Ask most Christians about famous biblical heroes and the chances are that names like Joshua, David and Samson will come back. Fair enough, but there's a whole host of minor characters as well. The Bible isn't just full of good spiritual stuff. Quite a lot of it, especially in the Old Testament, is straight out of the Boys' Own Paper or even Game of Thrones. So here is a personal selection of the top seven biblical heroes. Yes, most of them involve blood, but that's the kind of list it is.
1. Benaiah son of Jehoiada beat two of the best Moabite fighters. He also "struck down a huge Egyptian" who was armed with a spear; Benaiah only had a club, but he grabbed the Egyptian's spear and killed him with it. Best of all, "He also went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion" (2 Samuel 23:11). It was an Asiatic lion; Bristol Zoo has a family. They are very rare, thanks to people like Benaiah.
2. Ehud the Benjaminite is the first recorded political assassin. The Israelites were being oppressed by the Moabites and had to take a tribute to their king, the very fat King Eglon. He smuggled a sword in and tricked the king into seeing him alone. Ehud seized his moment and "plunged the sword into the king's belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out of his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it" (Judges 3:21-22). Eglon's men didn't find out for ages, because they thought he was in the lavatory. This really is true.
3. Jael the wife of Heber managed to finish off a Canaanite general who had fled from defeat by Israelite forces (led by another woman, Deborah, as it happens). He pitched up at her tent and fell asleep from exhaustion after she gave him a drink of milk. She drove a tent peg through his skull into the ground – "and he died", says Judges 4:21, perhaps a little redundantly. This is perhaps the only time an enemy general has been killed with a tent-peg.
4. An unnamed women. Abimelech, the son of Gideon (Judges 9), was a thoroughly bad lot and nothing like his father. He murdered his brothers and burned down a tower with 1,000 people inside it. He was trying to burn down another when an unnamed women, one of the defenders, dropped a millstone on his head. He got his armour-bearer to kill him rather than have people say he was killed by a woman. But he was, really; so she is the heroine in this case.
5. Bears. The prophet Elisha was walking along one day when some boys made fun of his bald patch. The prophet cursed them and two bears came out of the woods and gave them a good mauling (2 Kings 2:23-25). Bald people since then have had a soft spot for bears.
6. The sons of Jacob. Their sister Dinah was raped by Shechem, a Hivite, who then wanted to marry her; they said he could, but only if he and everyone else in his town were circumcised first. They attacked the city three days later "while all of them were still in pain", and killed the lot (Genesis 34). At least you have to admire their tactics.
7. Ebed-Melech, a Cushite in the service of King Zedekiah. When the king had the prophet Jeremiah thrown into a cistern, it was Ebed-Melech who persuaded him to let him out. He padded the rope with rags so Jeremiah wouldn't hurt himself when they pulled him up (Jeremiah 38). Which proves that nice people can be heroes too.
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