If Tamar makes church folks squirm, Lot’s daughters practically blow the doors off the Sunday School classroom. Their story in Genesis 19 is short, shocking, and often whispered about: two sisters who got their father drunk and conceived children by him.

Say the name Jezebel, and most people immediately picture the ultimate bad girl of the Bible—the woman so scandalous she got her own eternal insult.

Tamar doesn’t usually make it into Sunday School flannelgraph sets. Her story in Genesis 38 is messy, scandalous, and uncomfortable for anyone who wants the Bible to be a neat moral guidebook. She was Judah’s daughter-in-law, widowed twice, promised security but denied it, and ultimately forced to take matters into her own hands.

If you’ve ever heard Rehab’s name in church, it almost always comes with a label:  “Rehab the prostitute.”  Out of all the things she did, all the roles she played, the one word attached to her forever is her occupation.

Say the name Bathsheba, and most people picture a beautiful woman bathing on a rooftop, luring poor King David into sin. She’s been cast for centuries as the biblical seductress - the woman who tempted a man after God’s own heart.

When people hear the name Mary Magdalene, the mental Rolodex usually lands on one of three words: prostitute, fallen, sinner.