She's So Beautiful! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Nephilim (giants)

I personally believe these "sons of God" were angels (and after they mated with women, they became fallen angels or demons) and many other readers have interpreted it this way. However, I should note that some don't believe that they were angels. Some people believe that the sons of God were human men, such as Seth's descendants, who were faithful to God. According to the second view, the women they mated with were ungodly descendants of Cain.

"Sons of God" or "children of God" do sometimes refer to human beings, such as Israelites in the Old Testament and Christians in the New Testament. However, the "sons of God" in Job refer to angels, so I think the Genesis 6 account also means angels.

Whatever the case, Nephilim, or giants, were the results of these matings. The giants were apparently evil, and when God destroyed the earth with a flood (Genesis 6 and 7), they got destroyed as well.

Answer: Sarai

According to Genesis 12, God appeared to the then idol-worshipping Abram and told him to go to the land of Canaan. God promised that he would make Abram's descendants into a great nation, which was later fulfilled with the births of Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes of Israel.

Abram and his wife, Sarai, had to stay in Egypt for a while, due to a famine. He was afraid that the Egyptians would kill him because of her beauty, so he told them that she was his sister, not wife, in order to save his life. In Genesis 20, he later admitted that she actually was his half-sister, who became his wife.

The pharaoh took Sarai as his wife until God intervened. There is a similar account in Genesis 20, with Abimelech, the king of Gerar.

In Genesis 17, God changed their names to Abraham and Sarah.

Answer: Camels

Genesis 24 states that Abraham didn't want his son, Isaac, to marry a Canaanite woman, so he asked his servant to find a wife for Isaac within Abraham's own family members.

Rebekah was the granddaughter of Nahor, Abraham's brother. She offered to give water to the servant's camels.

Answer: Rachel was Rebekah's daughter-in-law

Rachel was Rebekah's daughter-in-law because Rachel was married to Jacob, Rebekah's son. In addition, Rachel was Rebekah's niece because Rachel was a daughter of Laban, Rebekah's brother!

There are a few similarities between Rebekah and Rachel. Both were beautiful, of course, but both were also barren for a long time before miraclously having children. They both had two sons, although Rebekah gave birth to twins, while Rachel had one son and then, several years later, she died after giving birth to her second son.

Answer: "Should he treat our sister as a harlot?"

According to Genesis 34, Dinah, Jacob's daughter with Leah, went out to visit Hivite women (there is no reason given for why she wanted to visit them) and while she was there, Shechem, the "prince of the land" (verse 2, New American Standard Bible) was attracted to her and had relations with her.

Most Bible translations say that he raped her, but despite this, there is debate as to whether he truly raped her. Some people believe that the two engaged in consentual fornication, which might explain why her brothers brought up the harlot/prostitute issue. Any intimacy outside of wedlock was probably considered as bad as prostitution was. After the initial intercourse, Schechem kept saying that he "loved" Dinah and wanted to marry her, but there is absolutely nothing that indicates she felt the same way about him.

Simeon and Levi wouldn't put up with any of it. Schechem was a pagan, a Canaanite, not a believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He also made their sister unclean, either by rape or fornication. The livid Simeon and Levi rampaged Shechem's home, murdering him, his father, and other Hivite males. It's fascinating that Jacob himself didn't seem upset about what Schechem did to his daughter, but he was angry when he found out what his sons did.

Answer: Michal

The Old Testament doesn't mention anything about Michal's physical appearance. It's possible that she was pretty, but it doesn't state that she was. Michal was Saul's daughter and David's first wife. David was able to marry Michal because he killed a hundred Philistines (1 Samuel 18:27).

The Bible explicitly says that the other three, Abigail, Bathsheba, and Abishag, were very beautiful. Abigail was David's third wife. She was originally married to an evil man named Nabal (1 Samuel 25:39). Bathsheba was originally married to a righteous man, Uriah, but David sinned by murdering Uriah and taking Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12). Finally, Abishag was the young woman who took care of David in his old age (1 Kings 1:15).

David ended up having many wives, most of whom are left anonymous. According to Rabbinical tradition, Michal is identical to David's wife Eglah (2 Samuel 3:5).

Answer: Tamar

2 Samuel 13 states that David had an extremely pretty daughter, Tamar, who was also the sister of Absalom. Maacah, a Gentile princess, was the mother of Tamar and Absalom. See also 2 Samuel 3, for more information about Maacah.

As for David's granddaughter named Tamar, she was actually Absalom's daughter (2 Samuel 14:27.) Absalom's sister had been violated by their half-brother, Amnon, so probably as a tribute to his sister, Absalom named his daughter Tamar. Ironically, she was beautiful just like her aunt was.

There is yet another Tamar in the Bible. She was Judah's daughter-in-law. Her story can be found in Genesis 38.

As for the incorrect choices, Timna was a concubine of Esau's son (Genesis 36:12). Tirzah was one of Zelophehad's daughters (Numbers 26:33). Interestingly, Taphath was a daughter of Solomon and therefore a different granddaughter of David (1 Kings 4:11).

Answer: Hadassah and Vashti

"Hadassah" was the original Hebrew name of Esther. "Esther" is a Persian name. Given that I included the name Esther in the question, I wasn't about to also include it in the answer!

Vashti was the queen of Persia, but because she disobeyed the king--and her husband--Ahasuerus (also known as Xerxes) he got rid of her and began to look for a new queen. Esther, who began as a simple orphan, became the new queen.

Sarah and Hagar are from the book of Genesis. Ruth and Naomi are from the book of Ruth. Judith and Susanna are titles of books in the Catholic Bible, which are excluded from the Protestant Bible. Catholics consider the books of Judith and Susanna to be deuterocanonical, which means second canon, while Protestants view them as apocryphal, which means false.

Answer: Solomon

Both Jewish and Christian traditions consider Solomon the author of Ecclesiastes. The author calls himself in 1:1, "the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem" (New American Standard Bible) or "the Teacher, King David's son, who ruled in Jerusalem" (New Living Translation). David only had one actual son who ruled as king of Jerusalem after he did--and that is Solomon. In addition, the writer says,

Ecclesiastes 1:12-13, New American Standard Bible:
"I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.
And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven."

See 1 Kings 3 and 4 for details about Solomon's wisdom. While some people might dispute the belief that a historical Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes, it is rather obvious who the author claimed to be.

Solomon is also credited with writing Proverbs and his Song.

Answer: Pomegranates

Solomon compared his beautiful bride's cheeks to pomegranates. Some Bible scholars believe that the pomegranate was the Garden of Eden's forbidden fruit. Popular culture, of course, paints it as the apple, but the Bible itself never names the fruit.

Solomon's bride is called the Shulammite or the maiden from Shulam. Some scholars suggest that Abishag the Shunammite, the beautiful girl who nursed Solomon's father (David) in his old age, was the Shulammite.

When Solomon wrote his song, he had sixty other wives and eighty concubines, but he loved the Shulammite the most out of all his women (Song of Solomon 6:8-9). Despite this, 1 Kings 11:3 reports that by the time Solomon was elderly, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines! Yikes! What happened to the beloved Shulammite?