Resumen de Converting the Queen: gender and polemic in the Book of ‘Aḥiṭub and Ṣalmon
The fifteenth-century Book of ‘Aḥiṭub and Ṣalmon (Sefer Aḥiṭub ve-Ṣalmon), a Hebrew anti-Christian prose narrative from Iberia written in the wake of the 1413–14 Disputation of Tortosa, tells the story of a just queen who ruled an island without any worldly religion. After deciding to seek the true religion by sending out three wise men, who later return as a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian, respectively, the queen holds a debate between the Christian and the Jew. When the Muslim, who arbitrates the debate, adjudicates in favor of the Jew, the whole island joins the queen in converting to Judaism while the Christian hangs himself in disgrace. This study focuses on the role of the queen as a narratological device and as a polemical tool. It argues that the queen is presented as a symbol of both reason and wisdom—a sort of Lady Wisdom—and as a counterpoint to the Virgin Mary. In this way, the figure of the queen constitutes a Jewish response to Christian arguments according to both rational proofs and religious authority.
