Adam

Adam was the first human being created by God.He was created the sixth day.God put Adam in the Garden of Eden,where he made Adam dominant over the animals. Adam chose to sin against God when he listened to his wife and ate of a the fruit of a tree which he had been forbidden to eat from.After this,Adam and his wife were thrown out of the garden of Eden.Outside the garden Adam had to work hard to grow the food that they needed.It was at this time when they had been banished from the garden that Adam's son Cain killed his brother Abel.Adam and his wife Eve then had another son named Seth to carry on a Godly line.Adam died at the age of 930 years.

Eve

Eve was the wife of Adam.God created her from one of Adam's ribs.God created her as Adam's "help-meet",or completer.She was tempted by a snake to disobey God,and she gave in and convinced her husband Adam to disobey God as well.Through this co-disobedience they were thrown into exile from the garden of Eden.She had three sons who are mentioned in the Bible:Abel,Cain,and Seth.

Noah

Noah was the only man during his time who did good in God's eyes, while the rest of humanity was inundated in evil.God called him to build a large boat to save himself,his family, and mating pairs of animals. They all survived a world-wide flood,after which God made a covenant never to destroy the earth with water again.Noah lived to be 950 years old.

Abraham

Abraham was the first of the Patriarchs of the Israelite people.He initially followed God by obeying his command to leave the city Ur and travel to a foreign land.He traveled with his family to the land of Canaan,but they had to travel down to Egypt because Canaan was in the midst of a famine.
While down there,Abraham lied to the pharaoh for fear of his life,and told the pharaoh that his own wife Sarah was his sister.The pharaoh eventually commanded them to leave because he figured out that having Abraham's wife/sister in his harem was bringing plagues on Egypt.They then travelled back to Canaan where Abraham and his nephew Lot split their paths.Soon after they seperated,a league of kings attacked the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah,the area in which Lot had just settled.Abraham,of course,comes to his nephew's rescue and defeats the kings in battle.
God promised to Abraham a son.After some mistakes made by Abraham and Sarah involving her maid Hagar,they finally have a son named Isaac.Abraham is then confronted by God and given the covenant of circumcision,in which God promises Abraham that he will be the father of nations.
After a while God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to test Abraham's loyalty and faithfulness.God stayed his hand at the last moment before he killed his son,and gave him a ram to sacrifice in his place.When Isaac got older,Abraham sent a servant of his to find Isaac a wife among his relatives.The servant was successful,and Abraham died at a "ripe old age"

Isaac

Isaac was the son of Abraham and another of the Patriarchs.He was born to the barren wife of Abraham,Sarah.A servant of his fathers went to their relatives to find him a wife.The servant found Rebekah,daughter of Bethuel.Isaac and Rebekah are married,but Rebekah is barren.Isaac then prayed to God for his wife's barreness,and Rebekah became pregnant with twins.
When his sons are older,the younger son Jacob decieves Isaac into giving his blessing to him instead of to his brother Esau.Isaac lived to be one-hundred and eighty years before he died.

Jacob

Jacob was born to Isaac and his wife Rebekah as the younger of a pair of twin brothers.Jacob tricked his older brother Esau into selling him his birthright.Also,as the younger son,Jacob was not supposed to recieve his father's blessing,but he tricked Isaac into thinking that he was Esau and blessing him in his place.After this happened,Jacob runs off to the land of his relatives where he falls in love with Rachel,and eventually marries her after working for her father for fourteen years.He prospers there,but he decides to return to Canaan even though he fears his brother's wrath.On his way to Canaan,Jacob is visited by an Angel and wrestles with him,proclaiming that he will not release him until the Angel blesses him.So,Jacob is blessed once again,this time by an Angel.Later God renames him Israel.Jacob has twelve sons,who later become the twelve tribes of Israel.When a famine comes to the land,Jacob ends up in Egypt where his favorite son Joseph, who he thought was dead,had become a high ranking government official.Joseph died in Egypt and was carried all the way back to Canaan to be buried with his father.

Job

Job was a wealthy man who lived during the same time as the patriarchs.God said that Job was a man that was upright and of good character,fearing God.God allows the devil to test Job.He did this by destroying his lifestock,his servants, and all his children.After this does not make Job turn away from God,the devil is allowed to take away Job's health.Even still Job does not turn away from God,but he does take a very long time to lament his state.In the end,he is restored by God to his former position and more.Job lived to be one-hundred and fourty years old.

Joseph

Joseph was Jacob's favorite son.Jacob gave Joseph a coat of multiple colors as a sign of his favor for his son.Joseph was the recipient of some dreams that predicted his being in a position of power over his older brothers,and this of course made them unhappy when they heard about them.The brothers took Joseph and sold him to slave traders who took him down to Egypt.In Egypt Joseph worked for a high ranking government official until he was framed of making sexual advances on the official's wife.Having been thrown in jail for this,Joseph langished for a long time until the pharaoh needed to have a disturbing dream of his interpreted.When Joseph interpreted the pharaoh's dream,he was put into a position of power only second to the pharaoh.
A while after this,Joseph's brothers came to Egypt seeking food,because there was a famine ,which Joseph had earlier predicted, all over the land.Joseph let them think that he was not their brother until he chose to reveal himself.He had the rest of his family move down to Egypt.Joseph lived in Egypt until his death at the age of one-hundred and ten years.

Moses

Moses was born to Israelite slaves in Egypt during the subjugation that resulted from the family of Jacob moving to and remaining in Egypt.His mother set him afloat in a basket on the Nile river to try and help him escape the pharaoh's edict to kill all male Hebrew babies.He was found in the river by the Pharaoh's daughter and raised as her son.When he grew older,he eventually left the palace after killing a guard he saw brutalizing an Israelite.He ran off to the wilderness and lived there for fourty years as a shepherd until the Lord called him to go and free the Israelites from their subjugation.He went to the Pharaoh and told him to let God's people go.Since the Pharaoh would not let them go,God sent ten plagues one the Egyptians,until finally he let them go.After that,Pharaoh decided that he had made a mistake so he chased after them with an army,but they all died in the sea when God allowed the water he had been holding back for the Israelites to bury them.Moses died in the land of Moab,after he let Moses see the land promised for the Israelites.

Aaron

Aaron was Moses' brother,and he acted as Moses' spokesman.Moses was not an eloquent person,so God appointed him to speak for Moses.He did a good job speaking and acting as an example for the people of Israel until when they were waiting for Moses as he was recieving the ten commandments on mount Sinai.Aaron led the people in building a golden calf to be a physical representation of God to worship.Many were punished for the sin that was committed in building and worship of the idol.

Joshua

Joshua was Moses' military commander.He first worked as a spy for the Israelites,being one of the first of them to enter the land promised to them by God.After this first entrance God was angered by the Israelites being too afraid to go in and actually take what was there's,so he sent them to wander in the wildereness for fourty years.Little by little,Joshua led the Israelites to victory over the canaanites.Joshua died and was buried at the age of one-hundred and ten years.

Gideon

Gideon was a judge called by God to lead the Israelites in battle against the Midianites and the Amalekites.Gideon did just that with only three-hundred troops,through a clever tactic that made their enemies believe that there were far more of them than there actually were.Some of the enemy was so confused that they fought with each other as they were fleeing.Gideon later completes his task by killing Zebah and Zalmunna.

Samson

Samson was a judge of Israel who was born to Manoah and his wife.He had super-human strenth which would always be with him as long as he did not cut his hair.He married a Philistine girl,but that quickly fell through and he burned the Philistines grain by tying foxes together by the tail along with a torch.Also while he was a judge of Israel,he killed a thousand Philistines with nothing but the jaw-bone of a donkey.Unfortunately,Samson fell in love with a Philistine prostitute named Delilah,and the Philistines bribed her to find his weekness.After trying and trying,she finally discovers it and the Philistines are able to take Samson as a result.In the end,Samson has his revenge buy pulling down the house in which he was being kept,killing his captors and himself.

Ruth

Ruth was a Moabite woman who was married to a young Israelite who moved with his family to Moab.Her husband dies soon afterwards,and she is left a widow,taking care of her mother-in-law Naomi.She moved back to Israel with Naomi.Ruth was gleaning in the field of a wealthy kinsman named Boaz when she caught Boaz's eye.Basically,they end up getting married and spend the rest of their days together.

Naomi

Naomi was the wife of Elimelech,who died after they had moved to Moab and married there sons away to some Moabite girls,including Ruth.Naomi then moves back to Israel with her daughter-in-law Ruth,who takes care of her.She provides Ruth with the spiritual support that she needs.She lived to see Boaz and Ruth get married and have a son.

Boaz

Boaz was the kinsman of Naomi and her family.One day Naomi's daughter-in-law Ruth was gleaning from his field,and he noticed her and commanded his servants to show her special treatment.Boaz redeems Ruth,and marries her soon after.They soon have a baby son who is the beginning of the line of David;and his name was Obed.

Eli

Eli was the priest of the Lord when Samuel's mother was pregnant with him and when he was a boy.Eli took Samuel under his wing to teach him in the ways of the priests.however,Eli had two sons who he did not keep under his control and they became wicked.They were committing sins against the Lord,so Eli rebukes them.Eli died when he heard that the Ark had been captured by the Philistines.He was ninety-eight years old when he died.

Samuel

Samuel was born to an Israelite woman named Hannah.He lived with Eli living before the Lord and learning to minister before Him as well.When he was still a boy,the Lord visited in a vision and called him to be a prophet for the Lord.After the death of Eli,Samuel soon became the officiating priest of Israel.Israel was soon calling to Samuel to appoint a human king,so after consulting the Lord,he appoints Saul as King.Saul made some foolish choices as king which Samuel had to rebuke him for.When Samuel died,the whole of Israel mourned for him.

Saul

Saul was the first king of the Israelite nation.After the people of Israel demanded that Samuel find them a king,God revealed Saul to Samuel as the one who He wanted to be king of Israel.He was anointed by Samuel.Later,Saul leads the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites and the Israelites come out victorious.Soon after this the Israelite nation finds itself at war with the Philistines.Yet,during the preparation for war,he got impatient waiting for Samuel to come and make a sacrifice to the Lord,so he offered it himself.Because of this,Samuel said that his reign would not endure.So,the Israelites entered a state of almost constant warfare with the Philistines.
Saul is soon threatened by the anointing of a future king of Israel,the man to take his place.Samuel anointed David,and so when David started to become even more popular among the people Saul determined to kill him.Fortunately,Saul never is able to actually kill him.In the end,Saul was wounded in battle and committed suicide by falling on his sword.

David

David was a shepherd boy,when Samuel came to his father's house and anointed him to be the next king of Israel after Saul.He accomplished many great feats in battle.He killed the giant Goliath while he was still but a boyand he defeated the Philistines on numerous occasions.When the people started to praise his glory over Saul's,the king was made angry and jealous and decided that he should be killed.Fortunately David got away,and he was on the run for years until Saul died in battle against the Philistines.Once David becomes king he does some great things and some terrible things.He not only establsihed a better control over his kingdom,he expanded it.He also had plans to build a to God,but God had designed for his son Solomon to build that.David also killed a man for the lust of his wife,Bathsheba.Because of this,there would be some trouble for his children.His son Absalom in the end trys to take over the throne by force but is stopped and killed.
So,David died after reigning in Israel and Judah for fourty years.

Solomon

Solomon was King David's son,and the heir to his throne.When he became king,God answered a prayer from Solomon to give him wisdom by doing just that.So,Solomon was made one of the most wise men in the world.Solomon is also the king who oversees the building of the temple.Yet,Solomon had a weakness for women,and he had numerous wives and concubines.His love for women led to his turning away from God in that many of the women who took to himself were for political purposes and worshipped pagan gods.This led to his falling away from God and even worshipping the gods of the pagans.At the time of Solomon's death,he had reigned over Israel for forty years.

Rehoboam

Rehoboam was Solomon's son who was to be the next king of Israel,but because of his hard headedness,the kingdom was divided and he was given Judah to rule over.There was continual war between Israel and Judah in an attempt on both of their parts to rule over the other.Rehoboam died after having reigned over Judah for seventeen years.

Jeraboam

Jeraboam was the first king of the northern kingdom of Israel after the entire kingdom divided.Unfortunately,Jeroboam decided that the Israelites should have two golden calves made for them to worship.For this the Lord judged him,and he was warned of His judgement by a prophet.Jeroboam reigned for twenty-two years in Israel before he died and his son Nadab took his throne.

Ahab

Ahab was king of the northern kingdom of Israel after his father Omri died.He married a Sidonite princess,Jezebel.Ahab was wicked in the eyes of the Lord,and he built an altar to Baal in Samaria,the capital of Israel.For these evil deeds,he is harried by the prophet Elijah who continually rebuked him for the evil he was doing in the sight of the Lord.Ahab becomes involved with several campaigns against the king of Aram.In the middle of the third campign,Ahab was killed in battle.Ahab had reigned over Israel for twenty-two years.

Jezebel

Jezebel was a Princess of Sidon who married Ahab,the king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.Jezebel was an extremely wicked person, and she showed herself to be through many of her deeds.She tryed to have Elijah the prophet killed numerous time,because she hated him for condemning her husband for marrying her.She eventually dies after her husband is killed in battle.

Elijah

Elijah was a prophet of the Lord to the Northern Kingdom of Israel.He continually prophesied against the likes of Ahab and Jezebel.After the death of Ahab,Elijah stays around for a while longer to prophesy for Ahaziah and Jehoram.Soon,he is taken by the Lord straight to Heaven.

Elisha

Elisha was the successor to Elijah as a prophet to Israel.God worked many miracles through Elisha.These would include the widow and her oil that is multplied by the number of jugs it is poured into,and also the young Shunammite boy being raised from the dead.Elisha also prophesied for the Israelites,such as when he predicted evil from Hazael.Elisha died after prophesying the defeat of the Aramites three times by Joash,king of Israel.

Hezekiah

Hezekiah the son of King Ahaz of Judah and the next in line for his throne.He became king when his father died. He was a good king who did right in the eyes of the Lord.The Assyrians attacked Judah,but God protected them.Hezekiah had reigned for twenty-nine years when he died.

Josiah

Josiah was the last "good" king of Judah.He was the last of their kings to even try to serve the Lord and follow His commands.Josiah rediscovered the book of the law and reinstituted the tenets of the Jew's ceremonial law.Josiah makes a covenant witht the Lord to walk in His paths.Josiah reforms the temple by having it rid of all the foreign deities which had taken up residence in the temple.Josiah died in battle against the Egyptians.

Ezra

Ezra was an Israelite who led a group of pIsraelites returning from captivity in Persia back to Israel.They had Sacrifices restored and the temple rebuilt through all sorts of difficulties and opposition.He also condemned those who had mixed themselves in marriage with the pagans.Through his strength and trust in the Lord,much was accomplished by a nation newly freed from slavery.

Nehemiah

Nehemiah was the cupbearer to a Persian king.The king allowed him to return to Judah with a group of Israelites to rebuild Jerusalem,especially the city wall.Once this group arrives at Jerusalem,they start to rebuild,but they are hindered by the mockery and threats of their enemies who did not want them to rebuild their wall.They do finish though,and reinstate ceremonial law.So,Nehemiah accomplished what he had set out to do in rebuilding Jerusalem.

Esther

Esther was a young Jewish girl living in Persia who the king chooses to be his queen.Right after she is made queen of Persia,her cousin Mordecai saves the king from an assassination attempt by warning Esther.Esther has to try to save Mordecai and all of the Jews because one of the kings top advisers,Haman,hates Mordecai and decides to manifest his hate by tricking the king into making a decree allowing the Jews to be killed.Esther reveals this horrible plot to the king for what it really is,and Haman is hanged.While nothing could be done to reverse the edict,because it was written in the laws of the Medes and the Persians,the king issued another decree that gave the Jews full permission to defend themselves.

Mordecai

Mordecai was Esther's cousin,and also a palace guard for the king.He saved the kings life by warning Esther of a plot he had overheard to assassinate the king.While he did not recieve credit immediately for this,he eventually got his reward when the king ordered Mordecai's enemy Haman to walk him through the streets on the kings horse shouting praises for Mordecai.While Haman had enacted a devious plan to exterminate the Jews,Mordecai again warned his cousin Esther and she again was able to help them by showing the treachery which Haman had concieved.In the end,Haman is hanged and Mordecai is given Haman's job.

Prophets

The prophets were people called by God to give specific messages to groups of people such as the Israelites or the Assyrians.for the most part they all gave the same general message:the coming judgement for sins and the restoration of the peoples' relationship with God.The prophets also made some statements that might have been predictory.