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These biblical queens played crucial roles in the rise and fall of ancient Israel
Some were heretics and others heroes, but these royal women all took center stage in some of the most important stories in the Old Testament.
Bathsheba, Jezebel, Athaliah, and Esther are all associated with different eras of Jewish history and their tales serve as reminders of Jewish people's covenant with YHWH. Esther, pictured here in a 19th-century painting by Jean-François Portaels, has a scroll of her story that is read every year at Purim.
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