Rahab the Harlot?
The wall of Jericho yields insights into the home of Rahab in the Bible
In the Book of Joshua, Rahab (a heroine nonetheless known as “Rahab the Harlot”) assisted two Israelite spies in escaping out a window and down the city wall of Jericho. Who was Rahab in the Bible? A Biblical prostitute or just an innkeeper? Did she live on the wall of Jericho or within it, in what is known to archaeologists as a casemate wall? Anthony J. Frendo addresses these questions about the life of Rahab in the Bible in the September/October 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. Whether or not she was a Biblical prostitute, archaeology may at least be able to answer whether Rahab lived on or in the casemate wall of Jericho.
Rahab the harlot? It may be a surprise to some readers, but Biblical prostitutes were commonly mentioned in the text. What was the profession of Rahab in the Bible? Here, she assists Israelite spies down what may be a casemate wall, within which her home may have been located. Engraving by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Germany, 1860. Image: CCI/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY.
Rahab helped two Israelites when they came to spy out the land of Jericho. She hid them on her roof when the king came for them. When the coast was clear, Rahab let the spies down by a rope through the window.
So what do we know about Rahab the harlot? Was she a Biblical prostitute? The Biblical text identifies her as a zônāh, a prostitute (Joshua 2:1), but she seems more like a landlady. Indeed, the first-century C.E. historian Josephus reports that she kept an inn. The consonants that comprise the word “prostitute” in Hebrew are znh, which are the same consonants that comprise the Hebrew word for a female who gives food and provisions. The text doesn’t describe Rahab’s profession negatively, as one might expect from a description of Biblical prostitutes. The lifestyle of Rahab in the Bible continues to elude us. Whether we remember her as Rahab the harlot or innkeeper, she was a Biblical heroine.
We may be able to understand the chronology of the story by examining whether Rahab lived on the wall of Jericho or in the city’s casemate. The structure of the city wall varied in different periods in ancient Israel. In the Late Bronze Age, the time in which the story of Rahab in the Bible was set, thick defensive walls were common; people could conceivably have lived on them. During the Iron Age II period (sixth century B.C.E.), when the Book of Joshua was thought to have been edited, Israelite settlements were often surrounded by a casemate wall, which was comprised of two parallel walls with periodic perpendicular walls, forming casemates, or rooms, that people lived within. Analyzing the Hebrew words for “within the wall,” which described the residence of Rahab the harlot, along with the chronology of defensive construction in ancient Israel, Frendo suggests that Rahab lived on the wall. Frendo proposes that an editor changed the Hebrew to reflect that Rahab lived in the wall of Jericho within a casemate wall, rather than on top of a thick defensive wall, to make the text understandable to people in Israel during the late Iron Age.
BAS Library Members: Read the full article “Was Rahab Really a Harlot?” by Anthony J. Frendo as it appears in the September/October 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on September 23, 2013.
Related reading in Bible History Daily:
All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library:
Forgotten Heroines of the Exodus: The exclusion of women from Moses’ vision
Cult Prostitution in Ancient Israel?
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
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Btw, theologically speaking, there is no reason to believe that gentiles don’t get reward. As long as they’re good people…
The whole story of “Jericho” is just a myth. Jericho was already long time before Joshua “arrived” by earthquake destroyed and not built up long time. See Finkelstein & Silberman. So when (better if…) Joshua ever arrived in Jericho there had been already ruins. So the whole story of Rahab belongs into the biblical trash can.
@Jeff: I agree with some of what you say, especially about Deborah. But women aren’t all intended to be wives and mothers any more than men are all intended to be husbands (after all, Peter, Paul, John, and many other famous men of the Bible were single; Jesus was while he was on earth). 1 Corinthians 7 confirms this, where Paul says that some have the gift of marriage and others the gift of singleness. Take care not to criticise those who serve God better when single, whose “priorities are not divided”, as Paul puts it.
Scripture states that Peter was married. Jesus went to his house and healed his m
other-in-law in the Gospels, and Paul remarked that he had a right to travel with a wife, as Peter did.
Actually if you base the Bible on the New Chronology and not the Old then Joshua and the destruction are at the same time.
Also couldn’t Rehab have been both an Innkeeper and a prostitute (under room service charge)?
Then when Jericho’s wall fell down, Rahab’s house, “on a side of the wall,” was not destroyed. (Jos 2:15; 6:22) On Joshua’s orders that Rahab’s household be spared, the same two spies brought her out to safety. After a period of separation from Israel’s camp, Rahab and her family were permitted to dwell among the Israelites. (Jos 6:17, 23, 25) This former prostitute then became the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz in the royal ancestry of the Davidic kings; she is one of the four women named in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. (Ru 4:20-22; Mt 1:5, 6) She is also an outstanding example of one who, though not an Israelite, by works proved her complete faith in Jehovah. “By faith,” Paul tells us, “Rahab the harlot did not perish with those who acted disobediently, because she received the spies in a peaceable way.” “Was not also Rahab the harlot declared righteous by works, after she had received the messengers hospitably and sent them out by another way?” asks James.—Heb 11:30, 31; Jas 2:25.
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200274756
Liberal scholarship is a must when it comes for a need to check them out carefully. ‘Harlot’ in Hebrew as found in Joshua means what it says a prostitute! I have studied Hebrew for many years and I can say with full confidence she was a harlot! In the Septuagint the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible word in Greek means a prostitute when it mentions Rahab. The same Greek word is used in the book of Hebrews and calls Rahab a prostitute. Liberal theologians must be watched very carefully as they will say or do anything to -in some way small or large-to ‘weaken’ the Biblical record or Scriptures which they or at east most do not feel was ‘inspired’ of God. ll Timothy 3:16; ll Peter1:19-21
Dating for Joshua was mentioned so a good article is found at Bible.org See: Introduction to the Pentateuch.
Rahab is explicitly called a harlot (pornae) in Greek in the book of Hebrews.
its amazing that even though Rahab was a harlot, Jesus was born through her generation….through Rahab we get the birth of Jesus….surely God is amazing
Regrettably ancient Israelite prophets read ZONAH as a ‘prostitute’ and this has colored [red] all women and actions so designated. The Hebrew ZONAH is originally Canaanite and parallels the Aegean ZONH (the belt worn by unmarried girls indicating their sexual availability – an integral custom in their fertility societies). If we judge the past in its cultural context we can better understand the languages and attitudes without imposing our own biases, at least until the conclusion of an essay or sermon.