Treasures in the Telling: Reimagining the Stories of Anna, Hagar, Tamar, and Naomi

This thesis explores the spiritual, theological, and narrative significance of marginalized women in Scripture through a hybrid work of biblical fiction and literary analysis. Through creative re- imagining and scholarly engagement, this project centers on four biblical women—Anna, Hagar, Tamar, and Naomi—whose lives reflect faithful endurance, divine recognition, courageous agency, and redemptive suffering. Using third-person limited narration, historical realism, and spiritual imagination, the creative manuscript gives voice to women whose stories are often reduced to brief biblical mentions, revealing their interior lives, emotional depth, and theological weight. The accompanying critical analysis examines how biblical fiction can function as a form of theological storytelling, drawing upon narrative criticism, feminist biblical scholarship, and literary theory. Writers and scholars such as Phyllis Trible, Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Carol Meyers, Robert Alter, and Craig S. Keener inform the project’s interpretive framework. Each fictional portrait remains anchored in historical-biblical context while expanding the emotional and spiritual dimensions of the text through faithful imagination. Anna represents the theology of waiting and recognition, Hagar embodies divine sight toward the oppressed, Tamar reveals justice through courageous disruption, and Naomi illustrates grief transformed into generational redemption. Together, these women trace a unified narrative of God’s faithfulness to those living at the margins of power and history. The creative work culminates in devotional reflections that connect ancient experiences of suffering, hope, and restoration to contemporary faith formation.