The Bible has contains many stories of very strong women — women who dealt with very difficult circumstances and yet who managed to survive and even to thrive. But the Bible was written within such a strongly patriarchal society, a society in which women were dismissed or ignored, that these strong women are often pushed to the background of their stories or even turned, unjustly, into villains.

In my podcast project, “Retelling the Bible,” I have had the chance to retell the stories of a number of biblical women in ways that have given me a great deal of appreciation for them and their sympathy for what they had to deal with. I would like to take the opportunity now to put forward all of the stories of strong women that l have told to date to celebrate these women and to prepare the way for an upcoming episode that will tell part of the story of one of the strongest women in the Bible of all.

Bathsheba

Some would blame her for seducing David. This is not true. He raped her, pure and simple. Some would treat her as nothing more than a victim; she was not that either. In the end she proved herself a very strong woman indeed! I called her story:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Rahab

How can you resist the story of a hooker with a heart of gold and the corporate raider who stole her heart? I called the amazing story of the woman caught up in the siege of Jericho:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Bat-Jephthah (the daughter of Jephthah)

Yes, I happen to think that there is a lot more to her story than just that she happened to run out of the front door of her house at the wrong moment. I called her story:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Athalia and Jehosheba

These two princesses found themselves on the opposite sides of the most violent succession battle in Judah’s history. Athalia is Judah’s only reigning queen and has been portrayed as a monster. Jehosheba has been portrayed as the meek and mild wife of a priest. I believe that both portrayals could use a lot more depth. I called their story:

Listen to their story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Puah and Shiphrah

These women are credited with saving the Hebrew nation from destruction in Egypt. They are true biblical heroes whose story is just not well-known enough. I called their story:

Listen to their story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

The daughters of Lot

Did they date-rape their father in order to get pregnant? Yes. Is that something that we can celebrate? Of course not. But I believe that we do need to understand the situation that they were in, what they were dealing with and what they we trying to accomplish. I call their story:

Listen to their story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Gomer

Gomer is the architypical sinner and harlot of the Bible — a woman so evil that she surely deserved all of the terrible things that happened to her. I contend that, if you allow yourself to hear the story from her side, even just a little bit, it changes everything. I called her story:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Abigail

Abigail is indeed highly praised for her wisdom and beauty in the Bible. I do feel that her story may contain more sorrow and tragedy than we usually realize though. I called her story:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Ruth

Ruth is certainly seen as a heroic biblical character, but we often miss how much work she did to chart the course of her own destiny with the help of another strong woman, Naomi. I called her story:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Zipporah

Ziporrah is known for little more than being the wife of Moses. But, on one occasion at least, she acted with extraordinary courage and decisiveness to save the entire Exodus project. I called her story:

Listen to her story by following one of these links or by searching your favourite podcast app.

Mary Magdalene

Letting Mary Magdalene tell her story is a very big project — in fact it is a book that I have been working on for a few years that I am calling, “The Seven Demons of Miryam of Magdala.” I am looking for ways to get this book published, but in the meantime, I will be putting out one chapter from this book very soon in the form of a podcast episode. This episode will be called:

So make sure to subscribe to Retelling the Bible so you can listen to this episode when it drops on January 29, 2020.

Update!

The episode is now out! Follow one of these links to listen to “The Labourers.”