(1) Overview
Repository location
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21952738 Zenodo Repository.
Context
This data was produced as part of an ongoing dissertation for the Graduate Program in Religion at Duke University.
(2) Method
Steps
First, I identified the potential spellings of Jezebel’s name in the relevant languages by finding editions of the Bible in those languages, and identifying further variants by consulting manuscripts of the Bible. Then, I conducted my initial search, identifying which corpora contain references to Jezebel. There were no references to Jezebel beyond literary sources or in the available Coptic online corpus. In this initial phase, I settled on using Simtho (Kiraz & Čéplö, 2025), the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (Pantelia, n.d.), Ma’agarim (The Academy of the Hebrew Language, n.d.), Sefaria (Sefaria, n.d.), the Library of the Latin Texts (Denecker, n.d.), Corpus Corporum (Roelli, 2024) and the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (Kaufman, n.d.).
To test what issues I would face and get a sense of what categories would be useful, I began with the Greek data, creating monolingual excerpts with only basic metadata. Then I divided those excerpts into units of analysis called “snapshots” anchored by a reference to Jezebel’s name which I assigned a uniqueID. Then, once I had my first set, I devised the features I wanted to track and the categories by which I would analyse the data. I repeated the process with both Syriac and Hebrew, and then re-annotated the Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew data in light of the modifications I made. Finally, I repeated the process with Latin. All 570 “snapshots” with their uniqueIDs are available (bilingually) in the excerpts file.
I annotated for these features: first, metadata including authorship and pseudonymity, work title and sections, as well as, language of the excerpt, century of composition, range of possible dates of composition, locations of writing, and the group the author belonged to (confession). Second, I also noted both ancient and modern genre categories (where a given work can have more than one). Third, I annotated for features of intertextuality, including whether the work is a translation, if it cites any other texts in the data model, the biblical stories it references, if it cites any verses beyond the Jezebel cycle, and if it makes allusion to either any biblical figures or Cyril or Nestorius. Fourth, I also included categories for analysis: if the excerpt is related to John Chrysostom in any way, if it includes anti-Jewish material, what ancient rhetorical functions the reference to Jezebel is serving in the literary context, and if anyone is compared with Jezebel. I also traced thematic information under the heading of “property” (see Table 1).
Table 1
The characteristics of properties.
| PROPERTY | CHARACTERISTICS |
|---|---|
| Pursuer/Persecutor | chasing, pursuit, or persecution (in general), hiding, or Jezebel as the object that causes flight. |
| Murderous | bloodthirstiness, killing, murder (except when specifically framed as persecution) |
| Dead/Disgraced | Jezebel’s death, dismemberment, corpse, or disgrace, post-mortem shame, being eaten by dogs, pushed out a window, trampled by horses. |
| Idolater/Heretic | Baal, heresy, idolatry, image-worship, witchcraft |
| Sexual | sex, makeup, prostitution, illicit relations, adultery |
| Inciting Sin | teaching, leading, or otherwise causing sin |
| Tricky/deceit | mentions of lying, plotting, tricks, deception. |
| Husband Influencer | influence over Ahab, turning Ahab’s heart, leading Ahab astray |
| Out-of-bounds | lawlessness, out-of-control, words that indicate “beyond,” crazy |
| Mother | Jezebel’s motherhood or children |
| Queen | Jezebel as queen, ruler. |
| Foreign | Sidonite identity, “foreign,” or being of another people |
| Greedy | money, avarice, greed, luxury, coveting |
| 0 | No specific discernible property |
Fifth and finally, I tracked collocations, here defined not as words directly to the left and right of our lemma Jezebel, but instead as words that travel with her. This includes descriptions of Jezebel, verbs for which she is the agent, verbs for which she is the patient, as well as other associated words (labelled “other collocations”). All these words are given in their dictionary form, not the form they show up in the excerpt. In the sheet “glosses,” all these collocations are glossed into English to allow cross-linguistic comparison.
Sampling strategy
All references to Jezebel’s name in the relevant languages and time-span were included in this dataset.
Quality control
After I collected the initial texts, I corrected them with print editions (because particularly in Syriac, the OCR was unreliable). Once the process was complete, I went through the data again for consistency in several phases. First, with the collocations, making sure they were correctly normalized for the language (e.g., emphatic singular for nouns in Syriac, or first person singular present indicative active for Latin verbs) before I glossed them, then a second time when I created bilingual editions of each text for the dissertation (available in the sheet “snapshots”). All glosses in English use the 3rd person present active, regardless of the dictionary form of the original language for verbs. I then went through and verified the annotations for other features, using my bilingual editions to make sure all instances of a given name (e.g., Moses) were accounted for and checking the metadata.
(3) Dataset Description
Repository name
Zenodo.
Object name
10.5281/zenodo.21952737 containing three TSV sheets: “Data Model,” “Glosses,” and “Snapshots.” The scope of “Data Model” includes metadata, analysis, and monolingual collocations for each snapshot, with an assigned uniqueID. “Glosses” glosses all collocation data, organized by uniqueID, into English (while preserving the original language). “Snapshots” connects the uniqueID with an actual excerpt of text (in the original language and English).
Format names and versions
TSV.
Creation dates
2024-06-11 to 2026-08-15
Dataset creators
Briana Grenert.
Language
The names of the columns, as well as for work titles and author names is in English. The collocations are in Syriac, Latin, Hebrew, Greek, and Jewish Literary Aramaic.
License
CC-BY.
Publication date
2026-08-15.
(4) Reuse Potential
This dataset is invaluable for anyone interested in the history of women in literature, biblical reception, or rhetoric in late antiquity. This dataset sits at the intersection of the study of biblical reception and the study of rhetoric in late antiquity. Biblical women, in particular, in late antiquity are understudied, often only receiving a few pages in a commentary or a few pages in a longue-durée history that largely skips from the Bible to the early modern period. My dissertation, the main work that has used this data, has only scratched the surface of its potential, covering Jezebel’s use against imperial figures, heretics, insider deviants, political enemies, foreigners, and in the Jewish-Christian polemics. My data provides the untapped potential to study Jezebel within a given language tradition, e.g. just the Hebrew Jezebel, just the Syriac Jezebel or Jezebel’s use among particular groups (East Syriacs, Chalcedonians) or even by geographic region (are there trends in Jezebel’s use in North Africa? Or are there things East Syriac and Rabbinic authors in Persia share in their use of Jezebel?). My dataset provides the possibility of studying many features which I did not have the space to study. It would be of particular interest to scholars of John Chrysostom, the Christological controversies, and Jewish-Christian relations, or any scholar could use the intensive study of one biblical figure as a case study for their wider interests.
This dataset makes available texts in English for scholars who might not read all the languages in the set. Half of the snapshots are my own translations, usually the first time a text is available in English. Even for the half that were already translated, they were found in hundreds of different books. These excerpts are brought together and readable in English for the first time in this dataset. Scholars at all levels, from students to seasoned experts will be able to easily access these texts.
Beyond this one figure, this project provides a template for how other biblical women could be studied. This dataset proved the basis for upending scholarly assumptions about one biblical woman, Jezebel, and her sexualization in antiquity. It showed that she was consistently used against men, not just women, including male rulers. There are a variety of themes that late ancient authors used Jezebel to think with, and provided the basis to argue for a more nuanced and rich view of both late ancient slander and biblical interpretation. I hope others will re-use this data to learn more about Jezebel, but also expand on it to include other biblical women.
AI Declaration
No AI was used in the creation of this dataset or this paper.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank both Slavomír Čéplö and Eric Monson who gave me invaluable advice on data management, including teaching me about data validation and power query. I would also like to thank the Duke Global Fund for supporting the publication of this paper.
Author Contributions
Briana Grenert: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.