The Rahab Question: Truth, Deception, and the Covenant Ethics of Disclosure from Genesis to Jesus

The Rahab Question: Truth, Deception, and the Covenant Ethics of Disclosure from Genesis to JesusA prostitute lies to protect spies — and the New Testament commends her for it, twice, without an asterisk. Hebrew midwives deceive a murderous Pharaoh — and God rewards them with families of their own. Jeremiah, the prophet who wouldn't soften a single syllable, gives officials a misleading answer to protect a king — and Scripture records it without censure. Yet Ananias and Sapphira tell one lie inside the early church — and fall down dead.Is the Bible morally inconsistent? Or is our framework too crude?The Rahab Question argues the second. Tracing a single thread from Genesis to Acts, Eugene Han shows that the Bible's commands about truthfulness are not abstract rules floating free of relationship — they are covenant commands. That single observation, applied honestly across the whole canon, resolves puzzles that have embarrassed interpreters for centuries and lands with surprising force: the obligation of truthfulness is heavier than most Christians have supposed, not lighter, precisely where God is most present.Written for the thoughtful layperson and rigorous enough for the scholar, The Rahab Question walks every major case — the midwives, Rahab, David's two Philistine deceptions, Jeremiah's half-answer, the lying spirit of 1 Kings 22, the parables of Jesus — and applies the findings to the hardest rooms of real life: marriage and past sin, custody disputes, the persecuted underground church, missionary "creative access," and the doorstep that faces a Gestapo.This is not a permission slip. It is a summons to wisdom — and a framework robust enough to tell the difference.Perfect for individual study or an 18-session small group series. Each chapter closes with a contemporary illustration and discussion questions. Read more