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- Eve—The original baddie, she made the fatal-for-everyone mistake of listening to the serpent’s lie that God wasn’t telling the truth about the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.
- Jezebel—A Phoenician princess, she was married to Ahab, one of Israel’s worst kings. She worshipped Baal, who was heralded as the bringer of rain and prosperity.
- Athaliah—She was the daughter of Ahab and probably also of Jezebel, the Bible’s wickedest queen. Married to the King of Judah, she grew paranoid after his death, murdering her grandchildren in order to secure the throne.
- Herodias—The granddaughter of Herod the Great, she married two of her uncles, Herod Philip I and Herod Antipas. An ambitious and ruthless woman, she hated John the Baptist for thundering against her marriage to Herod Antipas, whom she had married after divorcing his half-brother Philip.
- Tamar. One of Jacob’s 12 sons, Judah, married a Canaanite woman who had two sons. According to custom, Judah obtained Tamar as wife for his eldest, Er.
- Potiphar's Lying Wife. Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son. We know the story of his coat of many colors, his jealous brothers, the pit, and Joseph’s unwilling journey to Egypt.
- Rahab. God’s chosen people crossed the Jordan into the promised land. Joshua was their leader and God instructed him to send two men as spies to view this land, “… especially Jericho.”
- Jael. Fast forward to the times of Israel’s Judges. A time when the sons of Israel continually chose evil in the sight of the Lord. God sold His people into the hands of a Canaanite king whose commander was Sisera—a leader with 900 iron chariots who oppressed the sons of Israel for 20 years.
Oct 6, 2023 · What this journey into some of the Bible’s most difficult stories reminded me more than anything was this: the Bible makes for uncomfortable reading. It doesn’t always provide neat answers or fit with the ideas we’d like to have of ourselves or of God. Sometimes you just have to sit and wrestle with that. But how you read the Bible matters.
- Eve
- Sarah
- Hagar
- Rebekah
- Rachel
- Leah
- Tamar
- Miriam
- Rahab
- Deborah
She's there in the beginning. In the earliest chapters of Genesis, we read about God creating her to be a companion for man. Together, Adam and Eve get themselves kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Then they suffer through the loss of Abel, and the exile of Cain. Eve gave birth to Abel, Cain, Seth, and other sons and daughters (Genesis 5). And we're...
Along with her father-in-law, Terah, husband, Abraham, and nephew, Lot, Sarah moved far away from home. Twice. She was also one of several women who suffered from infertility in the Bible. After suggesting Abraham go to her handmaid, Hagar, Sarah turned pretty bitter about how things turned out. That is, until she was 90, when "God did for Sarah as...
She has the honor of being the mother to Abraham's first-born son, Ishmael. Reading her story in Genesis 16, 17 and 21 will break a reader's heart. Did she have a voice in her circumstances at all? After Abraham took her and their son out into the wilderness for good, could she hear the sound of wild animals there? What must it have been like for h...
When their son was old enough to take a wife, Abraham made his servant promise he wouldn't get a wife for Isaac from the Canaanite women. He wanted a young maiden from his own kin. So, the servant back home, and he returned with Rebekah, who had shown him great kindness. However, she also turned out to be a crafty one, a trait she likely learned fr...
For the fourteen-plus years Jacob was in Haran, he took on two wives who were sisters. In all, he would father twelve sons and one daughter, with the two wives and their servants. Life in the Jacob-Leah-Rachel household was a lot. Throw in a move back to Canaan, where Rachel died giving birth to Jacob's last son, Benjamin. She was buried there, sti...
The other half of the sister combo married to Jacob. Although she gave Jacob many sons and a daughter, the Bible makes it clear she wasn't loved by Jacob in the same way he loved Rachel. How that must have devastated her. You can trace Leah's emotional journey through the names she selected for her four sons. From Reuben (See, A Son), to Simeon (He...
There are a few chapters toward the end of Genesis that focus on Judah, who is Jacob's fourth son. One verse in the ancestry of Jesus, found in Matthew 1 shed light on this time in patriarchal history: "Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram" (Matthew 1:3). We're sometimes quick t...
Two images of Miriam show her to be a woman of leadership and strength. First, when her brother, Moses, was put in the Nile River, hidden away from those who would carry out the Pharaoh's edict to kill all Hebrew baby boys, Miriam stood nearby. When the baby in a basket was discovered by the Pharaoh's daughter, Miriam showed great bravery and wisdo...
Here we have another one of the women listed in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. The Israelites have made it out of Egypt, and through the wilderness, and are in the Promised Land. Specifically, Jericho. Without knowing the full context of the culture of the times, the second chapter of Joshua tells us Rahab was a prostitute. Rahab assists the ...
In the midst of the chaos we read about in the book of Judges, there are two heroic women who emerge victorious over their enemies. Deborah has credentials; prophetess, wife and judge (think chieftain, not court-of-law judge). She led Barak and thousands of Israelite warriors into battle against King Jabin, a Canaanite king. They were victorious (s...
Tamar #1 – daughter-in-law of Judah, as well as the mother of two of his children, the twins Zerah and Perez. Genesis [190] Tamar #2 – daughter of King David, and sister of Absalom. Her mother was Maacah, daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur. II Samuel [191] Tamar #3 – daughter of David's son Absalom.
May 10, 2021 · Why Does the Bible Often Use a Woman to Represent a Sinful Figure? Greg and Amy address a common misconception about the Bible’s view of women and offer counterexamples to the claim that the Bible associates sin with women more often than with men. Transcript
Women in the Bible are wives, mothers and daughters, servants, slaves and prostitutes. As both victors and victims, some women in the Bible change the course of important events while others are powerless to affect even their destinies. The majority of women in the Bible are anonymous and unnamed.
