The ‘Mothers’ Who Were Not: Motherhood Imagery and Childless Women Warriors in Early Jewish Literature

Abstract

This chapter highlights the ways in which the biblical and apocryphal stories of three childless women warriors named Deborah, Jael, and Judith use the language and imagery of motherhood to cast these women as figurative mothers. It applies queer theory and the concepts of gender performance and reproductive futurism to argue that the extension of metaphorical motherhood applies to Deborah, Jael, and Judith. It also analyses the use of the vocabulary of motherhood that enables the biblical and apocryphal texts to portray the women warriors as women who assume the mantle of leadership while simultaneously destabilizing the patriarchal assumptions of a biblical society. The chapter refers to motherhood as a major focus of women's identities in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient Jewish literature. It reviews the stories of Deborah, Jael, and Judith, which invoke maternal language and imagery that casts them as figurative characters rather than literal mothers.