Sheba

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182 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT AND ISRAELITE INFLUENCES success against Yusuf. Plague, the rise of Islam, and other factors weakened the Semitic population, and as they advanced deeper into Africa they allegedly encountered fierce resistance from Yudit, a Cushitic Hebrew queen, who swept into Christian territory and sacked Aksum. Demographic change resulted in the Zagwe, a Cushitic dynasty, ruling the area from about A.D. 980 until 1270, when it was replaced by the Solomonids, a Semitic dynasty, who, despite Amhara-Tigrinya rivalry, lasted until 1974. The Cushitic element in Ethiopia was often associated with Judaism. Professor Edward Ullendorf considers that before the advent of Christianity, the Cushitic population of Ethiopia and Eritrea probably practiced a syncretic pagan-Hebraic/Israelite religion 6 that only survives today among small Hebraic/Israelite groups such as the Qemant, an Agaw-speaking peasant community living near Gondar. The Qemant accept the Sheba- Menelik Cycle; however, their religion, a synthesis of pagan Agaw with Hebraic practices and beliefs, has almost died out. Gamst considers that their faith was the last of the native Agaw religions and although the Qemant have converted to Christianity they still respect some of the old ways such as worshipping in sacred groves. 7 This finds parallels with the Muslim Hebraic Yibir of Somalia, who venerate trees. The Beta Israel informed the nineteenth century German missionary Martin Flad that they were originally tribal Israelites, a claim supported by their Tigrinya neighbors. The Beta Israel high priest stated that their technical skills, which included ironworking, enabled them to establish dominance among the Agaw, with whom they intermarried. The Zagwe royal house took a similar line, claiming descent from Moses, although their Semitic rivals spread the story that the Zagwe were descendants of Solomon through the Queen of Sheba’s maidservant. The Beta Israel, despite using Christian-manufactured Old Testaments, have their own separate traditions, including one describing the death of Moses. Zagwe’s King Lalibela was however an ardent Christian renown for his impressive ecclesiastical architecture. His Christian zeal aroused interest among Christian Europeans looking for co-religionist allies to help attack Islam from the rear, and he seems to have been the inspiration for the legend of Prester John. 8 The most recent major studies of the Beta Israel before their mass assimilation in Israel have been conducted by Harvard’s Kay Shelemay, Fisk University’s James Quiran, and the University of Jerusalem’s Steven Kaplan. All conclude that the “Judaism” of the Beta Israel is a “recent” fabrication, belonging to the period after A.D. 1270.
QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 183 Shelemay, an ethnomusicologist whose work on the Beta Israel has been highly praised, published her findings in 1989. 9 She makes no mention of the br inscriptions on the Tigre plateau let alone the important new trends in Old Testament archaeology. Worse, when she was later informed of these findings in 2006, she declined to receive details. She accepts the late Maxime Rodinson’s conclusion that neither the Israelite religion nor Judaism made any significant impact in southern Arabia until around A.D. 395. She dismisses the Sheba-Menelik Cycle as a myth and often judges Beta Israel practices by comparing them with “normative Judaism”, which is of little relevance since all Ethiopian traditions maintain that their past is Israelite not Judaic, and long predates Ezra’s fifth-century B.C.E. reforms. Shelemay’s work is thorough, and no one can seriously doubt her conclusion that the Beta Israel musical tradition comes from an Orthodox Christian source but, given the antiquity of their relationship, this would be expected. Shelemay is an ethnomusicologist making historical judgments and is unable to move outside the mental constraints of her Zionist beliefs. Nevertheless, given the growing doubt concerning Biblical archaeology and the need to find a plausible theory to explain Arabian Judaism, it might have been expected that Shelemay would have been alerted to the possibility that Beta Israel traditions deserved reassessment. Consequently, her final sentence - “It is difficult to dispute what we find, since one cannot argue with a song” - can only apply to the relationship between Orthodox and Beta Israel music and only fractionally to their historical past. Quiran and Kaplan both published in 1992, 10 the same year as Thompson’s survey of Israelite archaeology. Neither of them mentions the disquiet in Old Testament archaeological circles nor Professor Ali Mazrui’s consideration that Salibi’s hypothesis could shed considerable light on the origins of Israelite influences in Ethiopia. Kaplan concludes that Aksum was influenced by southern Arabian Judaic elements between the second and third centuries A.D. Quiran suggests they may have come from a Judaic-Christian background. They and Shelemay emphasize that the word Ayhud, meaning Jew, was often used to denigrate those who did not fully accept the tenets of the Orthodox Church, which, after 1270, became increasingly entwined with the imperial monarchy. Quiran argues that while Jews or Judaic-Christians may have been active at the court of Aksum before Frumentius’s arrival, the Beta Israel are not their descendants. Quiran and Kaplan both postulate that marginalized elements in Ethiopian society chose to oppose assimilation into the imperial
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Queen of Sheba and Biblical Scholar
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QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLAR
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CHAPTER ONE Sheba, Zionism, and the
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CHAPTER TWO The Search for Evidence
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CHAPTER THREE Writing the Old Testa
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CHAPTER SIX Western Arabia and the
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Sheba

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