Who Were Those Biblical Characters?

There are many characters throughout the Hebrew and Christian Bibles that mention people maybe once, twice or perhaps a handful of times, yet enlightenment of who they actually were remains obscure. The following is a partial list of such characters who made an honorable mention in the Bible....

Acording to the Book of Genesis, Cain was the first human born on Earth to Adam and Eve. He is best known for killing his brother, Abel, in a fit of jealous anger and being booted out of the land of his family. His story is found in Genesis 4:1-17. The Jewish Tanakh/Christian Bible later related that Cain was sent to the land of Nod and that is when we learn Cain has a wife! But, who she was and where she came from is a mystery. There is absolutely nothing else written about "Cain's wife". Who she was has caused quite a stir among the scholars and theologians. The majority believe Adam and Eve had many other children [and she was a sister to Cain], while a minority percieve the possibility of another tribe of people being created after Adam and Eve. Though the Holy Book is silent on her identity, the apocryphal Book of Jubilees tells that Cain’s wife was: his sister, Awan, who bore his son Enoch.

The Pharaohs of Genesis and Exodus was an elusive bunch of Egyptian kings that were not named in the Tanakh/Old Testament. Genesis 12:10-20 recounts how Abraham moved to Egypt with his wife [Sarah], tricked the king into marrying Sarah, then were evicted from the royal kingdom when the Pharaoh found out their deception. Genesis 37-50 narrates the story of Joseph (youngest child of Jacob/Israel) and being sold into Egyptian slavery by his brothers. Joseph is promoted to Governor by the Pharaoh during his captivity and later brings his father and brothers into Egypt to live in the Land of Goshen. The Book of Exodus relates how the Israelites are captured and enslaved in Egypt. The common theory relates there were two different Pharaohs involved - "pharaoh of the oppression" and "pharaoh of the exodus". The biblical story does not give the identities of these Egyptian kings, but the pharaoh of the oppression was the king who enslaved the Israelites and the pharaoh of the exodus, was the reigning royal when the Israelites escaped bondage under the leadership of Moses. Even though I Kings 6:1 states that the Exodus occurred 480 years before the construction of Solomon's Temple (First Jewish Temple), the name of the pharaohs of Egypt still remain obscure. For a possible list of Pharaoh's, please visit: List of Pharaohs

Jotham, was the 70th son of Gideon and the only son to survive the massacre of Gideon's male children (Judges 9:56). He is credited with one of the earliest parables - that of the bramble-king - in the Bible. While the Bible mentions that he was Gideon's youngest son, who escaped the wrath of his half-brother, Abimelech (Judges 9:5) and fled to Beer (Judges 9:7-21) not much else is known about this Israelite scion. The parable of the bramble-king, which protested making Abimelech ruler, is often repeated at Tu Bishvat and very popular in Israel.       

                         

Witch of Endor, who raised Samuel from the dead, is another interesting character only mentioned briefly in I Samuel 28:3-25. Saul became the first king of the united kingdom of Israel and Judah, but his reign was not favored by God due to his disobedience to Samuel's instruction. Upon taking up the reins of royalty, he ordered all mediums and psychics to be expelled from the land. When he saw how big the Phillistine army was he became afraid and called on God for help; when help was not forthcoming, Saul snuck into the city and called upon the witch of Endor for help. She was reluctantly convinced to raise Samuel from the dead, to which Samuel told Saul "The Lord has done what he predicted through me. The Lord has torn the kingdom out of your hands and given it to one of your neighbors - to David, Because you did not obey the Lord or carry out his fierce wrath against the Amalekites." (I Samuel 28:17-18) The witch of Endor was never mentioned again after this biblical episode.

Amoz, who was the father of the prophet Isaiah, is mentioned in Isaiah 1:1 and 2:1, as well as II Kings 19:2 and 20:1. Other than being Isaiah's father, nothing else is known for certain about him. In Talmudic tradition when a prophet's father is named that is an indication that he [the father] was also a prophet. While the name Amoz appears nowhere else in the Bible, the rabbis of the Talmud declared that Amoz was the brother of Amaziah, who was one of the kings of Judah (which would make Amoz a descendant of the royal family). According to some scholars, this mysterious prophet was the "man of God" mentioned in II Chronicles 25:7-9, who cautioned Amaziah to release the Israelite mercenaries that he had hired.   

The minor prophet known as Nahum is the most mysterious of all the major and minor prophets of the Tanakh/Old Testament. The Book of Nahum only contains 3 chapters and all three chapters are focused on Nineveh and its downfall. Some scholars suggest that his writings were prophecy, written about 615 BC, just before the fall of the Nineveh; other theologians believe his writings could be taken as history and wrote after the fall of the Assyrian Empire [which included Nineveh] in 612 BC. Even the location of his final resting place is in dispute, but the majority of scholars agree that the tomb of Nahum is inside the synagogue at Alqosh, Iraq. Unlike most of the other Old Testament Prophets, who Nahum actually was and where he came from remains elusive.

While these are just a few of the mysterious people who received an honorable mention in the Holy Book, the question of who these people were and why they were recognized in the Bible remains a debate among the scholars and theologians of religion.