There is no woman with a worse reputation than Jezebel, the ancient queen who corrupted a nation and met one of the most gruesome fates in the Bible. Her name alone speaks of sexual decadence and promiscuity. But what if this version of her story, handed down to us through the ages, is merely the one her enemies wanted us to believe? What if Jezebel, far from being a conniving harlot, was, in fact, framed? In this remarkable new biography, Lesley Hazleton shows exactly how the proud and courageous queen of Israel was vilified and made into the very embodiment of wanton wickedness by her political and religious enemies. Jezebel brings readers back to the source of the biblical story, a rich and dramatic saga featuring evil schemes and underhanded plots, war and treason, false gods and falser humans, and all with the fate of entire nations at stake. At its center are just one woman and one man—the sophisticated Queen Jezebel and the stark prophet Elijah. Their epic and ultimately tragic confrontation pits tolerance against righteousness, pragmatism against divine dictates, and liberalism against conservatism. It is, in other words, the original story of the unholy marriage of sex, politics, and religion, and it ends in one of the most chillingly brutal scenes in the entire Bible. Here at last is the real story of the rise and fall of this legendary woman—a radically different portrait with startling contemporary resonance in a world mired once again in religious wars.
An amazing story and a hard-to-put-down book, from the first chapter I was enthralled by this young woman's life. This is a must read...it will be on every book club's list next year! Jezebel tugged at my heart and I am recommending it to all my friends. Lesley Hazleton has written a literary giant!
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 to 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.
