Sheba

QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 107
they are found [because] they killed Christ. .... For sure in all truth the
King of Aksum is the greatest of all the kings of his guardianship of
Zion [the Ark of the Covenant] .... the Chosen Ones of the Lord are the
people of Aksum. There is where God lives, the place of Zion, the
resting place of God’s Law and His Covenant.
King Caleb of Aksum ruled ca. A.D. 520-40. His original name was
Ella-Atsbeha and he was the first king of Aksum to have a biblical name.
Tradition says that Ezana, not Caleb, was the first Christian ruler of Aksum
but it appears that Christianity did not take a firm hold in Aksum and
Ezana’s successors reverted to paganism as the fortunes of the Roman
Empire went into temporary eclipse. The Nine Saints who had led the mass
conversion of Aksum pinned their hopes on Caleb to make Monophysite
Christianity a world power.
Unfortunately the Caleb Cycle makes very difficult reading, for its
author was certainly not as gifted as the writer of the Sheba-Menelik Cycle.
It seems to have been written before the Caleb’s crusade against Jewish
Himyar, with the result that the text is almost completely theological. The
Caleb Cycle is the text within the Kebra Nagast that utilizes the vast
majority of the 364 references, allusions, or possible influences in that work
linked to the Old Testament and 176 linked to the New Testament. It
interprets Old Testament material as New Testament symbolism and
prophesy and returns from time to time to an unconvincing scenario
whereby the 318 church leaders at the Council of Nicaea hung on every
word of Gregory the Illuminator (who never attended the council) and
unanimously agreed that Aksumite imperial claims took precedence over
all else. The Caleb Cycle nevertheless contains valuable insights into the
psyche of the Aksumite ruling class in the first part of the sixth century A.D.
It is just unfortunate that it was so badly written. In mitigation the author
may have been using reference works developed in isolation from those
different traditions that later became the standard texts of the Old
Testament and New Testament. Similar theories have been put forward for
the compilation of the Qur’an. Josephus used ancient texts now lost; Paul of
Tarsus appears to have drawn from texts that he may have discovered
during his three years in Arabia, which were probably known to the
Aksumites. Despite this, while historians should be eternally grateful to the
author of the Caleb Cycle for saving the Sheba-Menelik Cycle for posterity
through inclusion in his work, the reputation of the Sheba-Menelik Cycle
has suffered by its association with the painful style, unconvincing
arguments, and inaccuracies of the Caleb Cycle.