

It’s all simply bad publicity.
Click to expand...

Most of it probably is. Jehu was no better, but the author of 2 Kings is much more favourable to him.​

 
Jezebel was no seductress or harlot. If she put on makeup, it was so that she could die with some semblance of royal dignity. After all, she knew what was coming (you don’t seduce someone by calling him Zimri).

Nevertheless, Jezebel was a cruel woman:
  1. Murdered almost all of the Yahwist prophets;
  2. Threatened Elijah with death after the Carmel contest;
  3. Forced Ahab into Baal worship and the spread of the cult;
  4. Conspired with scoundrels to have Naboth assassinated.
If she is to be judged, it will be on these grounds.
 
The harlot, Jezebel, is found in Revelations, chapter 2:

*** Yet I hold this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, who teaches and misleads my servants to play the harlot and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her harlotry.***
 
NotWorthy said:
The harlot, Jezebel, is found in Revelations, chapter 2:

Yet I hold this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, who teaches and misleads my servants to play the harlot and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her harlotry.
Click to expand...
Good reference! How did I forget that!

In this case, however, it appears more that Jezebel’s harlotry lies in her worship of idols. Idolatry and adultery/harlotry are virtually synonyms throughout Scripture. Since one harlot and one adulteress were prominently mentioned in Jesus’ geneaology, I’m thinkin’ that it’s the idolatry component of Jezebel’s behavior that gets her labeled as a harlot.
 
mercygate said:
Good reference! How did I forget that!

In this case, however, it appears more that Jezebel’s harlotry lies in her worship of idols. Idolatry and adultery/harlotry are virtually synonyms throughout Scripture. Since one harlot and one adulteress were prominently mentioned in Jesus’ geneaology, I’m thinkin’ that it’s the idolatry component of Jezebel’s behavior that gets her labeled as a harlot.
Click to expand...
Israel itself was called a harlot whenever it worshipped other gods. Didn’t a prophet marry a prostitute as a sign of Israel’s idol-worship.

So yea, harlotry and idolatry, symbolically, are the same thing.
 
NotWorthy said:
Israel itself was called a harlot whenever it worshipped other gods. Didn’t a prophet marry a prostitute as a sign of Israel’s idol-worship.

So yea, harlotry and idolatry, symbolically, are the same thing.
Click to expand...
Yup. Hosea married Gomer.
 
Ahimsa said:
…In the deep pages of the Bible, no woman gets more ink than a queen named Jezebel…
Click to expand...
I don’t know if this is correct. I don’t have time to try to make a comparison right now, but I think that Ruth, Esther, and the unnamed queen in the Song of Songs all get more “ink” than Jezebel.
Click to expand...
 
I don’t take any of these claims as good faith research anymore. IMO, there seems to be a trend to discredit pretty much the Bible’s position on everyone and everything - First Yahweh was part of a pantheon, then Jesus didn’t exist, but the Apostle Mary Magdalene married Jesus and had a ton of kids, then Judas was in on it and wrote a gospel to record his side, now Jezebel is the victim of a nationalist version of history.

Perhaps every combination of possible personal interpretations of the scriptures have been exhausted, and the only real room for creativity left is to redact the text itself bit by bit. If bunk like this ends up in the next NAB revision, I will be very displeased indeed.:mad:
 
NotWorthy said:
Although if any version would have this tripe, I’d bet on the NAB, I still wouldn’t hold my breath on this, Fred.
Click to expand...
You’re probably right, but the possibility crossed my mind, and I felt the need to vent 😉
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top