I'm not sure whether this is because of the translator, or because of the era/background in which this was written, or because the story is new to me, but this was (to me) a much better story than many Bible stories. The characters seem more realistic and well-rounded.
For example Sheba explains the religion of her people:
"Tell me now: whom is it right to worship? We worship the sun according as our fathers have taught us to do, because we say that the sun is the king of gods...And we worship the sun, for he cooketh our food, and moreover, he illumineth the darkness, and removeth fear; we call him 'Our King', and we call him 'Our Creator', and we worship him as our god; for no man hath told us that besides him there is another god."
and Solomon explains that the God of Israel did one better than that, and created the sun... And later Sheba promises:
"And the people shall not worship the sun, and the magnificence of the heavens, or the mountains and the forests, or the stones and the trees of the wilderness, aor the abysses and that which is in the waters, or graven images and figures of gold, or in the feathered fowl that fly; and they shall not make use of them in divining, and they shall not pay adoration unto them."
This seems like an unusually neutral, or even favorable treatment of polytheism by a Christian book. It seems understandable, for the Ethiopians, to be polytheists, and their style of worship is reasonable since their objects of worship aren't useless images but the Sun, which provides some useful services.
Might this dialogue between Solomon and the ancient Queen of Sheba have been used to convert polytheists? It seems like it would be much more convincing than the sort of condescending 'your gods are worse than powerless' approach.
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