“Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible” by Shelly Eshkoli

If I were asked to name women in the Bible, my answer would come out rather perfunctory. Other than Eve, my answer would gravitate to the New Testament. Mary. Mary Magdalene. Martha. The woman at the well. Priscilla, friend of Paul. The woman who touched Jesus’s robe. All people from the New Testament. 

I have to think harder about the Old Testament. Then they surface. Sarah. Pharoah’s daughter. Rachel and Leah. Rebecca. There are more. They all have stories, some short and some longer. But there are also women who appear and then almost vanish.

 

Writer Shelly Eshkoli aims to correct that with Unveiled: Women Erased from the Bible. She features 10 women from the Old Testament, some named and some nameless, who appear in the accounts and then almost vanish, or as Eshkoli might say, almost erased.

 

Shelly Eshkoli

The 10 women are Zipporah, the wife of Moses; the daughter of Jephthah in the Book of Judges; Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah; Lot’s wife; Jael, the woman known for a mallet and nail; Tamar, the daughter-in-law of Judah; Athaliah, the murderous daughter of Jezebel; Esther, the queen of Persia who saved the people of Israel; the Queen of Sheba; and the witch of Endor, consulted by Saul and supposedly summoning the ghost of the prophet Samuel.

 

Eshkoli begins each account with a fictional “scroll,” allowing each woman to tell her story in her own words. Then a solid, well-researched account follows. Eshkoli sifts through history, archaeology. Linguistics, and other sources to draw a picture of each woman and the times in which she lived. What emerges is a nuanced, thoughtful discussion which brings depth to the story of each woman.

 

The author is a well-known and highly regard tour guide and group leader in Jerusalem and the Biblical lands of Israel. She holds an M.A. degree in Biblical Studies and is also a lecturer and teacher, bringing in-depth knowledge of the life and culture of the ancient Near East to her work.

 

Unveiled is an engaging look at 10 women of the Bible we know little about. Eshkoli brings them alive on the page, and we can see the vital role they played in the Bible story.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

America at 250: Teaching with Honesty and Gratitude – Janie Cheaney at Redeemed Reader.

 

The Sad Death of Tabloid English – Christopher Gage at Oxford Sour.

 

The Siege of Basing House – A London Inheritance.

 

Spring Blossoms and Untimely Reflections – K.S. Bernstein at Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood on Prince Andrei and War and Peace.

Patience

After James 5:7-12 

Patience is a trial,

but it is also to what

you are called, so

be patient, for

the Lord will come.

Follow the farmer,

who knows his fields

and waits for

the harvest to come.

The coming of the lord

is soon; the coming

of the Lord is at hand.

That is what you’re

awaiting, and patience

will be rewarded, just

as the farmer is rewarded

with his harvest.

 

Photograph by Free Walking Tour Salzburg via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

The Lost Art of a Wandering Mind – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

‘Religious Affections’: Textbook of the American Soul – Obbie Tyler Todd at Desiring God.

Saturday Good Reads – June 27, 2026

If there is one national flag recognized the world over today, it’s the flag of the United States. At one time, it was Britain’s Union Jack. Guy Iynn at History tells the story of these two flags and where they came from. Stewart McLaurin at USA Today writes the American flag helped the country evolve and unite. 

For the past few weeks, you can’t open any social media platform without seeing Europeans visiting for the World Cup and discovering the America they never knew existed. The reports became so widespread that even the mainstream media began to notice. But these visitors also did something else – they reminded us of the great country Americans themselves forgot existed.

 

Following Keir Starmer’s resignation Monday, Britain will now have its seventh prime minister in a decade. That decade of instability started officially when Britain voted to leave the European Union in the vote known as Brexit. Douglas Murray argues in The Free Press that Britain’s leaders forgot how to lead. Arthur Reynolds at The Critic Magazine says the Civil Service was the ruin of Starmer. And writer Fred de Frossard looks at the decade and explains why Brexit was right. 

 

It had grown and lasted for at least 800 years. Some said it was even older, 1,000 or even 1,500 years. But it is no more. The Major Oak has died. And some see the death as symbolizing far more than an old, dead tree.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

The Forgotten Scot Behind the Declaration of Independence – Samuel Gregg at The Coolidge Review.

 

The Essential Paintings of Our Nation – Judith Dobrzynski at The Wall Street Journal (unlocked).

 

The Tobacco Raid of 1779 – Marc Drolet at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

The Founding Fathers had a real revolution to overcome before they could win the war – J.H. Cook at Fox News.

 

New York’s Underdogs Prepare to Fight – Jonathan Horn t The Free Press.

 

Scots in the Revolution & the British Southern Pivot – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

When the Colonists Fasted for Independence – Sarah Gleim at History.

 

Faith

 

Loaves, Fish, and Un-Self-Conscious Little Boys – Michael Kelley at Forward Progress.

 

Kingdom of Trees – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

Writing and Literature

 

“O Abany”: Novelist William Kennedy on His Great Cycle of the City – Library of America (video).

 

Luxury Muzhik – Adam Thirlwell at London Review of Books reviews Reminiscences of Tolstoy, Chekhov and Andreyev by Maxim Gorky.

 

50 Years of Creative Destruction in the Book World – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

Winged Words: Reading & Discussing Great Books – Peter Kalkavage at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Poetry

 

“Life and Love: A Song,” poem by John Wilmor, Earl of Rochester – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“An Essay on Man,” poem by Alexander Pope (excerpt) – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Thank You Jesus for the Blood – Charity Gayle

 Painting: The Morning Chapter, oil on canvas by Charles Spencelayh (1865-1958).

Watch it, rich man!

After James 4:10-5:6 

A fundamental question:

what do you do with

your wealth? What do

you do with all the Lord

has blessed you with?

Riches for the sake

of riches is chasing

after the wind. You

blink your eyes, and

your riches have rotted,

your clothes become rags,

your stocks have crashed,

your banks have closed,

your comfortable life

of indulgence have ended.

You’ve condemned and

defrauded the righteous

person. It is time for you

to weep and howl for

the miseries coming

upon you.

 

Photograph by Jingming Pan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Treasures of TANAKH Hebrew: Hineni,” poem by Brian Volck – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

A Lot of Christian Tech Criticism is Missing Three Important Things – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Icthus – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

“From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” hymn by Reginald Heber – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

A pair of sonnets for St. John the Baptist – Malcolm Guite.

 

A Puddle of Pure Joy – Seth Lewis.

Poets and Poems: David Livewell and “Pass and Stow”

It was the title that attracted me to David Livewell’s new poetry collection, Pass and Stow: Poems. It sounded like something related to transportation or hauling freight. It turned out to be people’s last names. 

As Livewell explains, John Pass and John Stow worked in the foundry in Philadelphia that recast the Liberty Bell in 1753. The foundry was in the same neighborhood where Livewell grew up in the 1970s. In his words, the two men “serve as reminders about the city’s layered past and what outward and inward repair can achieve.”

 

In the collection, Livewell applies the idea of layered past and repair to tell a story through poetry. And he is a grand storyteller. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

10 Things Poets & Writers Can Do in the Small Moments – TS Poetry at The Write to Poetry.

 

“The Fairies,” poem by William Allingham – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

“A tailor-bird’s song of triumph,” from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“Redcar Collector,” a short story by Glenn McGoldrick, is free to download today at Amazon.com. 

Some Wednesday Readings - June 24, 2026

Great Americans: ‘We’re Going to Take Back the Airplane’ – Colleen Shogan at The Free Press. 

There Are More than Five POVs – Lincoln Michel at Counter Craft.

 

Murder in disguise – Carl Trueman at World Magazine.

 

“The Moonlight,” poem by Yvor Winters – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Move Over, Mario Puzo – Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Charlie Jones, Photographer – Spitalfields Life.

 

A.R. Ammons and arts patronage – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

The Hardest Part of Fatherhood – Chris Martin at FYI.

 

Writers and Their Houses – Jay Parini.

 

Photograph: poet and writer A.R. Ammons (1926-2001). 

Sara Barkat Takes Us into “Otherside”

Until the late 1970s, my reading of science fiction was limited to the stories and novels of Ray Bradbury, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, and The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. I didn’t have any inherent bias against science fiction; it was more my reading interests were in other directions. 

For some reason, I picked up a paperback edition of Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg. Then I went to the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov (published in the 1950s, it may explain American politics of the last decade). Then the novels of Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. And Arthur C. Clarke, whose Rendezvous with Rama and Childhood’s Endremain among my favorite books. But as much as I loved the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, even then I knew how much it was changing science fiction. Fantasy was taking over. 

 

Years passed. Reading interests changed. And then the old memories stirred when I read The Shivering Ground by Sara Barkat. The wonderful graphic version she did of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Colour Out of Space, was another reminder, even though it’s usually called a horror story. And now she has a new novel, Otherside, which is about as close as you can get to mainstream science fiction as you can.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

For the Road to Santiago – poem by David Whyte.

 

The Wordless Rose: Ruchard Wilbur’s ‘Advice to a Prophet’ – Alexander Fayne.

 

Veshicular – poem by Franco Amati at Garbage Notes.

 

Poetry in Prose – Where Love is Born – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Lives upon Lives – poem by Baruch November at Evey Day Poems.

 

“Requiem,” poem by Robert Louis Stevenson – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.