born to the Hebrews because the Hebrew population in Egypt was growing too quickly. One day the pharaoh’s daughter was bathing in the Nile with her attendants when she noticed a basket containing a three-month-old baby boy. She realised that he was a Hebrew child and decided to raise him rather than allow him to be killed by her father. The baby’s sister, Miriam, was standing nearby and offered to find a Hebrew woman to suckle the child. The baby’s mother, Jochebed, conveniently close at hand, was summoned and hired as a nurse to care for the child. The pharaoh’s daughter later named the baby Moshe, or Moses, and he grew up to become the greatest leader and teacher in the history of the Jews. The woman who saved his life and raised and educated him was known in various history books as Thermuthis, Myrrina or Mercis. However, the authors of the Bible referred to her only as ‘the pharaoh’s daughter’. (Exod. 2:5–10)3 THE WOMAN PATRIOT OF THEBEZ Abimelech was a tyrant who ruled over Shechem for three years during the twelfth century BC. Having taken power by slaughtering 69 of his 79 brothers, he continued his bloody ways by killing the entire population of the town of Shechem when they revolted against him. Moving on to the neighbouring town of Thebez, he was about to set it ablaze when ‘a certain woman’ appeared on the roof of the town tower and dropped a piece of a millstone on Abimelech’s head, crushing his skull. Humiliated by the prospect of being killed by a woman, Abimelech ordered one of his followers to run him through with a sword. With Abimelech dead, his supporters dispersed and Thebez was saved. (Judg. 9:50–55)
4 THE WISE WOMAN OF ABEL When Sheba, the son of Bichri, led a revolt against King David, David sent his commander-in-chief, Joab, to track down the rebel and kill him. Joab finally found the culprit hiding in the walled city of Abel. Joab and his soldiers began the destruction of the city, but stopped when a wise woman called out to them to discuss the situation. Joab explained that if the people of Abel turned the rebel Sheba over to him, he and his soldiers would leave them alone. The wise woman easily convinced her people that this was a good deal. Sheba was quickly decapitated, his head thrown over the wall to Joab, and the city of Abel was saved. (II Sam. 20:15–22)
5 BARZILLAI’S DAUGHTER When this Gileadite woman married, she retained her own name rather than take her husband’s. In fact, her husband, a priest, took her family’s name. Despite this early display of feminism, or perhaps because of it, the Bible authors do not tell us her name, but refer to her merely as ‘one of the daughters of Barzillai’. (Neh.7:63)
6 THE SHULAMITE SWEETHEART According to some scholars, the Song of Songs tells the story of a young Shulamite maiden who attracted the attention of King Solomon. He forced her to come to Jerusalem and tried to convince her to marry him, but she resisted him and insisted on remaining faithful to her shepherd lover. Eventually Solomon gave up and allowed her to return home, while he was forced to continue living with the 700 women he had already married. (Song of Solomon)
7 HERODIAS’ DAUGHTER Known to the historian Josephus as Salome, this most famous of all dancers is not given a name in the New Testament. King Herod was so impressed by the dancing of Herodias’ daughter that he offered her any gift, including half his kingdom. After consulting her mother, who was angry with John the Baptist for publicly denouncing her as an incestuous adulterer, she asked for the head of John the Baptist on a platter. She got it and promptly turned over the grisly prize to her mum. (Matt. 14:6; Mark 6:22)
8 THE ADULTEROUS WOMAN Caught in the act of adultery, this woman was brought before Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees, who pointed out that the law required that such an offence be punished by stoning. Jesus ignored them at first and then said, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.’ One by one her accusers slithered away, and she was not punished. (John 8:3–ll)
6 People Whose Names Were Changed by Accident
1 IRVING BERLIN (1888–1989), songwriter He was born Israel Baline, but the sheet music for his first composition, ‘Marie from Sunny Italy’, credited the song to ‘I. Berlin’. Baline preferred the mistake over his actual name.
2 WILLIAM FAULKNER (1897–1962), novelist After William Falkner’s first book, The Marble Faun (1924), was published, he discovered that a ‘u’ had been inserted into his last name. He decided to live with the new spelling rather than go through the hassle of correcting the error.
3 ULYSSES S. GRANT (1822–85), general and US president The future Civil War general was born Hiram Ulysses Grant. The prospect of entering the US Military Academy with the initials ‘H. U.G.’ embarrassed him, so the new cadet reversed the order of his names and started signing himself U.H. Grant. He soon learned that Rep. Thomas L. Hamer, who had sponsored his appointment to West Point, had mistakenly enrolled him as Ulysses Simpson Grant, ‘Simpson’ being the maiden name of Grant’s mother. Grant, finding nothing objectionable in the initials ‘USG’, adopted the new name.
4 BUDDY HOLLY (1936–59), singer and songwriter When Charles ‘Buddy’ Holley signed his first contract with Decca Records, his last name was misspelled as ‘Holly’. Reasoning that others in the recording industry would make the same error, Buddy kept the new spelling.
5 DIONNE WARWICK (1940– ), singer When her first record, ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ was released in 1962, a printing error made Dionne Warrick over into Dionne Warwick.
6 OPRAH WINFREY (1954– ), television personality Her parents intended to name her ‘Orpah’ after Ruth’s sister-in-law in the Old Testament. However, the name was misspelled ‘Oprah’ on her birth certificate. Winfrey has used it ever since.
– C.F.
8 Almost Indestructible People
1 GRIGORI RASPUTIN The Russian mystic and orgiast held enormous political power at the court of the Romanovs from 1905 until his murder in 1916. That this decadent, vulgar peasant should hold such sway over the Empress Alexandra infuriated a group of five power-hungry aristocrats, who set out to destroy him. They arranged for Rasputin to take midnight tea at the home of Prince Felix Yussupov. Some accounts say that Rasputin drank voluminous amounts of poisoned or opiated wine and remained unaffected, to Yussupov’s great consternation. The frightened Prince contrived an excuse to go upstairs, where the waiting gang furnished him with a gun, then followed him downstairs. According to Rasputin’s daughter, Maria, the men assaulted her father and ‘used him sexually’. Then Yussupov shot him. Again, according to Maria, they viciously beat Rasputin and castrated him, flinging the famed penis across the room. One of the conspirators – a doctor – pronounced the victim dead; but Yussupov, feeling uneasy, began to shake the body violently. The corpse’s eyelids twitched – and opened. Suddenly, Rasputin jumped to his feet and gripped Yussupov by the shoulders. Terrorised, Prince Felix pulled himself free; Rasputin fell to the floor, and the other men dashed upstairs. In the midst of the brouhaha, they heard noises in the hallway: Rasputin had crawled up the stairs after them. Two more shots were fired into him, and again he was beaten with harrowing violence. The men (still doubting his death) bound Rasputin’s wrists. Carrying him to a frozen river, they thrust his body through a hole in the ice. Rasputin was still alive. The icy water revived him, and he struggled against his bonds. When his body was found two days later, his scarred wrists and water-filled lungs gave this proof, as did his freed right hand, which was frozen in the sign of the cross.
2 SAMUEL DOMBEY Dombey was a black gravedigger in post-Civil War Orleans. Because he worked for such low rates, his fellow gravediggers decided to put an end to their competition. They called upon a certain Dr Beauregard, reputed to have magical powers, to use his $50 ‘supreme curse’ involving an owl’s head. The next morning, as Dombey began to dig a new grave, he heard a loud explosion. Someone, apparently injured, staggered from a nearby clump of bushes. There Dombey found a gun which, overloaded with buckshot, had blown up. Later, a much-bandaged Dr Beauregard threatened to curse anyone who questioned
