Seeing Double (or More!) in the Bible Quiz

Answer: Sarah (from Genesis) and Elizabeth (from Luke)

Sarah, whose original name was Sarai, was Abraham's wife. (His original name was Abram). Genesis 11 first mentions Abram and Sarai under the title "Descendants of Shem". Shem was a son of Noah; Shem and Noah are mentioned earlier in the book of Genesis. According to Genesis 11:30, of the New American Standard Bible: "Sarai was barren; she had no child."

A little later on, in Genesis 18, it tells the story of God promising Abraham that Sarah would indeed give birth to a son. Genesis 18:11 makes it clear that both Abraham and Sarah were very old and Sarah was past the ages for natural childbearing. Because she was elderly, having had no children when she was a young woman, Sarah didn't believe that she would have a child and laughed at the thought of it. In response to her laughter, God asked if there was anything too hard for Him to do. (Genesis 18:13-14)

Sarah's son was Isaac, as in the three Jewish patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Elizabeth had a very similar situation to Sarah. Elizabeth was related to the Virgin Mary--apparently they have been called cousins, but my New American Standard Bible just says that they were related, so I'll stick to that for now (Luke 1:36). Her husband was Zacharias and just like Abraham and Sarah, both were very old and "advanced in years" and Elizabeth was barren (Luke 1:7).

Unlike Sarah, though, Elizabeth didn't appear to doubt God's promise. Zacharias did, however, and for that, he couldn't speak for a while, as a punishment.

Elizabeth's child was none other than John the Baptist.

For the incorrect answers:
Rebekah (Isaac's wife) and Rachel (Jacob's wife) were indeed barren women who had children, but they weren't elderly as Sarah and Elizabeth were.
Also, Anna was indeed an elderly woman, but the Bible doesn't mention her having any children. She was a prophetess who got to see Jesus as a young child (Luke 2:36).

Other barren women in the Bible who had children include Hannah, Samuel's mother, and Samson's mother, simply called Manoah's wife.

Answer: David and Solomon

2 Samuel 11 tells about David and Bathsheba. David was a king of Israel, and for the most part, he had been a pretty upstanding man. However, when he saw Bathsheba, a very beautiful woman who just so happened to be married to another man (his name was Uriah), David quickly began to commit severe sins. He committed adultery with her and got her pregnant; then he committed murder by killing her husband.

Interestingly enough, Solomon was David and Bathsheba's son. He, however, wasn't the child whom she originally conceived. 2 Samuel 12 says that David's first child with Bathsheba died. The LORD decided to spare David's own life, but took the life of the child. Solomon was born later and according to the scriptures, God "loved" Solomon (2 Samuel 12:24-25).

Solomon got himself in trouble, though (1 Kings 11). He married many women from many different nations and these women worshipped idols/other gods. These were the kind of women that God clearly told the "sons of Israel" that they weren't supposed to marry or even hang out with. Because his wives served idols (by the way, although the number of wives isn't really mentioned as a sin, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines!) Solomon began to serve the idols, too.

Apparently, however, Solomon was still acting very wickedly in his old age, according to 1 Kings 11:4. This differentiates him from David a little, as according to the same verse, David was devoted to God in his old age.
(I used the New American Standard Bible).

For the incorrect answers:
Saul and Jonathan were father and son; Saul wanted to kill David. Saul was also the father of David's first wife, Michal. Jonathan was David's best friend.
Lamech and Noah were father and son; Noah was on the ark for forty days and nights.
Adam and Abel were father and son as well. I guess you could say that Adam did what he did because he loved a woman (Eve), but Abel was killed by his brother, Cain.

Answer: Joseph (from Genesis) and Moses (from Exodus)

Joseph was the first son of Rachel and Jacob. Jacob's other sons were jealous of him and sold him into slavery. He was a slave to Egyptians until the pharaoh asked him to interpret his dream. The pharaoh was impressed with Joseph.

Genesis 41:45 states that the pharaoh gave Asenath, the daughter of the priest of On, whose name was Potiphera, to Joseph, to be his wife.

Asenath gave birth to two sons and Joseph named them Manasseh ("God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father's household.") and Ephraim ("God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.") (Genesis 41:50-52).

Moses' sons were Gershom ("I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.") and Eliezer ("The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharoah.") (Exodus 18:1-5).

Moses' wife was Zipporah. She was a daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian.

Now, I didn't say that Joseph and Moses shared the same kind of experiences with their pharaohs. Sadly, Moses had to deal harshly with the Exodus pharaoh, while Joseph's pharaoh was kind to him.

According to traditional Jewish and Christian beliefs, Moses is the one who (by the aid of God) wrote the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). But my Old Testament professor did point out that it is highly unlikely that Moses could have written about his own death! He said that Joshua probably wrote the very end of Deuteronomy.

For the incorrect answers:
Aaron was Moses' brother; Samuel was a priest who had nothing to do with Joseph or Moses.
Joshua was Moses' successor of sorts.
Caleb also was with Moses and Levi was a brother of Joseph.

Answer: They refused to disobey God and thus received punishment from kings.

In Daniel 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is told. At first, King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, liked them. However, he created a golden image/statue and expected everybody to bow down and worship it.
Some people noticed that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't worshipping the idol; they turned them in to the king. Nebuchadnezzar's anger boiled and he ordered that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be thrown into a large fire.

But they didn't die like he thought they would (Daniel 3:25). Some Christians (like me) think that the fourth person in the fire who protected them was God/Jesus.

Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel refused to stop worshipping God and was punished. He was thrown into a lions' den. However, what's even worse is that there apparently were some men who flat-out didn't like Daniel and they purposely tricked King Darius into signing a document that stated why any worshipper of God needed to be punished. Everything turned out all right though. Daniel survived! (Daniel 6)

(I used the New American Standard Bible.)

By the way, regarding one of the incorrect answers, the name Ariel really is a Hebrew word for "lion of God".

Answer: Elkanah (from 1 Samuel)

Elkanah is from 1 Samuel, chapters 1 and 2. He was Hannah's husband and the father of Samuel. However, Hannah wasn't his only wife. His other wife was Peninnah. *1 Samuel 1:5 says that Elkanah did indeed favor Hannah.

According to 1 Samuel 1:7-8, Peninnah, who had children, was mean to Hannah, who had none (until Samuel). Hannah would cry and not eat; Elkanah said, "Hannah, why do you weep and why do you not eat and why is your heart sad? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" (I used the New American Standard Bible.)

Like with Jacob's two wives, the favored one was barren, while the non-favored had several children. Unlike with Jacob, however, we don't know HOW or WHY Elkanah had an unloved wife.

For the incorrect answers:
Lot seems to have had only one wife; she turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God.
If Jonah had a wife or wives, they aren't mentioned in the book of Jonah. He got swallowed by a fish/whale.
Habakkuk's wife isn't mentioned either. He was one of the main prophets in the Old Testament.

*EDIT: I received a correction notice about this...my understanding of 1 Samuel 4-5, which read, "When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and her daughters; but to Hannah he would give a double portion, for he loved Hannah, but the Lord had closed her womb," was that he gave her a double portion because he favored her over the other wife. However, the person pointed out that the Bible doesn't exactly state that Hannah was his favorite wife; rather, the person believes that Elkanah gave Hannah a double portion simply because he wanted to cheer her up. Two things that are for sure are that (1) Jacob and Elkanah both had two wives and (2) Elkanah certainly loved Hannah, even if he didn't love her more than his other wife.

Answer: Mary and Manoah's wife

I can tell from the looks of your faces that you all found the above question to be positively thrilling!

Manoah's wife was Samson's mother. For some unknown reason, she is one of the poor people who are left nameless in the Bible.

Judges 13 tells of an angel visiting Manoah's wife. The child ended up being Samson. Now, to be fair, some believe that this "angel", which is "The angel of the LORD" (or "The angel of God") is actually God Himself. Others feel like it is a special kind of angel. Indeed, it seems to be different from other angels in the Bible (for example, Gabriel in Luke); I think we can see similarities between Manoah's wife's and Mary's encounters, regardless of the types of angels.

Samson was one of the Nazarites in the Bible. He wasn't supposed to cut his hair. God gave him super strength, which he lost when Delilah tricked him and cut his hair off. Apparently, Samuel and John the Baptist were other Nazarites, meaning that they were dedicated to the LORD.

The angel Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that she was going to give birth to Jesus.

(I have used the New American Standard Bible).

For the incorrect answers:
Delilah was the woman who tricked Samson.
Deborah was the only female "Judge"; she was truly a great Biblical woman.
Gilead's wife was simply the wife of Gilead in Judges 11.

Answer: Job's wife (from Job)

Sarah asked her husband, Abraham, to take her Egyptian maid, Hagar, and have a child with her, because she didn't think that she could have any children herself. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael (Genesis 16).

Both Rachel and Leah asked their husband, Jacob, to take maids. Rachel did it because she couldn't have children. Leah, on the other hand, asked him because she had stopped having children. Rachel's maid was Bilhah and Leah's was Zilpah (Genesis 30).

As odd as all that might sound, it was their version of modern-day surrogate motherhood.

For the incorrect answer:
Job's wife told her husband to "Curse God and die!" (Job 2:9, New American Standard Bible).

Answer: Elijah and Elisha

Elijah's miracle can be found in 1 Kings 17. God told him to drink from a brook to survive. But the brook dried up after a while; God then told him to go to Zarephath, because God knew that there he would find a widow to "provide" for him (1 Kings 17:9). He asked the widow to give him some water, which she did, but when he asked for bread, she said she only had enough bread for her and her son.

To cut to the chase, a little later on, her son became very sick and died.
She even accused Elijah of killing him at first (1 Kings 17:18). However, he asked the LORD to bring life back to the child; then she told Elijah that she knew he was a man of God.

Alright, so Elisha actually had two stories (both found in 2 Kings 4) which, though not exactly the same obviously, do share a few similarities to Elijah's. Elisha knew a woman who became a widow; she had two sons and a jar of oil. (Elisha only gave her advice; he didn't need her help).

He met another woman who did have a husband, but originally she had no son. Elisha prophesied that she would give birth to a son. She did. When he was older, the son died but Elisha was able to bring him back. (I used the New American Standard Bible).

For the incorrect answers:
Zephaniah and Zechariah were two of the main Old Testament prophets.
Zacharias was John the Baptist's father.
Jude was one of the writers of the New Testament. It is interesting that his actual name was Judas, but perhaps he began being called Jude so he wouldn't be confused with the Judas who betrayed Jesus Christ.

Answer: They hated or wanted to kill Hebrews or other people of God.

According to 1 Kings 18:4, Jezebel was trying to kill all of God's prophets and she had killed many already. She was married to King Ahab and they were both enemies of the prophet Elijah. 1 Kings 21:25 seems to suggest that there was no man who did as much evil in the eyes of the LORD as Ahab did. (It also suggests, however, that Jezebel was even worse than her husband was).

Haman hated the Jewish people and planned to destroy them (Esther 3). Esther was a Jew and when her husband found out about Haman's plan, he sentenced him to death (Esther 7).

(The New American Standard Bible is what I used.)

Answer: Jesus Christ and Paul (both from the New Testament)

The thing is, Jesus and Paul didn't marry, period. There is no evidence in the Bible that they were married, at any rate.

Paul is the one who, according to traditional Christian beliefs, wrote much of the New Testament (aided by the Holy Spirit).

In 1 Corinthians 7:7, Paul wrote that he was unmarried and/or celibate. I did do an Internet search and I saw how one person thought that since Paul was a devout Jew, he probably was married at one point (but then, what happened to his wife? Did she die?); all I know is that the belief is that after he converted to Christianity, Paul chose a life of celibacy because he was a missionary.

It is traditional belief that Jesus was celibate too. Some people have suggested that He was married to Mary Magdalene, but it certainly hasn't been without controversy! I know that I'm not supposed to preach in this quiz, but if you just want to know my personal beliefs, it seems to me that if Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene or ANYBODY, the scriptures would make it known, especially considering that Jesus is the single most important figure in the New Testament.

I also don't think that there was any reason for Jesus to be married. It's bad enough that His poor mother had to suffer. It would have been even worse if His wife or kids had to watch the crucifixion.

*sigh* Anyway...

For the incorrect answers:
Two of David's wives, Abigail and Bathsheba, were very beautiful (1 Samuel 25:3, 2 Samuel 11:2).
The Song of Solomon states over and over how beautiful his beloved wife was (whoever she was).
Jacob's favorite wife, Rachel, was beautiful too (Genesis 29:17), as was Sarah, Abraham's wife (Genesis 12:11), and Rebekah, Issac's wife (Genesis 26:7).
Vashti (Esther 1:10-11) and Esther (Esther 2:7), the wives of King Xerxes/Ahasuerus, were, you guessed it, extremely beautiful!

It seems that the word "beautiful" really is the word that is used in a lot of translations, but I thought I would list synonyms anyway. (I have mainly used the New American Standard translation).

A few of the men that the Bible states as good-looking are: Saul (1 Samuel 9:2), Joseph (Genesis 39:6), and Moses (Exodus 2:1-2)!