Sheba

QUEEN OF SHEBA AND BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP 61
section linking the two areas. This area of Saudi Arabia almost certainly
contains answers not only to Sabaean, but, as will be shown later, to early
Old Testament history.
Looking at the evidence solely from the Yemen, archaeologists have
concluded that Sabaean civilization should be divided into three main
periods: the ancient, being the 1,000 years before Christ; the middle from
the time of Christ till the fourth century A.D.; and the late, from the end of
fourth century until the sixth century A.D. After that, the area came under
Islamic rule, and the Sabaean language was superseded by Classical Arabic.
The ancient period, which most concerns this study, was divided into two
sub periods, the first lasting until about 500 B.C.E. and the second until the
time of Christ.
The Sabaean alphabet possessed twenty-nine consonants, which
exceeded those of any other Semitic language. Three different kinds of the
letter s are transcribed in Roman script as s 1 , s 2 , and s 3 while the sound
represented by C is identical to the pharyngeal Arabic ‘ayn. In the first part
of the ancient period, the time of the Queen of Sheba, the population of
Yemen was organized in small social and political units called `s 2 C b
(singular s 2 C b). These `s 2 C b were small autonomous or independent
political entities with a center where Yemenis took communal decisions,
for instance, on maintenance and control of the irrigation system, and
where the local religious cult leader organized ceremonies. The ruler’s title
was either mlk (king or queen) or bkr (first born) and he or she exercised
authority over a village serving not only as the local market but also as the
administrative and religious cult center. It appears that around the time of
the Queen of Sheba, the Sabaeans created a large confederation of the `s 2 C b,
whose leader was known as the mkrb SB. The title of mkrb referred to a
priest-king or priestess-queen. 2 The Queen of Sheba was most probably the
leader of the Sabaean religious cult. The Kebra Nagast (chapter 27) records
her description of the state religion:
We worship the sun like our ancestors also did. We revere the sun as the
most important of the gods. There are some amongst us who
acknowledge other deities from nature such as rocks and trees, while
others have carved figures representing divine forces. We worship the
sun because...she lightens the darkness and banishes fear. We call her
“Our Queen” and “Our Creator.”
South Arabian inscriptions also speak of a single deity, the God, named
Rahman (the Merciful One). The Prophet Muhammad, tried to make his