Bad Girls of the Bible: The Samaritan Woman at the Well – The Outsider Who Spoke Truth

If you grew up in church, you probably remember the Samaritan woman from John 4—the one who meets Jesus at a well, has “five husbands,” and is living with a man who isn’t her husband. Cue the Sunday School whisper: immoral… loose… fallen.

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For centuries, she’s been branded the small-town scandal, the woman with a past. The sermons practically write themselves: Don’t be like her, girls.

But here’s the kicker: the text itself never calls her sinful. Not once.

So why has she been immortalized as a “bad girl”? Because she was a woman, because she was a Samaritan, and because her story threatened to upend the neat little boxes patriarchy prefers to keep women in.

The Story We Were Told

John 4 sets the scene: Jesus, traveling through Samaria, sits down at a well at noon. A Samaritan woman comes to draw water, and he does something scandalous—he talks to her.

That alone shattered every social rule of the time:

1. She was a woman. Jewish men weren’t supposed to strike up casual convos with women in public.

2. She was a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans had centuries of beef (John 4:9). Think Hatfields and McCoys, but with temples.

3. She had “a reputation.” Five husbands and a live-in partner? Gossip column fodder for sure.

Instead of shaming her, Jesus engages in one of the longest theological debates in the entire Gospel. They discuss worship, identity, and “living water.” And to her, of all people, he reveals plainly: “I am he, the Messiah” (John 4:26).

Imagine that. The supposed “town floozy” gets the big reveal before any of the respectable men do.

The Skewed Facts

Here’s where the interpretation gets shady. For centuries, preachers assumed she was immoral. But look closely: the text never says she was adulterous or promiscuous.

What it does say is this:

• She had five husbands.

• The man she was with now wasn’t her husband (John 4:18).

That’s it.

In a world where only men could issue divorce papers, where women were often widowed young, and where remarriage was sometimes the only survival strategy, this “five husbands” thing says far more about the men than about her. Frankly, five dead or ditching husbands? Sounds like they were the problem.

And living with a man outside of marriage? Likely the only way she could eat. That’s not scandal—it’s survival. But patriarchy loves a juicy sinner story, so she was cast as the village tramp rather than the woman carrying a history of abandonment and loss.

The Outsider Turned Evangelist

Here’s the mic-drop moment: she becomes the first evangelist in John’s Gospel.

“The woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, ‘Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?’” (John 4:28–29).

And what happens?

• The townspeople actually listen to her.

• They believe because of her testimony (John 4:39).

Let that sink in. The so-called immoral woman becomes the first to proclaim Jesus to her community. Not Peter, not John, not any of the “chosen” twelve. Her.

If that’s what “bad” looks like, maybe we need more bad girls.

The Modern Connection

The Samaritan woman’s reputation is a perfect mirror of how society still treats women today, especially sex workers and criminalized women. A few fragments of someone’s past get spun into a morality tale:

• Multiple relationships? She must be “loose.”

• Living outside marriage? She must be “immoral.”

• Surviving on the margins? She must be “dangerous.”

Never mind the widows. Never mind the abandonment. Never mind the survival calculus women are forced into. The world doesn’t want to see complexity—it wants to slap on a label.

And here’s the kicker: just like the Samaritan woman, these same “bad girls” are often leaders, truth-tellers, and community-builders. They are the first to bring living water to their people—whether or not the world gives them credit.

Reclaiming the Woman at the Well

The Samaritan woman wasn’t a “bad girl.” She was an outsider navigating a survival story written in the cracks of patriarchy. And she was also the first evangelist, the first to run back and tell the truth, the first to spark belief in a community.

Maybe the reason she got branded “immoral” is the same reason Mary Magdalene got called a prostitute and Delilah got turned into a seductress: because women who speak truth and refuse to stay silent are dangerous to systems built on controlling them.

Her story asks us to stop playing historian with other people’s reputations. It calls us to see the survivors, the leaders, the evangelists hiding under the labels society slaps on.

So the next time someone tells you about the “immoral Samaritan woman,” just smile and say: Oh, you mean the first preacher?

✍️ This post is part of SWOP Behind Bars’ series “Bad Girls of the Bible,” exploring how women’s reputations have been shaped by stigma, and what that means for sex workers and criminalized women today.

Learn more that www.swopbehindbars.org