Which Role? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Eve

According to the Bible, Eve was the world's first female or feminine person. Genesis 3 describes the serpent tempting Eve. She ate the fruit that the LORD told Adam not to eat. God told Adam and the assumption is that Adam then told Eve what God had said to him.

Genesis 3:7 says that after Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they were ashamed of being naked, so they made coverings out of fig leaves for themselves.

Genesis 3:15 states that God put hatred between the serpent and the woman, and between the serpent's offspring and her offspring. My dad always said that this is why so many people, especially women, don't care for snakes. Of course, we know that not everyone hates snakes.

Verse 14 claims that God cursed serpents or snakes to slither on their bodies. My belief is that the original serpent was similar to a lizard or a dragon before the curse.

Answer: Lot's wife

Genesis 19 states that God planned to destroy cities, one of which was Sodom, because their inhabitants were very wicked. I think a lot of people are familiar with Sodom and Gomorrah, but people might not be familiar with Admah and Zeboiim. According to Dueteronomy 29:23, the cities of Admah and Zeboiim were destroyed along with Sodom and Gomorrah!

Genesis 19:26 proclaims that when Lot's wife (the Bible doesn't give her name) disobeyed God and looked back at the destruction of the cities, she turned into a pillar of salt.


As for my "friend", she didn't turn the role down due to a desire to play an obedient Biblical person. She simply thinks that she's too good to play such a role. She wants speaking lines; many speaking lines. She also can't show off her beauty by resembling salt.

Many times, people say "Welcome to Sin City" in reference to Las Vegas, Nevada. I'm not the first person to compare Sodom with Las Vegas.

Answer: Leah

According to Genesis 29:17, based on the New American Standard Bible, Leah had weak eyes, while Rachel was beautiful. People disagree as to what exactly this means. Some suggest that Leah was downright unattractive, but others think that she had poor eyesight or another problem with her eyes, which led Jacob to find her unattractive. There are other interpretations as well.

Jacob didn't set out to marry Leah. He wanted to marry her younger sister, Rachel, and Genesis 29:31 makes it clear that Jacob loved Rachel more than he loved Leah.

Regardless of her looks or marriage, however, Leah ended up more blessed than Rachel at the end of the day. Leah bore most of Jacob's children, which makes her a matriarch of the tribes of Israel. Christians believe that Jesus Christ descended from Judah, one of Leah's, not Rachel's, sons.

Answer: Rachel

Genesis 31 includes a strange story about Jacob, his favorite wife, Rachel, and Rachel's father, Laban. Basically, Jacob had been living with and working for Laban, but Jacob and Laban were having issues with one another. Therefore, Jacob left secretly and thought he could start a new life, but Jacob didn't know that Rachel stole her father's idols.

Verse 14 suggests that she stole them because she thought that they were worth money. Laban found out that Jacob and Rachel left, so he searched for them and caught up with them. In verse 35, when Laban searched her tent for his idols, Rachel was sitting on them. She told him that she couldn't get up because of her menstrual cycle. Laban didn't question her and so he never found his gods.

According to verse 9, God took Laban's livestock and gave them to Jacob. It was God who told Jacob to leave Laban. Although what Rachel did was wrong, her father was pretty wicked himself.

My friend was too embarrassed to play this role.

Answer: Vashti

The book of Esther states that King Ahsaureus had an extremely beautiful wife, Queen Vashti. I imagine that as a beautiful queen, she probably wore gorgeous gowns or outfits. He held a seven-day long banquet. According to Esther 1:9, Vashti held her own banquet for the palace's women.

On the seventh day of his banquet, the king commanded Vashti to go before the king and his male friends. Although the text doesn't explicitly say it, I've heard people interpret this to mean that he wanted her to show off or even dance provocatively in front of these other men. Apparently, the king was drunk when he made the order for her to do this. Being somewhat of a feminist, Queen Vashti refused to subject herself to this and she disobeyed the king. As a result of her disobedience, her title of queen was taken away from her. Furthermore, the text suggests that she was executed.

Esther replaced Vashti as the queen, but even she was afraid that her husband would have her executed too. Vashti was killed for not appearing before the king when called. Esther was terrified that she would be killed for *appearing* before the king when *not* called.

Answer: Michal

David and his son Solomon were polygamists and I must admit, I think my friend has a point here. I don't think there is any excuse for Solomon having seven hundred wives and three hundred lovers (1 Kings 11:3). As for David, not only did he have several wives, but he even stole another man's wife! (2 Samuel 11:3).

When David was younger and more innocent, his first wife was Princess Michal, King Saul's daughter. Her brother, Jonathan, was David's best friend.

According to 1 Samuel 18, Saul was originally going to give his older daughter, named Merab, to David, but it seems that Michal told him that she was in love with David. Saul agreed to allow Michal to marry David, but Saul had an ulterior motive. He thought that if he could get David to marry one of his daughters, then it would be easier for him to kill David.

Unfortunately for Michal, her marriage to David ended tragically. According to 2 Samuel 6, when Michal saw King David dancing before the LORD, she accused him of dancing to attract the attention of his female servants. 2 Samuel 6:23 states that Michal died childless. Honestly, I always felt sorry for Michal. She loved David, but there is no real indication that he loved her, and then, of course, she never had children.

I said to my friend, "Why do you care? You would only be acting!"

Answer: Job's daughter

According Job 1, Job (pronounced as Jobe) had seven sons and three daughters. None of them are named. While his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in the oldest brother's house, a wind storm came. The wind destroyed the house and the house fell on Job's children, killing them.

Although they were drinking wine, the text isn't clear whether they were drunk. I don't think they were.

In Job 2:9, Job's wife said to her husband, "Curse God and die!"

Answer: Miriam

Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron. Numbers 12 says that Miriam spoke against Moses because he married a Cushite, or Ethiopian, woman. It seems that one reason why she spoke against her brother was because of his wife, but another reason was her spiritual pride. She was angry that God spoke through Moses so much. Moses, however, was very humble. God therefore caused Miriam to develop leprosy.

In Numbers 12:13-14, Moses cried out to God and asked Him to heal her. God responded by saying that Miriam needed the punishment.

I can't believe my friend won't even play this role, because she thinks she's too good for it. Maybe I need to remind my friend that her pride was one reason why Miriam got leprosy in the first place!

Answer: Mary

According to John 12, Jesus was in Bethany, where Lazarus, Mary, and Martha lived. Jesus was having dinner with them. Martha was serving the food, while Mary came over and anointed His feet with costly perfume. She also wiped His feet with her hair.

Judas Iscariot complained about the cost of the perfume, and said that it should have been sold for money (some say this was simply because he wanted the money for himself). Christ defended Mary and told Judas to leave her alone.

John 12 says that this occurred six days before Passover. Mark 14 says that two days before Passover, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of a man called Simon the Leper. A woman anointed Christ's head with expensive perfume. Although Mark 14 doesn't mention the woman's name, the event does take place in Mary's hometown of Bethany. I think it's very possible that this Mary anointed Jesus more than once.

Answer: Mary Magdalene

All four Gosepls report that Mary Magdalene witnessed the horrible death of Christ (Luke 23 doesn't include her name, but it still implies that she was there). I think it's interesting that Matthew 27 and Mark 15 say that Mary Magdalene was watching from a distance, while John 19 says that she stood by the cross. I suppose that either the distance wasn't very far, or she wasn't standing super close to the cross.

Mary Magdalene was one of many women who financially contributed to Christ's ministry (see Luke 8). Since her name is almost always listed before the names of Christ's other female followers (the only exception is John 19:25, which lists Christ's mother before Magdalene), some people suggest that she was the women's leader. If she was part of a modern church, then, she could be the women's ministry's leader.

Additionally, in my recent Bible studying, I realized that Mary Magdalene's relationship to Jesus might have been similar to that of Abishbag and King David. 1 Kings 1:15 states that Abishbag was "ministering" to David. Likewise, Matthew 27:55 says that women, including Magdalene, were "ministering" to Christ. (I used the New American Standard Bible.) In these contexts, ministering refers to taking care, like nursing, rather than religious ministry.

The Bible is mysterious regarding Mary Magdalene's life. It's possible that she had a husband and/or children, but the Bible never calls her anyone's wife or mother. In most depictions of Mary Magdalene that I've seen, she is shown as physically beautiful and younger than Christ's mother. For example, in one movie I saw, Christ's mother was portrayed as middle-aged (about fifty years-old) while Mary Magdalene looked like she was in her twenties or thirties.

Yet the young, beautiful Mary Magdalene is based on tradition, not Scripture. The Bible doesn't say her age or anything about her physical appearance. Regardless of those subjects, what matters is her inner beauty and her devotion to Jesus. Mary Magdalene tried her best to comfort Jesus during His worst hours, she was with Joseph of Arimathea when he buried Jesus (Matthew 27:61), and then she went to the tomb on Sunday morning, apparently to mourn more, but discovered a risen Jesus (John 20).

I must admit, I wouldn't be able to witness a crucifixion either. I would be way too scared and emotionally weak!