Women in the Bible

Hagar

*See also: The Free Woman, Mother of a Son of Abraham (Hagar)

Genesis 16; 21:9-21; 25:12-16; Galatians 4:24-25

• Genesis 16:1-6 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So…He went in to Hagar, and she conceived, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress…. Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and [Hagar] ran away from her.

• Galations 4:24-25 Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.

List of Reading & Resources:

Articles

• "Hagar" by Wil Gafney

• They Were Not White: Hagar

• “Hagar: She Who Speaks with God” by Elizabeth Tracy

• “The Slave Woman and the Free: The Role of Hagar and Sarah in Paul’s Galatians 4:21-5:1 Allegory” by Amanda Michelle Bryant

Books

• Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible by Nyasha Junior (2019)

• Reframing Her: Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus by Judith E. McKinlay (2004)

• “Hagar’s Story: A Route to Black Women’s Issues” (Ch.1) of Sisters in the Wilderness by Delores S. Williams (1993)

• “A Mistress, A Maid, and No Mercy” (Ch.1) from Just a Sister Away by Renita Weems (1988)

• "Twists and Turns in Paul's Allegory" by Letty M. Russell in Hagar, Sarah, and Their Children: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Perspectives, edited by Phyllis Trible and Letty M. Russell (2006)

• "Galatians" by Carolyn Osiek in Women’s Bible Commentary, edited by Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (2012)

Podcasts

• “Nyasha Junior―Reimagining Hagar: Blackness in the Bible” from the OnScript Podcast

*Also mentioned in the Apocrypha (see Apocryphal Women)