The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

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Beverly Bow

Beverly Bow is an instructor at Cleveland State University, where she teaches religion and women’s studies. She received her Ph.D. in Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman world from the University of Iowa. Her academic interests include the Bible and related literature, Greco-Roman religion and culture, and religion in popular culture. She has published several articles on women in scripture and in post-biblical texts.

Articles by this author

Edna Entrusting Tobias with Sarah by Arent de Gelder

Edna: Apocrypha

In the Book of Tobit, Edna is Raguel’s wife, Sarah’s mother, and the mother-in-law of Tobias, Tobit’s son. Edna has no biblical namesake; unlike the other women named in Tobit, her name does not evoke images from the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps the author of Tobit means to recall Eden’s idyllic existence, or, more likely, to convey by the name something about the type of woman, wife, and mother Edna is.