As For A Kingdom, It Cannot Stand Without Wisdom

Q: Your blog assignment is to read the Kebra Nagast and then write about some aspect of religion that you see reflected in the text. You might ask yourself how this text relates to Religious Studies, or how you would define the use of the Bible that is reflected in the work. It will help to remember something of what we talked about in class on religion in Ethiopia.


A: I was thoroughly intrigued by our conversation at the start of the week about Ethiopia, and my interested was particularly peaked by learning that so many religions coexisted in such a small area. It's not uncommon to find people of a vast many religious beliefs in one country, but it's more common in highly populated, often urban areas, and in the places where the environment is different (more rural, less populated or the population is more widely spread), there is often only one or two religions in a small area. In Ethiopia, however, for many, many years now there have been at least four different religious communities within the borders of the country: Muslim, Christian, Tribal/Traditional, and Jewish. As far as I can tell, the sizes of the populations are generally in that order, from largest to smallest, I'm sure with some overlap. As we saw, there once was a larger population of Jews, until the transfer to Israel in the 1980s(?). It was made pretty clear from what Prof. Smith said in class that these groups do not live together in perfect harmony, and there was often unrest among them. 


While reading the Kebra Nagast, there were really two things that I found most interesting. Firstly, I was really impressed with the amount of pomp and circumstance that King Solomon was given. Not because I think he was undeserving of the respect, but mostly because even in the Bible (at least, the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible; I'm not sure if he's brought up in the NT) he's not given so much favour. True, he is depicted as the wisest king to ever live, but the way that he is painted in the Kebra Nagast makes him look almost saintly. I think what surprises me most is that despite there being a line about "condemning the Jewish people, the crucifiers" (p. 16) at the beginning of the excerpt, Solomon was and Israelite, and while not perhaps a modern Jew, would certainly have been clumped under "Jew" had such a religion existed during his time. It seems that this fact simply didn't matter because his wisdom was so admired and idolized.

And yes, I use the word "idolize" for a reason. It seems to me that Solomon became something of an idol. Not, perhaps, in the sense of a wood or stone-hewn image, but certainly a person to look up to. He almost seems to have become the symbol of wisdom, which brings me to my second point of interest. I was struck by some of the feelings that seemed to pervade the text brought on by the symbol of Solomon's wisdom; sound familiar? As seen through the story of the merchant, people observed him very closely, almost as if they thought that through watching him and being in his presence, they might absorb some of his wisdom. Looking at Solomon's wisdom as a symbol, we can see the pervasive emotions that it instills in people, such as the Queen of Sheba; "I am smitten with the love of wisdom, and I am constrained by the cords of understanding; for wisdom is far better than treasure of gold and silver, and wisdom is the best of everything that hath been created on the earth." It is through her long speech that the Queen not only reveals her desperate love (almost lust) of wisdom, but also her desire to visit Solomon, of who's wisdom she's been told of by the merchant, and thus drawn into rapture. I'm not suggesting that this is some sort of "Cult of Solomon," but simply that there are undeniable overlapping themes in both the text and Geertz's definition of religion.