User:Jehobbs/sandbox

Comments from Cody: "Looking at your information in the sandbox, clearly you have taken good notes and applied it to the topic at hand. First thing I would do is add a title to your sandbox as I struggled a bit knowing exactly what your topic was. Is your topic of the Kebra Negast or the King/Queen of Sheba? Also I would attempt to go deeper into logic of whether or not the Queen sat on the throne. Because you have only two citations listed, I believe you can find more information on this topic and further your additions to the Wikipedia article. You do a good job citing the information within the notes and have detailed and valuable information which is a fantastic start. Lastly, if you can find information as to why Prince Kasa and Queen Victoria were interested in the Kebra Negast that can create a connection to the European world that would benefit the addition to the Wikipedia page. Let me know if you have any questions!"

The Queen of Sheeba and Her Role in Ethiopian Religious Identity.

The link to King Solomon provided a strong foundation for Ethiopian national unity. "Ethiopians see their country as God's chosen country, the final resting place that he chose for the Ark - and Sheba and her son were the means by which it came there". .

The reason that the Kebra Nagast on a whole has been so important to recent Judaic and Christian scholarship is that when combined with several other historical documents, it has helped construct an argument for a relocation of the Old Testament away from Egypt and Palestine and into Western Arabia and to a lesser extent, the African horn. The Queen of Sheeba's story in particular "provides evidence for the existence of important commercial relations between ancient Israel and Arabia."

Several emperors have stressed the importance of the Kebra Negast. One of the first instances of this can be traced in a letter from Prince Kasa (King John IV) to Queen Victoria in 1872. Kasa states "There is a book called Kebra Nagast which contains the law of the whole of Ethiopia, and the names of the shums (governors), churches and provinces are in this book. I pray you will find out who has got this book and send it to me, for in my country my people will not obey my orders without it." Despite the historic importance given to the Kebra Negast, there is still doubt to whether or not the Queen sat on the throne.

The other explanation for the ruler of Sheba at the time was that the book was referring to the Kingdom of Sheba rather than the queen herself. "Kingdom" is a feminine word in Hebrew so this theory would be consistent with the feminine gender of the sentences describing Solomon's trial of riddles in Sheba. However, looking closer at these riddles across many different books of the Bible, they are heavily focused on women. Though the existence of her reign has been contested and debated, the Queen of Sheba can be said to represent a crafty, strong, and respected female leader, a rare occurrence in a biblical literature that is heavy handed with men and tends to paint women as meek.