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Cited by 2Biblical Studies and InterpretationHistorical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal ChangesReligion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity

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“Famous” Fetuses in Rabbinic Narratives

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Kessler, Gwynn·2008·Imagining the Fetus
DOI 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380040.003.0011
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Abstract

This chapter examines rabbinic narratives about fetuses recorded in compilations dating from the third through the tenth centuries CE. Instead of placing these traditions within the context of contemporary questions about abortion, this chapter illustrates the ways that rabbinic narratives about fetuses and traditions about the creation of the embryo provide insights into rabbinic constructions of Israel. Particular attention is paid to rabbinic traditions about prenatal Jacob and Esau, which demonstrate that the rabbis often construct Jewishness in oppositional relation to non-Jewishness.

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Cited by 2

Research works printed but not linked: 31

  1. Bakhos, Carol. "Figuring (Out) Esau: The Rabbis and Their Others." Journal of Jewish Studies 58, 2 (2007): 250-62.
  2. Callaway, Mary. Sing, O Barren One: A Study in Comparative Midrash. SBL Dissertation Series 91. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986.
  3. Duden, Barbara. Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn. Translated by Lee Hanoicki. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993.
  4. ---. "The Fetus on the Farther Shore: Toward a History of the Unborn." In Fetal Subjects/Feminist Positions. Edited by Lynn M. Morgan and Meredith W. Michaels. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
  5. Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: Free Press, 1992.
  6. Kalimi, Isaac. "'He Was Born Circumcised': Some Midrashic Sources, Their Concept, Roots and Presumably Historical Context." Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der Alteren Kirche 93, 1-2 (2002): 1-12.
  7. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020.
  8. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. Subscriber: Swarthmore College; date: 12 August 2020 (p.202)
  9. Lauterbach, Jacob. Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael: A Critical Edition on the Basis of MSS and Early Editions with an English Translation, Introduction and Notes. 3 vols. Philadelphia: JPS, 1933-35.
  10. Mandelbaum, Bernard. Pesikta de Rav Kahana: According to an Oxford Manuscript with Variants, Commentary and Introduction. 2 vols. New York: JTSA, 1962.
  11. Margulies, M. Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah: A Critical Edition Based on Manuscripts and Geniza Fragments with Variants and Notes. 2 vols. New York: JTSA, 1993.
  12. Marmorstein, A. "Quelques problemes de l'ancienne apologetique juive." Revue des Etudes Juives 68 (68): 1914-161.
  13. Morgan, Lynn M., and Meredith W. Michaels, eds. Fetal Subjects/Feminist Positions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
  14. Pardes, Ilana. The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
  15. Strack, H. L., and G. Stemberger. Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. Translated by Markus Bockmuehl. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992.
  16. Theodor, Jehuda, and Hanoch Albeck. Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition with Notes and Commentary. 3 vols. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965.
  17. Urbach, E. E. The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs. Translated by Israel Abrahams. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Notes: (1.) I use the term rabbinic Jewishness throughout this essay as short-hand for rabbinic constructions of Israel. In my full-length study on rabbinic narratives about fetuses-Conceiving Israel (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming)-I discuss the problem of applying the term "Jewishness" to rabbinic traditions.
  18. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020.
  19. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. Subscriber: Swarthmore College; date: 12 August 2020 (
  20. See Mary Callaway, Sing, O Barren One: A Study in Comparative Midrash, SBL Dissertation Series 91 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986); and Tikva Frymer- Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (New York: Free Press), 97-99. See also Ronald Simkins, Creator and Creation: Nature in the Worldview of Ancient Israel (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 82-120. (3.) See also Gen. 21:1, Gen. 25:21, Gen. 49:25, Exod. 23:26, Judg. 13:3, I Sam. 1:5, and Ruth 4:13. (4.) See Isa. 43:1, which uses both yatzar (form) and bara (create), and 43:7, which uses both of these and adds asah (made). In Isa. 44:2 and 44:24 and Jer. 1:5, the Hebrew root yatsar (to form) is used. Cf. Gen. 2:6. In Ps. 139:15 and Job 10:8-9 and 31:15, the Hebrew root asah (to make) is used. For a rabbinic discussion about possible differences between yatzar and bara, see b. Nid. 22b and b. Sanh. 39a. (5.) See also Isa. 29:15-16, Isa. 45:9-11, and Jer. 18:3-6.
  21. Lynn M. Morgan and Meredith W. Michaels (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). See also Barbara Duden, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn, trans. Lee Hanoicki (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
  22. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020.
  23. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. Subscriber: Swarthmore College; date: 12 August 2020 "speaker." Theodor rejects this reading in Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition, 685. Cf. Song of Songs Rab. 1:4 for another tradition which teaches that God hated Esau. (19.) Cf. Rom. 9:11-13: "Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God's purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call) she was told, 'The elder shall serve the younger.' As it is written, 'I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.'" Cf. Origen, On First Principles, Book II, 9:5, "the child of Isaac and Rebecca who, while yet lying in the womb, supplants his brother and is said, before he is born, to be loved by God." (20.) Theodor and Albeck, Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition, 685. For the motif of those born circumcised, see I. Kalimi, "'He Was Born Circumcised': Some Midrashic Sources, Their Concept, Roots and Presumably Historical Context," Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der Alteren Kirche 93, 1-2 (2002): 1-12.
  24. Ruth Rab. Proem 3, interprets "The way of man is crooked and strange" (Prov. 21:8) to refer to Esau: "Man, refers to the wicked Esau, as it is said, And Esau was a man, a cunning hunter (Gen. 25:27). And strange [zar]- because he estranged himself from circumcision and he estranged himself from mitzvot." B. Sanh. 59b apparently excludes Esau's descendants from the commandment of circumcision. Pirkei Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 29, however, claims that Isaac circumcised Jacob and Esau. (22.) Theodor and Albeck, Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition, 686. See, e.g., b. Meg. 6a and 11a and b. Sanh. 39b for more on Esau's wickedness. For rabbinic traditions that retain some ambiguity about Esau see Stern, Jewish Identity, 20-21. See also Carol Bakhos, "Figuring (Out) Esau: The Rabbis and Their Others," Journal of Jewish Studies 58:2 (2007): 250-62. And see Neusner, From Enemy to Sibling. (23.) Cf. b. Nid. 30b, where the fetus must make an oath that it will be righteous. Contrast b. Nid. 16b, where God decrees the fate of embryos at (or before) conception-except for whether the person will be righteous or wicked. (24.) Theodor and Albeck Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition, 687-88. A reading of biblical texts for the inheritance of the firstborn, as far as the patriarchs and leaders of the Israelite people are concerned, would of course find that the firstborn is almost never the elected or anointed. (
  25. Theodor, Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition, 692, notes that Siloni is a prominent Palestinian philanthropical family. Cf. Lev. Rab. 5:4. (26.) Theodor and Albeck, Midrash Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition, 692. See Cohen, "Esau as Symbol," 244, where he translates from the Apolcalypse of PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020.
  26. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. Subscriber: Swarthmore College; date: 12 August 2020
  27. Jacob Lauterbach, Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael: A Critical Edition on the Basis of MSS and Early Editions with an English Translation, Introduction and Notes, Vol. 2 (Philadelphia: JPS, 1933-35), 11-12.
  28. According to the Bavli (Sot. 30b), the fetuses see the Shekhinah after God turns their mothers' bellies into glass. (33.) Ilana Pardes, The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 27-28.
  29. The fourteenth chapter of Leviticus Rabbah deals almost exclusively with the creation and care of the fetus. (35.) Lev. Rab. 4:7 comments upon Lev. 4:2, "If a soul shall sin through ignorance." Cf. b. Ber. 10a, where a similar tradition is applied to David. (36.) The word k'ravai suggests while inside his mother, as in Gen. 25:22, "And the sons struggled within her [b'kirbah]." See M. Margulies in Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah: A Critical Edition Based on Manuscripts and Geniza Fragments with Variants and Notes, 2 vols. (New York: JTSA, 1993), 94-95. (
  30. PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2020.
  31. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. Subscriber: Swarthmore College; date: 12 August 2020

Metadata

Authors
Kessler, G.
Corresponding author
Kessler, Gwynn
Venue
Imagining the Fetus
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Published
2008-12-12
Pages
185-202
DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195380040.003.0011
OpenAlex
W1126955766
Cited by
2
References
0
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2020: 1
FWCI
0.00
Type
book chapter
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Oxford University Press eBooks (publishedVersion)
  • Works - Scholarship, Research, & Creative Expression (Swarthmore College) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity
Keywords
rabbinic literature, fetus, Jewish identity, Israel, oppositional identity, abortion, rabbinic tradition

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Kessler, G. (2008). “Famous” Fetuses in Rabbinic Narratives. Imagining the Fetus. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof%3Aoso/9780195380040.003.0011