Customer Reviews

The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel

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The Jezebel Letters: Religion and Politics in Ninth-Century Israel

3 stars Kindle version - poor footnoting

The technical: This is a review of the Kindle version. The linkage to footnotes/endnotes is non-existent. This is regrettable since they would help a reader to understand the storyline. This technical glitch would result in a 2 star rating if that was my only complaint. However -

I really wanted to like this book. I knew that I would not agree with the author's premises - i.e., the story of Jezebel in the Bible is pretty much a fabrication made up by the post-Babylonian exile Judeans equivalent to today's American Liberal Press - the scribes of Judah made it up to serve their own selfish needs. The story is fictional, sort of an alternate world historical novel. Not faith threatening even to a literate biblical fundamentalist.

Unfortunately the book is dull. The author has not been able to make the transition from academic journalese to simple entertainment. Jezebel does NOT come across as a real person - that is someone who is sometimes good/ sometimes bad/ sometimes mediocre. real people are full of passion, emotion, pain, joy, sorrows, etc -. but not the Jezebel of this book. She sounds like a detached historian. The most stunning example of this starts at location 1067 (remember this is a Kindle review) where Jezebel speaks of her son Ahaziah's murder. She is speaking in the third person to the reader and not an ounce of sorrow, anger, or mourning is expressed!!

It reads roughly like this: >>My "Kingfisher" Ahaziah was killed because he blah, blah, blah, and hum. Hum, hum, I (Jezebel) covered it up by Doo Doo Doo - ho hum and now my little Kestrel Joram will . . . <<

You know, in some ways the author's dispassionate mother Jezebel is a scarier person than the biblical one.

The premise of the book had promise, but sigh . . 3 stars for effort, 2.5 overall rounded up to 3. Sorry, wanted to rate it higher but I can't.