I Love Him, But . . . Trivia Quiz

Answer: Eve

The Bible says that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman. The clues about the LORD officiating their wedding ceremony, about them having a perfect marriage, and about her being a part of him all come from the following quotes. "Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him . . . So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. The man said,
'This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.'
For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:18-24, New American Standard Bible).

Sadly, Adam and Eve quickly, and quite literally, experienced "trouble in paradise" after the serpent tricked her and she ate the fruit that they weren't supposed to eat. Adam also ate the fruit, even though he wasn't deceived and knew what he was doing. According to Genesis 3:7, the man and woman were ashamed of being naked after they ate the fruit--I heard somebody explain this by saying that Adam and Eve were ashamed because they became aware of all the different types of sexual perversions that their sin brought into the world--so they covered themselves with fig leaves.

It's interesting to note that Adam was the one who received direct instructions from God to NOT eat the fruit. When God first told Adam to not eat it, Eve wasn't even created yet! Therefore, the assumption is that Eve indirectly heard from Adam what God had said, which made it easier for the serpent to trick her. Even though Adam was angry with his wife and tried to blame her for ruining everything (see Genesis 3:12), Romans 5:12 states, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."

Answer: Sarah

See Genesis chapters 16 through 21 for complete details. However, this is what Sarah said according to Genesis 21: 9-10: "Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking. Therefore she said to Abraham, 'Drive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son Isaac'" (New American Standard Bible).

Sarah was one of the mothers of Israel. God established His covenant through Sarah's son Isaac. Isaac and his wife, Rebekah, had Jacob and Jacob became the father of the twelve Hebrew/Jewish tribes. Jacob's wives were Leah and Rachel; although, they, like Sarah, also asked their husband to produce offspring with their maids. Apparently, that was their ancient version of surrogacy. It's interesting to note that all of the matriarchs of Israel (with the exception of the two maids) were originally barren.

Many religious or faithful people believe or assume that Hagar's son, Ishmael, was a father of the Arab nations.

Answer: Job's wife

The book of Job tells about how Job was a very righteous servant of God, but God allowed Satan to test him and Job and his wife ended up, basically, going from rich to homeless. In addition, they suffered illnesses and their children died too. The point of the book seems to be that just because someone is going though a hardship, it doesn't necessarily mean that he or she is excessively sinning against God or that the person "deserves it." It could be that God is just testing his or her faith.

It appears that all of the losses were too much for Job's wife, at least for a while. It's unclear if she committed suicide or not, especially since the book ends with Job having new or replacement children.

Answer: Rachel

See Genesis 29 for more details. Jacob was in love with Rachel and planned to marry her alone, but Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah too. There are certain Bible translations that state that Jacob "hated" Leah (Genesis 29:31), but others say that she was simply "unloved." I imagine that Jacob probably loved Leah like a friend, but he wasn't in love with her.

Answer: Zipporah

See Exodus for more details. It might be a little surprising to some that Moses, of all people, married a Gentile. However, he didn't exactly have a choice. Before he married Zipporah in the Midianite wilderness, he had escaped from Egypt and was hiding from the pharaoh because he had murdered an Egyptian who was hurting one of the Hebrew slaves. If he had stayed in Egypt, he probably would have married an Egyptian. It wasn't until after he married Zipporah that the God of Israel appeared to Moses and commanded him to return to Egypt and force the Pharaoh to let His people go. Eventually, Moses received the Law, which included a rule about the Israelites NOT marrying those of other nations.

Exodus 4 includes a rather bizarre but highly interesting story. Moses had, for whatever reason, failed to circumcise their son, so God was coming to kill Moses. However, Zipporah saved his life because she took out a knife and circumcised the boy by herself. She then declared to Moses that he was a groom of blood to her. Even though Zipporah apparently rescued Moses, I can only imagine that Moses didn't get him circumcised to begin with because she didn't approve of it.

Answer: Ruth

Of all of the books in the Protestant Bible (Old and New Testaments) only two bear the titles of women: Ruth and Esther. Of course, Ruth's story is found in the book named after her.

Ruth is celebrated for her compassion to Naomi, who was the mother of Ruth's first husband, Mahlon. Naomi was mourning since her own husband and her sons had died, but she still offered Ruth the chance to return to Moab with Orpah, the other young widowed daughter-in-law. However, Ruth refused to return with Orpah and instead converted to Judaism and helped to take care of Naomi.

When Boaz agreed to marry Ruth, he became the financial provider for the women; in addition, Boaz and Ruth had a son, Obed. According to the text, the marriage witnesses blessed Ruth to be like Rachel and Leah, and Ruth became the grandmother of King David.

Answer: Hannah

Hannah was the mother of Samuel. Readers may find the narrative in the book named after him, 1 Samuel. Hannah's husband, Elkanah, loved Hannah, but she was originally barren, so he had another wife, Peninnah. Peninnah originally had many children, but she was a bully to Hannah and made fun of her for being infertile. According to chapter 1, verse 7, Peninnah "would provoke her; so she [Hannah] wept and would not eat." When she finally had Samuel, she dedicated him to the Temple.

At least there is reward for the righteous and a punishment for the wicked in this story, though. Chapter 2, verse 5 states this about the fate of Hannah and Peninnah: "Even the barren gives birth to seven,
But she who has many children languishes" (NASB).

Answer: Michal

1 and 2 Samuel discuss Michal. Michal was madly in love with David and became his first wife, the "reward", if you will, that he won for defeating Goliath. However, the relationship was indeed sad. For one thing, David was a ladies' man and took many other wives after Michal. Michal became bitter towards him (I can't really say that I blame her, to be honest) and she rebuked him when she saw him dancing. Although David said that he danced for the LORD, she apparently thought that he was dancing to attract female servants or something. As a punishment for her behavior, she never had any children to her dying day.

Perhaps it was actually a good thing that Michal never bore children. According to 2 Samuel 21, King David ordered that many descendants of Saul be executed to avenge the wrong that Saul did to the Gibeonites. He spared Mephibosheth, because he was the son of David's best friend, Jonathan. However, he executed the five sons of Jonathan's and Michal's sister, Merab--thus they were Michal's (and even Jonathan's) nephews.

Answer: Mary

This is, of course, the Mary from the Christmas story. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke discuss the conception and birth of Christ.

Regarding the other choices:
"Miriam" is actually the Hebrew form of the name "Mary." Miriam was Moses's sister.
"Mara" was the other name of Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi.
Martha was the anxious sister of Mary and Lazarus of Bethany.

Answer: Mary Magdalene

There are a lot of traditions and rumors out there about Mary Magdalene, but the only things that the Bible certainly state about her is that she had been possessed by seven demons and Jesus healed her. As a result, she became one of His most devout followers. See Luke 8. According to the Gospel of John, as well, she stood next to Christ's cross, along with His mother and His aunt, and then Mary Magdalene was the first one at His tomb to witness the resurrection.

Catholic tradition identifies her as the unnamed, repentant prostitute of Luke 7. However, many modern scholars have pointed out that there is NO Biblical evidence that she was a prostitute. The repentant sinner could easily have been one of Jesus's other female followers, such as Susanna, just as well as Mary Magdalene, simply because the sinner isn't named. Furthermore, such scholars believe that her seven demons indicate not sexual sins, but rather mental illnesses. Tradition also identifies her as the same as Mary of Bethany, but other scholars argue that the very title "Mary Magdalene" indicates that this Mary came from Magdala (instead of Bethany) and should automatically separate her from the sister of Martha and Lazarus.

The idea that she was Christ's wife comes largely from non-canonical "Gospels", such as the "Gospel of Mary", and also from literature, such as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code". Some people who suggest that she was His wife also point to the love that she had for Him in John's Gospel, but most Christians argue that the Bible would NOT be silent about Jesus having a wife, if He did. The Bible mentions that Peter had a wife, for example, so why be silent about Jesus?