Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism) - Softcover

Lassner, Jacob

 
9780226469157: Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0226469158 ISBN 13: 9780226469157
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1993

Synopsis

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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About the Author

Jacob Lassner is the Phillip M. and Ethel Klutznick Professor Emeritus of Jewish Civilization and professor of history and religion at Northwestern University.

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Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Publication date
1993
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0226469158
ISBN 13 
9780226469157
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
2
Number of pages
297

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780226469133: Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism)

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  0226469131 ISBN 13:  9780226469133
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1993
Hardcover