Jezebel: The Untold Story of the Bible's Harlot Queen

This monograph presents a revisionist historical account of the biblical Queen Jezebel, challenging traditional religious interpretations that have cast her as an archetypal evil woman. Hazleton employs historical-critical methodology to reconstruct Jezebel's story from archaeological evidence, ancient Near Eastern texts, and comparative analysis of biblical narratives. The work situates itself within feminist biblical criticism while engaging broader questions about divine authority, religious legitimacy, and the politics of sacred texts.

Hazleton argues that Jezebel's demonization in biblical texts reflects not divine judgment but the political and theological agendas of the Deuteronomistic historians who composed these narratives centuries after the events they describe. The author contends that Jezebel, a Phoenician princess who married King Ahab of Israel, represented a sophisticated polytheistic religious tradition that posed a legitimate challenge to emergent Yahwistic monotheism. Rather than viewing the conflict between Jezebel and the prophet Elijah as a straightforward battle between truth and falsehood, Hazleton presents it as a clash between competing religious systems, each claiming divine sanction.

The work's significance for the God debate lies in its deconstruction of biblical authority and its implications for understanding divine revelation. By demonstrating how political interests shaped the biblical portrayal of Jezebel, Hazleton implicitly questions the text's status as divinely inspired scripture. Her analysis reveals how theological winners write history, suggesting that what appears as God's judgment in biblical narrative may instead reflect human power struggles dressed in religious language.

Hazleton's methodology combines literary analysis with historical reconstruction, drawing on archaeological findings from ancient Israel and Phoenicia to challenge the biblical account's historical reliability. She examines how later Jewish and Christian traditions amplified Jezebel's negative portrayal, transforming her into a symbol of female wickedness that served patriarchal religious interests. This genealogy of interpretation raises fundamental questions about the relationship between divine truth claims and social power.

The monograph contributes to contemporary debates about biblical interpretation, religious authority, and the gendered dimensions of theological discourse. While not explicitly arguing against theism, Hazleton's work undermines fundamentalist readings of scripture and suggests that much of what believers attribute to divine action may be better understood as human political maneuvering. Her rehabilitation of Jezebel serves as a case study in how critical historical methodology can destabilize traditional religious narratives and their claims to transcendent authority.