Page 240 - History of The Quranic Text | Kalamullah.Com

220 THE HISTORY OF THE QUR'ANIC TEXT

started plotting against him through encouragement from the priest
Ahijah. Condemned to death by his own father, he fled to Egypt and
there received political asylum. On Solomon's death his other son,
Rehoboam, ascended to the throne, and at this point the northern
tribes decided to secede and establish the separate kingdom of Israel,
with Jeroboam happily abandoning the life of an exile to become
its first ruler,"
Conscious of religion's central role in his nation,Jeroboam feared
that his subjects might travel to the southern kingdom of Judah to
offersacrificesinJerusalem, at Solomon's Temple. To curb these fears
he had to wean their sightsaway from the Temple, and so he "revived
the traditional sanctuaries at Bethel near his southern border and
Dan in the extreme north, and set up golden calvesin them, as Aaron
had done in the desert""

2. Nadab toJehoram (910-841 B.C.)
Jeroboam was followed by a succession of kings who, on occasion,
enjoyed the throne but briefly before suffering the assassin's knife.
The eight kings of this period walked in the ways ofJeroboam, all-
owing sinful conduct in religious matters and turning the people
away from the notion of one true God." Ahab (874-853 B.C.) went
so far as to introduce the Phoenician god Baal as one of the gods of
Israel, to appease his wife.t" The last king of this period,Jehoram,
was massacred along with his entire family and all the prophets of
Baal, by his generalJehu. 49

3. Jehu (841-814 B.C.)
Leading a revolt instigated by the prophet Elisha,Jehu claimed that
God had appointed him King of Israel to wipe out the sinful house
of Ahab. He butchered all the family members of the three previous
kings who had worshipped Baal, beheading Ahab's seventy sons and
piling their heads in two heaps.t" He then wrenched the country
into religious reforrnation.!'

45 Who's Who, i:205.
46 ibid, i:206.
47 ibid, i:63, 107,291, and 394. See alsoJosephus, Antiq., Book 8, Ch. 12, No.5 (313).
48 Dictionary of the Bible, p. 16.
49 Who's Who, i:192.
so ibid, i:194-5.
51 ibid, i:194-5.