Why is a writer who clearly loves superheroes so interested in women prophets? I think in part they’re the closest we come in my faith tradition to spiritual heroines of an often especially rebellious sort.

More specifically, years ago I became fascinated by the assertion of a group of early Christians in ancient Turkey who asserted that their own women prophets were part of an unbroken spiritual tradition that began with Eve herself.

Eve was a prophet? Say what?

Ever up for a challenge, I decided to see if I could trace that unbroken line. That particular effort has taken me on a long and fascinating journey. It required me to totally reconsider the Adam and Eve story. Taken on its face, after all, Eve was the first human to know the difference between good and evil, and she proclaimed that truth to her husband. I could kind of see it.

Of course I soon discovered the Bible was rather spotty in providing names for a good many of the women in its narrative. That clearly bothered a lot of folks even way back when because extra-Biblical literature frequently goes out of its way to supply us with those names. And those extra-Biblical sources often flesh out women’s stories with some pretty wild details. Though perhaps no more amazing than the stories we find in the Torah and Bible themselves.

The Women Prophets of Tradition

Historically, Biblical scholars have pretty much agreed on who the established scriptures identified as women prophets. There was Deborah, Miriam, and Huldah in the Torah or Old Testament. Miriam, the sister of Moses, is particularly intriguing, with her connection with sacred dreams and song.

Noadiah gets included if you count women prophets who may or may not have been on the up and up. Her conflict with Nehemiah has traditionally cast her in the role of false prophet. But feminist scholars, especially Wilda Gafney, have taken a second look at her. At the very least she was a formidable figure respected in her community.

The Book of Isaiah references an unnamed prophetess as well. It is also holds the first reference to the seven gifts of the spirit of God: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge of the divine, piety and awe. That list will figure in this discussion later.

And then in the New Testament there is Anna and the four daughters of Philip. Plus a false prophet in The Book of Revelations. That makes, what? Nearly a dozen?

Historical Prophetesses

Once we reach the New Testament of the Christian Bible we begin to reference figures who we can assume their historical veracity. Antoinette Clark Wire devotes an entire book, The Corinthian Women Prophets, to piecing together evidence for what role these women played in the early church. And there are numerous non-Biblical reference to the four prophetic daughters of Philip, who go unnamed in the Acts of the Apostles. Luckily the historical sources aren’t daunted recognizing their names. I’ve written a detailed article on what we know about them. Hermione, in particular, is a spiritual heroine of just the sort I love to write about.

Creating quite a stir in early Christian Turkey was the New Prophecy, a branch of self-proclaimed Christians who celebrated several women prophets, Priscilla and Maximilla among them. Denigrated as Montanists, whatever the merits of their spiritual practices, their sincerity is hard to doubt. It was the New Prophecy that proclaimed its tradition of women prophets started with Eve herself. No wonder their movement raised more than a few male eyebrows.

Extra-Biblical Women Prophets

But once you allow yourself to consider extra-Biblical material, what Jewish folk have referred to Midrash or commentary intended to expand on underdeveloped or missing details in the original, it is quite something how many other possible candidates for women prophets emerge.

Eve’s daughter Norea was a popular figure in several extra-Biblical texts. And for better or worse, her righteous judgment of Noah in burning down his ark certainly echoed a prophet’s anger at perceived wrongdoing. Another legend has one of Noah’s daughters making prophetic utterances on the ark before leaving to become the Sibyl of Roman legend. Melka, one of the early maternal figures linking Noah to the great patriarchs of Judaism, anticipates the role Abraham will play in that grand drama.

If you ever wondered what the gifts of Job’s daughters might have been, there is an extra-Biblical text that details that too. The fantastical story of Thecla, a cross-dressing follower of Paul, has prophetic overtones as well.

A Lineage of Female Prophets

As longtime readers of my website have discerned, I have eclectic tastes in my choice of subject matter. But an overarching goal of most everything I write is presenting empowering stories of non-dominant groups. Elevating stories of spiritual heroines satisfies that calling. Re-purposing stories of some upstanding eunuchs, the Bible’s favored sexual minority, is also in the works.

I’m an aspiring fiction writer so you’ll find I take something of a literary approach to telling these stories. I’m also a psychologist so there will some lessons served up as well. I hope to have these posts build on one another into a sort of history of women prophets, whether historical or mythic you decide.

So beginning with what I have already posted or know will soon be following, you could start by reading these posts in sequence:

First Prophet? The Lesson of Lady Eve

The Lesson of Norea’s Wisdom

The Lesson of the Sibyl: The Prophet on Noah’s Ark

The Lesson of the Daughters of the New Covenant

The Lesson of Job’s Daughters

Thank you for reading and feel free to include your comments about this or any of my posts below. And in the meantime, here are some books on the topic of women prophets that I have found particularly helpful.

Clark, Antoinette Clark (1995). The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Gafney, Wilda G. (2008). Daughters of Miriam. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

Jensen, Anne (1996). God’s Self-Confident Daughters: Early Christianity and the Liberation of Women. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Stokl, Jonathan, and Carvalho, Corrine L., Eds. (2013). Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Mark Carlson-Ghost

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