Sheba and Solomon Did it Happen?

One aspect of religion in the Kebra Negast:

One aspect of Religion according to Gertz is to create an order of existence; The Kebra Negast establishes beautifully how Judaism came to exist in Ethiopia. The full Kebra Negast is the story is “the departure of god and his ark of the covenant from Jerusulem to Ethiopia” but the section we read explained the Queen of Sheba’s relationship to King Solomon.

Earlier in the year we saw a video made by students about how people would use stories to establish a way of believing the unexplainable. The story behind the spread of Judaism to Ethiopia is an unexplainable concept. From a theological standpoint one could truly believe in the story we read as fact. For example the Rastafari interpret the Kebra Negast literally and believe that Haile Selassie a former emperor of Ethiopia was literally a descended of Sheba and Solomon.

The Rastafari use the Kebra Negast as a System of symbols in order to create an ordered existence that makes their life tolerable, from a religious studies standpoint one has to be cautious. I would be wary of interpreting Halie Selassie as a direct descendent of King Solomon because there has been so much turmoil in Ethopia since Sheba’s reign, also the Story of the Kebra Negast has been impossible to verify. Because, there are several people in the bible called Sheba, and different religions choose to interpret the symbols in their own way. It is evident that both Islamic and Ethopian traditions have a different explanation for who Sheba really was, the Kebra Negast claims that Sheba was from Ethiopia, while Islamic traditions suggests she was from Marib. Both versions of the story add to the order of existence in their respective cultures, and thus disserve to be included as a part of religion.

The Kebra Negast was very elegant in the way it presented the events according to the Ethiopian point of view, whether they are historically correct is beside the point. One can read and enjoy the stories and not accept them as truth or fiction. My goal was simply to examine the facets that appeared to me to me most religious, based on the fact that they could apply to multiple faiths.