Jezebel
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a . ish queen, celebrate In addition to the Old Testament they for her impious life. She was daughter Jewish queen, celebrated of Ethbaal, King of She was daughter possess a literature which chiefly consists Sidon, and wife of Ahab, King of Israel Sidon, and wife o of legends, songs, proverbs, and genealogies . She turned her husband from the Israel. She turned her . After their return from captivity worship of the true God, established temples worship of the true in Babylon, philosophy and theology to the idol Baal and caused a large to the idol Baal began to take their rise among the Jews number of prophets and holy persons to number of prophets , and a number of sects sprang up, such be put to death. Jehu, on gaining the put to death. as the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes throne, flung her from the windows of arone, flung her . During the Middle Ages the Jews her own palace, which killed her, the her own palace, were instrumental, like the Arabs, in dogs devouring her, as had been foretold. Her dogs devouring her, handing down the learning of antiquity. Her name, given by St. John to a certain female of name, given Thyatira, in his day certain female of In our own day and in almost every they have holding a like bad country illustrious representatives in all departments pre-eminence in profligacy of life, is holding a like bad commonly applied to ligacy of life, is of business aca rapacious, or vile woman. rapacious, or vile
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The narrative Collier's summarised in 1921 is the one in 1 and 2 Kings, and it still reads as the Bible tells it: daughter of Ethbaal of Sidon, wife of Ahab, thrown from a window at Jehu's coup. What has moved is the reading rather than the story. The discovery of the Ugarit (Ras Shamra) tablets from 1929 gave scholars actual Canaanite Baal texts, so her religion is no longer known only through the polemic of her enemies, and most historians now treat Kings as a Judahite account written to condemn the northern dynasty. A ninth-century BCE ivory seal in the Israel Museum bearing the letters YZBL was argued in 2007 to be hers, though the identification is disputed; meanwhile the epithet Collier's noted for "a rapacious, or vile woman" survives, and feminist and Black American writers have spent decades contesting it.
Written for this edition, 2026.