Born of Woman, Fashioned from Clay: Tracking the Homology of Earth and Womb from the Hebrew Bible to the Psalms of Thanksgiving

This essay traces the features of a symbolic construct which seldom garners much attention among scholars of biblical and Second Temple texts, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, namely, the likening of earth and womb. It contends that understanding this symbolism brings clarity to several texts whose interpretation is disputed and illuminates important aspects of sectarian thought, including a perspective on human sexuality which has escaped some current scholarship. The representation of the sexed body in the Thanksgiving Psalms (or “Hodayot”) receives extended attention. These psalms, it is shown, have been influenced by the negative rhetorical application of the phrase “born of woman” as found in the book of Job and by a tradition reflected in Jubilees and 4Q265 which employs the creation of Adam and Eve as a paradigm for the purification of new mothers (as described in Lev 12). The argument will show how a homology of earth and womb lies behind or can be derived from each of these traditions and how it comes to shape a profoundly negative, if highly contextualized, view of sexuality in the Psalms of Thanksgiving.