Sheba

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184 THE ARK OF THE COVENANT AND ISRAELITE INFLUENCES framework by identifying as a separate people named Beta Israel. The centuries following the 1270 Solomonid restoration witnessed the expansion of the new dynastic power. Recalcitrant groups that refused to adopt the Orthodox faith or to pay tribute lost their land and were forced into infertile peripheral areas along with heretical Christian monks. Military expeditions exacerbated the situation, and by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries rebels were openly supporting a form of Judaism influenced by Christian monasticism and were creating their own kingdom in the Semien Mountains, nominally under imperial governorship. The Semien Mountains provided strong natural defenses. Imperial power faltered when Muslim attacks seriously threatened the empire, forcing the emperor to ask for Portuguese assistance. The Beta Israel initially welcomed the Muslim invasion but then decided to switch allegiance to the Orthodox. When imperial power revived, relations between the Beta Israel and the Orthodox broke down and eventually, after many campaigns, the Beta Israel were finally crushed in 1632. Quiran emphasizes that caste connotations played a role in the alienation of groups from Orthodox rule. It is therefore interesting to note that once the Beta Israel had been defeated in the Semien Mountains, they rapidly gained a reputation as artisans, craftsmen, and even soldiers in the city of Gondar. The Beta Israel profited from their association with imperial public works, and despite their constitutional disadvantages as inferior citizens they enjoyed a peaceful, prosperous, existence until 1769, when the assassination of Emperor Iyo’as sparked conflict between rival feudal warlords. Artisans and peasants suffered the most, and the Beta Israel undertook despised, ritually unclean work such as blacksmithing and pottery to survive. They never recovered their former prosperity or security. The Great Famine of 1888-93 decimated their monasteries and left them destitute. They were harassed by European Christian missionaries and used as scapegoats by feudal landlords and peasants angry with government land reform. Their skills were made obsolete by Western technology, and when famine struck again in the 1980s during the Ethiopian civil war their situation deteriorated to such an extent that they accepted evacuation to Israel as their only hope. Their subsequent experience in Israel, sometimes attacked as a trade-off between economic benefits for cultural genocide, has, at least, been highly controversial. Mention has been made of possible Judaic-Christian influence prior to the arrival of Orthodox Christianity in Aksum. This subject deserves a separate book. The New Testament account of Christ’s ministry covers
QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 185 three years, but his origins and early life are not at all clear. Christ spoke Aramaic, but his teachings and sayings were memorized in verse and later translated and written in Greek. Christ was from the Israelite royal House of David and a direct descendant of Jehoiachin, son of the last independent king of Judah. He may have been from Galilee in Palestine or Wadi Galil/Jalil in Taif province, northern Hijaz. He had a commanding knowledge of the law, but his egalitarian attitude towards women and various exchanges with the Jerusalem priesthood in the Gospels indicate that he belonged to another sect. He was more likely a member of the Nazarene sect (the people of Wadi Jalil are still called Nasirah) and not from the town of Nazareth, which emerged in later times. The Arabic name for Christian is nasrani, and after Paul had his vision on the road to Damascus he immediately left for Arabia, where he stayed for three years. The Qur’an contains the most detailed account of the Virgin Mary, portraying her as a powerful figure whose prestige was so great that a dispute arose when the time came to sponsor her in the temple. This portrait is in sharp contrast with the extremely hazy figure in the New Testament. According to Yemenite tradition, after the Babylonian exile a member of the Levi tribe, a virgin mother named Mary (Miriam) opposed Ezra’s draconian reforms. She founded the Nazarene Israelite sect in Najran. The Yemenite account dates Mary to around 400 B.C.E. Ezra cursed the Yemeni Israelites for refusing to join his new community. There is an extremely controversial theory that Paul may have used sacred texts in Arabia to create a composite figure from two separate leaders: Isa, the son of Mary of the House of Levi; and Yeshu, the son of Joseph of the House of David. Whether or not Mary was the founder or a later adherent of the Nazarene Israelite sect, it is known that in the seventh century A.D. the Negus of Aksum possessed Christian texts now lost that matched the Qur’anic account. It is therefore possible that Nazarene Israelites had some influence at the Aksumite court before the arrival of Orthodox Christianity. Their faith would have evolved into Judaic-Christianity after Christ. If the Nazarene faith had indeed been influential in Aksum it is likely its Israelite customs would have been retained when it gave way to the more prestigious Orthodox faith with its imperial Roman connections. This would also explain why the Orthodox Church could respect Israelite customs and beliefs while displaying hostility to Judaism. A Judaic-Christian group still exists in Hamasien, Eritrea. This is the Latos, a highly significant group of Tigrinya-speakers enjoying considerable economic and political power in Eritrea. They have priests
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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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