Women in the Bible

Tamar (Daughter-in-Law of Judah)

Genesis 38; Ruth 4:12; 1 Chronicles 2:4; Matthew 1:2-3

• Genesis 38:6 Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar.

• Ruth 4:12 …and, through the children that the Lord will give you by this young woman, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.

• 1 Chronicles 2:4 His daughter-in-law Tamar also bore him Perez and Zerah. Judah had five sons in all.

• Matthew 1:2-3 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram.

List of Reading & Resources:

Articles

• “Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t: Tamar—a Feminist Foremother Genesis 38:6-26” by Randy L. Maddox (1987)

• “Tamar: Bible” by Tikva Frymer-Kensky in Jewish Women’s Archive

• “Judah and Tamar” podcast episode on The Bible Binge, Season 1 Episode 4 (April 12, 2017)

• “A Timely Transformation: Tamar’s Quest for Justice in Genesis 38” by Grace Al-Zoughbi from CBE International

• “Judah and Tamar” podcast episode on The Bible Binge, Season 1 Episode 4 (April 12, 2017)

• "Her Name Was Tamar – Invasive, Destructive, Redemptive" by Professor Jacqueline Vayntrub

Books

• “Hidden Polemics in the Story of Judah and Tamar” by Yairah Amit in Critical Engagement: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of J. Cheryl Exum (2011)

• Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel by Wilda C. Gafney (2008)

• “Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t: Tamar—a Feminist Foremother Genesis 38:6-26” by Randy L. Maddox (1987)

• "Royal Origins: Tamar" (pp.264-277) in Reading the Women of the Bible by Tikva Frymer-Kensky (2002)

• "Levirate Marriage" by Dvora E. Weisberg

• ​​“Tamar: The Righteous Prostitute” (pp. 31-48) by Carolyn Custis James, MA in Vindicating The Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible, ed. Sandra Glahn (2017)