Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen

Lesley Hazleton has done a superb job of filling int the context and teasing out the facts regarding Jezebel. This well footnoted book, with its frequent asides and rich background material, moves quickly and surely. It is fascinating to read, and ends altogether too soon. Jezebel, whom we learn really was called Itha-Baal, was a Phoenician princess from Tyre who married the Omride King Ahab. She appears to have been neither significantly better nor significantly worse than other royalty of her time. Nevertheless, her spectacular clash with the intransigent desert prophet Elijah eventually resulted in her being denigrated and reviled unfairly in the Hebrew Bible. Add to that the fact that the current understanding of language has changed so much that many no longer understand such terms as metaphor and allegory. (For the effects of this lack of understanding, see, for instance, Karen Armstrong's excellent work, "The Battle for God.") As a result, the term "harlot," which was applied metaphorically in Biblical times to those who worshipped many gods and were not too fussy about which gods they worshipped, has come to be understood literally. Not so, Ms. Hazleton points out quite correctly. And she goes on to show that the Biblical account in Kings in fact makes no claim that Jezebel literally was a harlot in the sexual sense. Ms. Hazleton similarly addresses other misreadings and euphemistic mistranslations throughout this book. All of these should be of interest to anyone interested in learning what actually has been said of Jezebel, even by the victors who so reviled her. In summary, "Jezebel" is a smooth-flowing work which is a delight to read while being educational at the same time. This book is well worth the time and money. A keeper.

Let us thank Lesley Hazleton for bringing the logic of drama--character, motivation, plot--to the Bible stories of saints and sinners. The sketchy saga of Jezebel as we know it, filled with historical inconsistency, linguistic inaccuracy, and moral nonsense, swells with detail as Hazleton frames Jezebel's life and death in the religious and economic politics of her time. Using impeccable scholarship and direct translation from Hebrew texts, Hazleton explores Jezebel as a political heroine of royal will and responsibility, the leading lady in bloody play with the prophet Elijah over polytheism versus monotheism. Jezebel's harlotry refers to her worship of the many gods and goddesses of her native Phoenicia in opposition to the one god of Israel, Yahweh (though her religious tolerance acknowledges Yahweh as well). The scholarship necessary to pull off a credible revision of Jezebel's character from symbolic slut to virtuous wife and Queen might have turned overly academic, but Hazleton transforms her research into an archetypal drama of the destroyed and her destroyer, embracing the brutal ironies of history. Hazleton tempts us to mine the Bible for more stories of women maligned and misunderstood; better yet, let her imagine it, research it, write it--and we'll read it.

Lesley Hazleton tells readers the story of a 15-year-old girl, branded like Kleenex as a harlot. But through her scholarship and use of "historical imagination" the story becomes much more layered. Married off to Ahab, the King of Israel by her father, Jezebel comes from her seaside home of Tyre to the harsh desert. She brings with her, her polytheistic beliefs and that is when Elijah, Israel's ragged prophet of Yahweh, the one and only god, goes to war against her. Sound familiar? Hazleton has me in her grasp. Her ability to tell a page-turner of a story of a woman who is young, powerful, strong and wronged is too good to put down. Elijah sets her up to be a liar, murderer, sorceress and harlot. She was no angel but Hazelton's story reveals a different person. Hazleton brings to her story a knowledge of history, language and syntax. She links the past to the present. I wish that she lives forever so that she can color in the fascinating characters who live in the Bible. They are, too often, used as stock characters in a homily. Her characters are flesh and blood. Jezebel is an eye-opener.

We all know Jezebel to be a harlot. It practically goes without saying, even if we have only the fuzziest idea of actually happened during the reign of Ahab and his polytheistic queen. Hazleton spends considerable effort debunking the myth of Jezebel as a prostitute, providing a few of her own translations of the Hebrew Bible and, in the process, creating what turns out to be a dramatic and engaging narrative about this period under the reign of Yahweh. Hazleton spent time traveling around Isreal, searching out the sights of this rather bloody time in Old Testament history. As a result, we get not only an account of what happened--and what did not--in those days, but also a modern day picture of how the land remains uneasy under the government of Israel and the Palestinians. Hazleton takes the risk of getting inside the head of Jezebel--something traditionalists will consider taboo in the realm of nonfiction--but the effect is dazzling. She brings the character of Jezebel to life for us, much in the way she did in her last work, "Mary." This book is full of magic and wisdom, fearlessly written by a scholar of both history and the human heart. It's brilliant, bold, and generous at once.

I loved this passionate retelling of the story of Jezebel! Informed by Hazelton's erudition, command of the Hebrew language, and ability to recreate a long-ago time and place in lyrical prose, the Harlot Queen comes alive, not as the much-maligned personification of evil who earned the wrath of the fundamentalist prophet ELijah but as a vulnerable teenage girl who leaves her home and family for an arranged marriage to a foreign king, and comes to one of the most gruesome ends in the Bible.