Leviticus Rabbah 14: Absented Mother and Menacing Womb

Leviticus Rabbah 14 (LR 14) is a homily on Leviticus 12:2, which begins with “ʾishah ki-tazriaʿ,” generally translated as “when a woman conceives.” While the Bible is concerned with a new mother's ritual impurity, LR 14 is primarily devoted to the subjects of conception, fetal development, and childbirth, and throughout its relatively extensive descriptions, the figure of the mother is largely absent. LR 14, rather, devotes much of its discourse to the praise owed to God for intervening at all stages of procreation. It is composed of nine units: the first seven are homiletic proems, known as petiḥtot, followed by two passages that constitute the body of the homily, introduced with the term gufaʾ.Footnote ³

It opens with petiḥtaʾ 14:1,Footnote ⁴ which compares childbirth and God's creation of the first man, thus granting the former a cosmological significance. Petiḥtaʾ 14:2 focuses on the praise owed to God and His care of the fetus. It cites R. Levi (third-generation Palestinian Amora),Footnote ⁵ who offers three parables to illustrate God's role in conception, pregnancy, and birth. First, he describes the process of conception as a man placing “a drop of the whitest fluid in private,” which God forms into an embryo;Footnote ⁶ next, he notes God's kindness in providing light for the fetus in a dark womb, compared to a prison; and finally, he describes God's role in releasing the child at birth.

Where the mother's body is mentioned, it is with a sense of puzzlement and wonder. Her womb is naturally inhospitable to the life of the developing fetus, such that were it not for God's constant care and watch, the fetus would die.Footnote ⁷ Petiḥtaʾ 14:3 presents God as the protector of the fetus from the forces of nature inherent in the body of the mother that threaten its existence. Two of three statements attributed to R. Abba b. Kahana (third-generation Amora) discuss how the womb is like a vessel open at its bottom, in which God places the fetus and ensures that it does not fall out. The womb is then described by R. Eleazar (another third-generation Amora) as an oven, so hot that the fetus would die (or be malformed) were it not for God's protection.Footnote ⁸ R. Taḥalifa of Caesarea (third-/fourth-generation Amora) marvels that no matter how much food a pregnant woman eats, God ensures that the fetus is not expelled. Finally, R. Meir (third-generation Tanna) describes how God provides for the child even after birth by suspending the natural flow of menstrual blood and transforming it into milk.Footnote ⁹

Petiḥtaʾ 14:4 continues to depict God's ongoing protection of the fetus until birth, using a string of architectural and nautical metaphors culled from Job 38:8: “Who closed the sea behind doors when it gushed forth out of the womb?” Petiḥtaʾ 14:5 begins with Psalms 51:7: “Indeed I was born with iniquity; with sin my mother conceived me,” which it interprets (albeit rather vaguely) as David describing his parents engaging in nonprocreative intercourse. R. Aḥa (third-generation Amora) uses this verse to associate marital intercourse based only on lust with God's intervention in conception. Even though Jesse's intention was not to have a child, God gathered every single drop of semen and inseminated his wife. It concludes that a woman only “absorbs” semen close to her period.Footnote ¹⁰ In petiḥtaʾ 14:6, R. Joḥanan and Reish Lakish discuss how God creates the embryo from the father's seed, drawing an analogy from the process of winnowing to describe God's intimate involvement in forming a fetus from the “whitest drop.” The final petiḥtaʾ, 14:7, states that God is directly involved in sex determination, granting a couple a male child if the laws of family purity are properly observed. This seems to be the culmination of the refrain that concludes almost all the petiḥtaʾot (14:2–6), “All the more so if it is a boy!”

A shift occurs with the two gufaʾ passages. God is barely mentioned, though the focus remains on the fetus, and the mother is presented as having a role in conception and birth. As opposed to petiḥtaʾ 14:6, LR 14:8 depicts both parents as involved in sex determination: “Gufaʾ: Under all circumstances, a male [child] is from the woman [min ha-ʾishah] and a female from the man [min ha-ʾish].”Footnote ¹¹ This statement is followed by a set of biblical proof texts to support this claim, followed by two parables. While this statement ostensibly depicts the mother as contributing to the development of the fetus, it makes no explicit mention of how the parents physically contribute to fetal formation.Footnote ¹² This will become apparent when we see the Bavli parallel below, describing the mother as emitting seed. LR 14:8, in contrast, makes no mention of any material contribution on the part of the mother, nor does it employ an active verb. When read in light of the previous seven petiḥtaʾ passages, one could conclude that it is God who actively intervenes, such that “a male child is from the woman and female from the man.” Furthermore, absent an explicit mention of seed or any material substance, this passage may be merely describing how genealogy is listed in Scripture and not presenting a theory of embryogenesis; as the biblical proof texts demonstrate, men's genealogies are ascribed to their mothers, while those of women to their fathers.Footnote ¹³

The final passage, 14:9, presents a debate between the houses of Shammai and Hillel regarding changes to the order in which the fetus is formed during the messianic era. It shifts back to the issue of conception, using an analogy to curdling milk to describe how God forms a fetus by placing the white semen into menstrual blood. The parashah returns to the order of fetal formation, concluding with a statement attributed to R. Abbahu, who describes God's kindness toward birthing women in forming the soft tissues of the fetus before the bones and sinews, thereby minimizing the danger to her, and asserts that in the messianic era she will no longer give birth in pain. As opposed to the petiḥtaʾot that viewed the mother's body as a threat to the fetus, the mother is presented here as an actor engaged in childbirth, albeit the subject of God's interventions.

In minimizing the mother's role in fetal development, Leviticus Rabbah differs from biblical and Second Temple texts that either suggest a more active role for women in procreation or ascribe greater importance to their biological contributions. Leviticus 12:2 (the very passage LR 14 proceeds from) uses an active feminine verb to describe conception (ʾishah ki tazriaʿ), and could be rendered literally as “when a woman bears seed.”Footnote ¹⁴ Second Temple texts such as Hebrews 11:11 (“Through faith also Sarah herself received strength to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child”) have been understood as describing an emission of seed on the part of the mother.Footnote ¹⁵ Alternately, Wisdom of Solomon 7:1–2 (“In the womb of a mother I was molded into flesh, within the period of ten months compacted with blood from the seed of man”), 4 Maccabees 13:19–22 (“which was implanted in the mother's womb, there each of the brothers … was shaped during the same period of time and growing from the same blood”), and 1 Enoch 15:4 (“have begotten [children] with the blood of flesh”) all reflect something akin to the Aristotelian theory that menstrual blood provides material out of which the fetus is formed.Footnote ¹⁶ In the entirety of Leviticus Rabbah 14, only 14:9 describes a similar process in which the mother contributes biologically.

Over the last decade, Gwynn Kessler and Tammy Jacobowitz have each explored the glaring absence of the mother in Leviticus Rabbah 14 in terms of various literary, theological, and psychological dynamics that they see at play within this rabbinic text.Footnote ¹⁷ However, identifying these factors does not explain why they were so salient among the Palestinian rabbinic circles that produced Leviticus Rabbah during the amoraic period, a question that will become more pressing when we compare the ideas and attitudes found in Leviticus Rabbah to those presented in the Bavli.

A partial explanation of the traditions of LR 14, as many have noted, lies in the different theories of embryogenesis that were current in the ancient world.Footnote ¹⁸ Leviticus Rabbah's notion that the fetus is generated solely from male seed reflects the “one seed” theory of Soranus of Epiphanes, a Greek contemporary of the Tannaim. Soranus asserted that only men produce seed, which is “planted” into the woman's body, wherein it develops into a fetus, while the woman contributes nothing.Footnote ¹⁹ However, this was far from the dominant theory during the classical period. More accepted were “two-seed” theories, common to the Hippocratic and Galenic gynecological traditions, which posited that both men and women produce seeds that together form the embryo.Footnote ²⁰

Given the two kinds of theories available at the time, what led the composers of LR 14 to give preference to one theory of embryogenesis over the other? I would suggest that such choices were shaped by underlying cultural factors, reflected in Greco-Roman literature and its decidedly negative attitude toward mothers and women more generally, which provided context for Leviticus Rabbah's viewpoint.

The Greco-Roman Context of Leviticus Rabbah 14

The negation of the mother's role in Leviticus Rabbah 14 is consistent with the tone of Greek literature, beginning with Hesiod and continuing to later Roman times.Footnote ²¹ The story of Pandora as told by Aeschylus, and by Hesiod in Theogony and in Works and Days, for instance, similarly disavows women's role in procreation.Footnote ²² Leviticus Rabbah 14:2's comparison of the fetus to one confined in jail whom “no one pays attention to”Footnote ²³ implicitly characterizes the relationship between mother and fetus as estranged,Footnote ²⁴ and corresponds to Apollo's defense of Orestes for killing his own mother, Clytemnestra, as retold by Aeschylus in Oresteia. At Orestes's trial, Apollo argues, “The mother is no parent of that which is called her child, but only nurse of the new-planted seed that grows. The parent is he who mounts. A stranger, she preserves a stranger's seed, if no god interfere.… There can be a father without any mother.”Footnote ²⁵

Apollo justifies Orestes's act on the grounds that a mother is not active in the process of procreation and therefore not a true parent. As in LR 14:2, the father is regarded the lone source of seed, the sole parent, while the mother is a “stranger.” Apollo also likens a mother to mere soil in which a seed is planted and “preserved” as it grows,Footnote ²⁶ a view echoed in petiḥtaʾ 14:4, in which she is depicted as a vessel that houses the male seed that develops into a child.

Scholars have noted the pervasiveness of Greco-Roman culture and literary motifs in Leviticus Rabbah.Footnote ²⁷ It is therefore hardly surprising that Greco-Roman literature offers a key context for understanding Leviticus Rabbah's portrayal of the mother's role in conceiving and gestating a child. However, echoes of Greco-Roman attitudes are not limited to Leviticus Rabbah. The diminished role of the mother in Leviticus Rabbah conforms to a wider trend I have noted across several studies, in which rabbinic texts from the Land of Israel remove female agency from its discourse.Footnote ²⁸ Indeed, this phenomenon is already evinced in Josephus's writings, which famously downplay the role of female biblical protagonists.Footnote ²⁹

The Ancient Near Eastern Context of Leviticus Rabbah

One thematic element of Leviticus Rabbah remains puzzling: the detailed depictions of God's role in the conception and care of the fetus. Leviticus Rabbah is notable for many passages in which the mother is not only made absent but is supplanted by the quite intimate intervention of God, who is active in processes of conception, gestation, and birth. Neither the adoption of a one-seed theory nor prevailing Greco-Roman attitudes can explain this dramatic displacement of the mother by a depiction of God closely involved in caring for the developing fetus.

To find an analogous depiction of embryogenesis, gestation, and birth we must look back to Mesopotamian mythology and related texts, where we find marked similarities to the images found in Leviticus Rabbah. The numerous parallels between these texts and Leviticus Rabbah suggest that the composition of the Palestinian midrash draws on currents of mythological imagery regarding conception and birth going back as far as ancient Mesopotamian lore.Footnote ³⁰ In this light, a more nuanced understanding of Leviticus Rabbah emerges. The portrayal of God's activities in Leviticus Rabbah 14, rather than serving to displace the role of the human mother, begins to appear more as a displacement of the birth/mother goddesses prevalent in ancient Near Eastern myth and cult.

Sumero-Akkadian mythological and cultic texts depict embryogenesis as a process accomplished via a divine power that forms the sperm into a fetus—much as described in Leviticus Rabbah.Footnote ³¹ However, in the former, the divine powers are goddesses. A characteristic text of this kind is a Sumerian temple hymn that describes the goddess Gatumdug bringing semen to the womb, wherein other goddesses contribute to the developing fetus's growth, nourishment, and birth.Footnote ³² In another Sumerian hymn, the goddess Nisaba is credited with enabling the fetus to grow: placing “good semen in the womb, you enlarge the birthling in the womb.”Footnote ³³ A Sumerian mythical tale depicts the mother goddess Nintur (also identified with Aruru/Ninmah/Ninhursag) as shaping and fashioning the child in utero.Footnote ³⁴ The language of Leviticus Rabbah similarly envisions God forming the fetus in the womb out of semen: “Human beings entrust Him with a drop of the whitest fluid in private and God returns to them fully formed and perfected human beings in public” (14:2). LR 14:9 states, “The womb of a woman is always filled with blood … and at the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, a drop of the whitest substance goes and falls into it and immediately, the fetus is formed.”Footnote ³⁵

Other elements found in these ancient Near Eastern texts resonate with Leviticus Rabbah. Like the description of the womb as a place of darkness in petiḥtaʾ 14:2, a Sumerian temple hymn describes Nintur as “the mother mistress of creating, who performs her task in the belly, the place of darkness.”Footnote ³⁶ A hymn to the temple É-HI-ZA similarly describes her: “Mother Nintur, mistress of shaping. Working in the innards [lit. heart] where darkness [reigns].”Footnote ³⁷ Later Babylonian incantations dated to the Old Babylonian/Classical period (1850–1500 BCE) use language quite similar to Leviticus Rabbah, describing the fetus as “sitting in darkness,” and as one who “sees the light of the sun” only upon birth.Footnote ³⁸

Goddesses not only give shape to the fetus in the womb, they are vital in the birth process as well. In a short Sumerian hymn, the temple to Nintur is praised as “the brick of birthgiving, the temple, the young multi-colored dove—to the mother, Nintur, praise.”Footnote ³⁹ Another hymn to the temple describes Nintur as “the great mother sets birth-giving going.”Footnote ⁴⁰ A later version of the hymn elaborates that she “uniquely makes the innards contract. None but Nintur, the great mother, sets birth-giving going.”Footnote ⁴¹ Leviticus Rabbah 14 similarly references God's release of the baby from the womb at birth. Petiḥtaʾ 14:2 states that God “unbinds him and brings him from there,”Footnote ⁴² and as with the Nintur hymns, this is reason to praise God. Petiḥtaʾ 14:2 contains recurring calls to praise God, first listing three reasons “we praise God,” then citing R. Levi's three parables that describes aspects of birth, each of which concludes, “Is this not worthy of praise?”Footnote ⁴³

Another common element is a blend of architectural and nautical metaphors describing the female body and childbirth.Footnote ⁴⁴ Expanding on two elements found in Job 38:8, doors and the gushing sea, petiḥtaʾ 14:4 compares the woman's body to various parts of a house:

Similar imagery is found in an Assyrian compendium, “Incantation of Asalluḫi, secret of Eri[du],” a collection of incantations for a woman in hard labor. Although the text remains in fragmentary form, some of the readable parts use the imagery of a ship's architecture to depict a stalled labor:

Both Leviticus Rabbah and this incantation envision the womb as a closed structure and the mother's body as a vessel whose doors must be opened by a higher power for a baby to be born; both imagine the fetus locked inside a dark place, anticipating its release into light.Footnote ⁴⁷

The association between birth, water, and locked doors also appears in an Old Babylonian incantation dated to roughly 1100 BCE,Footnote ⁴⁸ which likewise petitions Asalluḫi, the god of magic, to release a child stuck in the womb:Footnote ⁴⁹

A Middle Assyrian tablet contains an incantation that similarly describes a difficult labor: “The baby is stuck! The door bolt is locked … the door is fastened against the suckling kid.”Footnote ⁵²

Aside from the understandable turn to higher powers to aid in understanding and controlling the largely uncontrollable and often dangerous processes of childbearing,Footnote ⁵³ the active intervention of a divine figure can also serve to convey a sense of chosenness and exceptionality. In a number of Sumerian texts, a king attributes his success and power to having been formed by a goddess in the womb.Footnote ⁵⁴ The aforementioned hymn to the temple É-HI-ZA that describes Nintur giving shape to fetuses continues, “To give birth to kings—to tie on the rightful tiara. To give birth to enu's to place crowns on [their] heads, is in her hand.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Similarly, the founder of the Sumerian third dynasty of Ur, Ur-Nammu, lauds himself by claiming, “Nintur fashioned me bit for bit, I have none who oppose me.”Footnote ⁵⁶ Both Hammurabi and Sennacherib describe themselves as having been shaped by Nintur.Footnote ⁵⁷ In Enki and World Order the purpose of the birth goddess is “to give birth to kings, to give birth to high priests is verily in her hand.”Footnote ⁵⁸ The intervention of birth goddesses both affirms the sovereignty of rulers and asserts the power of the goddesses.

Gwynn Kessler's analysis of Leviticus Rabbah 14, though it does not touch on these ancient Near Eastern antecedents, points to this rabbinic discourse serving an analogous purpose. God's role in creating and birthing children, in her view, is meant to demonstrate both His control over the natural world and the preferred status of Israel. It expresses the idea that God's love for and close relationship with Israel is innate and predestined from the womb. God's care of the fetus symbolically affirms God's care of Israel.Footnote ⁵⁹

Seeking to understand the formation of rabbinic traditions in light of much earlier ancient Mesopotamian texts undeniably extends well past the usual interpretive frame applied to classical rabbinic works. Nevertheless, although the phenomenon has largely gone unexplored, possible traces of ancient Near Eastern culture in later Palestinian rabbinic texts have been noted by scholars such as Yohanan Muffs, Simo Parpola, Markham Geller, Mayer Gruber, and Yaakov Elman.Footnote ⁶⁰ In this case, the commonality of imagery and metaphor—from the role of the divine, to the depictions of labor—suggests that residues of Mesopotamian religions remained a part of the common culture of the Middle East when these Leviticus Rabbah traditions were composed.

In fact, scholars have discussed the extensive Mesopotamian influence on Greek religion and mythology, particularly in the works of Hesiod and in the Homeric hymnsFootnote ⁶¹—influence that continued to permeate through ancient Rome.Footnote ⁶² This likely resulted from a period of commercial contact between Greece and Near Eastern cultures first in the ninth century BCE and again from approximately 750–650 BCE, during the “Orientalizing period” of Greek art.Footnote ⁶³ As part of this phenomenon, birth goddesses pervaded the Greek/Roman pantheon. It is therefore tempting to suggest that this element of Leviticus Rabbah directly reflects a Hellenistic milieu. However, an examination of the relevant texts reveals that beyond the general power over birth, the descriptions of God's activities in Leviticus Rabbah 14 do not find parallels in Greco-Roman literature. The Greek goddesses’ power over childbirth is not elaborated on and they are associated with causing the pain women experience, something that Leviticus Rabbah scarcely references.Footnote ⁶⁴

The paths by which elements of ancient Near Eastern mythology were incorporated into midrashic works from Roman Palestine may not be visible, but the effects seem quite apparent. Not only does Leviticus Rabbah 14's peculiar depiction of God as intimately engaged in the formation and care of the fetus parallel depictions of the birth goddesses of the ancient Near East, it resumes a principal aspect of biblical literature. Biblical authors continually appropriated the roles and images ascribed to various ancient Near Eastern deities and attributed them to the God of Israel, making Him the sole master of all—from controlling the natural environment, agricultural success, health, and long life, to military victory. The biblical God of Israel is similarly depicted as master of procreation and progeny, both forming the child and delivering it at birth.Footnote ⁶⁵ The intimate depiction of God found in Leviticus Rabbah clearly continues in this vein but offers a more comprehensive and detailed appropriation of the role of ancient Near Eastern female deities.Footnote ⁶⁶

Read in this context, God's role in Leviticus Rabbah may now be understood not as displacing the mother, but rather as displacing the birth goddesses and ascribing their roles to the (male) God of Israel. In some respects this comports with the overall trend evidenced throughout Near Eastern myth and creation stories, particularly dating from the Old Babylonian period, wherein gods usurp the roles of goddesses in positions of power, leading to their eventual demise.Footnote ⁶⁷ Nevertheless, the role of goddesses in shaping a child and assisting birth was never displaced in the Mesopotamian pantheon, with the mother goddess still regarded as the one who “fashioned them.”Footnote ⁶⁸ The unique willingness evidenced by biblical authors to show the God of Israel engaged in actions associated with female birth deities is given full expression by the composers of Leviticus Rabbah, who depict a male God assuming a role that had once belonged entirely to the domain of female deities.

B. Niddah 30b–31a: Incorporating and Dissenting from Leviticus Rabbah 14

Centering on the ritual status of a parturient, the majority of the third chapter of B. Niddah is concerned with the legal implications of whether a woman has aborted a fetus compressus or a blood clot. The concluding sugya of the chapter (30b–31b) consists of an aggadic cluster dealing with an array of topics related to conception, embryology, pregnancy, and birth,Footnote ⁶⁹ significant portions of which conform to Leviticus Rabbah 14 in both content and form.Footnote ⁷⁰

The cluster opens with a tradition attributed to R. Simlai (second-generation Palestinian Amora)Footnote ⁷¹ that begins by describing the position of the fetus in language almost verbatim with LR 14:8 and using phrases found in LR 14:1. It then proceeds with a section relating how the fetus is taught all Torah, and subsequently forgets it at birth. It also affirms that prior to birth the baby takes an oath to maintain a life of purity. This second section is not found in Leviticus Rabbah 14, but it appears in a lengthier version in tractate Abel Rabbati.Footnote ⁷² A different tradition attributed to R. Simlai likewise appears in LR 14:1. The Bavli continues with a series of baraitot: the first concerns fetal positions, the second posits that the birth of females occasions more pain than that of males, and the third discusses intercourse during pregnancy, its potential risks, and (predominantly) the benefits of semen for mother and gestating baby. This is followed by a tradition, introduced as a baraita, describing “three partners in a person: the Holy One, blessed be He, his father, and his mother,”Footnote ⁷³ and the physical elements that each contribute to the developing embryo:

The next group of aggadot strongly parallels the theo/androcentric traditions of Leviticus Rabbah 14 concerning embryogenesis. Although the attributions differ, like LR 14 they are almost all ascribed to third-generation Palestinian Amoraim. The first cites R. Ḥanina b. Pappa, who praises the kindness of God for ensuring that a fetus does not fall from its mother's womb though it is open at the bottom, unlike a human king who cannot prevent an object from falling out of an open parcel. This parallels LR 14:3, where R. Abba b. Kahana contrasts God's ability to ensure that the fetus does not fall from the womb with a human king who cannot do so. R. Jose ha-Gelili (second-generation Tanna) then extols how God forms a fetus in the womb, followed by R. Joseph (third-generation Babylonian Amora) and R. Elazar (third-generation Palestinian Amora) who describe how God is the ultimate force behind the process of procreation. R. Ḥanina b. Pappa is cited again, issuing a statement that directly corresponds to LR 14:2 and 14:6, describing how God forms a fetus from the purest male seed. Like LR 14:6, he quotes Psalms 139:3 and compares embryogenesis to winnowing. The next traditions, attributed to tanna d'bei R. Ishmael (second-generation Tanna) and to R. Abbahu (third-generation Palestinian Amora) continue the winnowing analogy. The last two traditions of this group, attributed to R. Abbahu and R. Joḥanan (second-generation Palestinian Amora), reiterate that God is the driving force behind every aspect of conception and gestation, echoing LR 14:5's description of how God “inserted every single drop” of Jesse's sperm to create the embryo of David.

Two traditions follow, attributed to R. Isaac b. R. Ami (third-generation Babylonian Amora). The first, recalling LR 14:8, discusses sex determination through both parents: “If a woman emits seed [mazraʿat] first, she bears a male. If the man emits seed [mazriaʿ] first, she bears a female. As it is said, ‘When a woman emits seed and bears a male’ [ʾishah ki tazriaʿ ve-yaldah zakhar].”Footnote ⁷⁴ The second tradition attributed to R. Isaac parallels almost verbatim R. Ḥiyya b. Abba's statement at the end of LR 14:5 that a woman only “absorbs semen” (14:5) / “becomes pregnant” (B. Niddah 31b) close to her period. The next group of traditions, also attributed to R. Isaac b. R. Ami, extol the virtues of having a male child, similar to Leviticus Rabbah 14's concluding refrain, “All the more so if it is a boy!”

Four questions posed by the students of R. Shimon b. Yoḥai (third-generation Tanna) follow, concerning the seeming arbitrariness of various biblical laws. The last two (why circumcision occurs on the eighth day; why a menstruant is impure for seven days) parallel petiḥtaʾ 14:7. The cluster concludes with four questions posed to R. Dostai (fourth-generation Tanna) concerning differences between men and women, to which he responds that each one receives their attributes “from the place where he/she was created.” This recalls the baraita towards the beginning of the cluster that discusses the difference between the birth of females versus males, and men's and women's different positions during intercourse (as well as petiḥtaʾ 14:1's references to Genesis and Creation).

In examining the organization of the sugya, it becomes apparent that it has been arranged chiastically in a way that effectively reframes the Leviticus Rabbah material, somewhat undermining its original discursive thrust.Footnote ⁷⁵ The following chart illustrates both the use of Leviticus Rabbah 14 by the Bavli and how it has been worked into a sugya following a chiastic structure of A-B-C- D-C1-B1-A1:Footnote ⁷⁶

The sugya is framed by the traditions in sections A and A1 discussing differences between men and women and affirming the superiority of men as it relates to their respective positions during intercourse: section A explains that the birth of girls occasions more pain than boys since each “emerge from the womb according to its position during intercourse,” while A1 explains that their opposing positions during intercourse result from each facing “the place from where he/she was created.”

Sections B and B1 describe different aspects of men's preferred status: B lists the potential benefits of semen, and B1 consists of several traditions detailing how to ensure the birth of a male child, and its advantages. Sections C and C1 diverge from the previous two sections, describing the material contributions of both men and women in embryogenesis. Section D, the center of the chiastic structure, returns to the previous tone of the sugya, presenting several traditions that parallel Leviticus Rabbah 14 and its theo/androcentric discourse. Each discusses how God forms an embryo from the male seed and protects it in a dangerous womb.

While the majority of the sugya conforms to Leviticus Rabbah 14, an ambivalence regarding the mother's role in conception and gestation is evidenced by those traditions that diverge and present the mother as an active subject. The very first tradition attributed to R. Simlai, which opens the sugya and does not fit into the chiasm, both conforms to Leviticus Rabbah 14 and radically diverges from it. Its description of the fetal position directly parallels LR 14:8; the light provided for the fetus is found in R. Levi's description of God's kindness in LR 14:2; and the phrase “from one end of the world to the other,” which is what the light enables the fetus to see, is found in LR 14:1, describing the height of Adam at creation.Footnote ⁷⁸ At the same time, it depicts the time in the womb as the happiest in one's life, offering a picture that stands in stark contrast to the threatening image that appears throughout Leviticus Rabbah 14.

Furthermore, the traditions in sections C and C1, framing the central Leviticus Rabbah section (D) that discusses how God forms the embryo only from the male seed, use an active verb to attribute seed to the mother (mazraʿa)—which is absent from its Leviticus Rabbah parallel—and depict her as contributing physically to the developing embryo. The first (C) describes the three partners in the creation of a child: God, the father, and mother. The parallel set of traditions (C1), the first attributed to R. Isaac b. R. AmiFootnote ⁷⁹ and the second introduced as a baraita, similarly assert that both men and women emit seed and that the sex of the baby depends on who does so first. As others have noted, these passages appear to be informed by a two-seed theory, whereas the description of what each parent contributes to the developing embryo in section C1 strongly resembles the Aristotelian modified two-seed theory, postulating that women supply menstrual blood (matter), which is shaped by the male seed (form) to create an embryo.Footnote ⁸⁰

Although the first tradition of this pair is introduced with the formal attribution of a tannaitic statement, tanu rabbanan,Footnote ⁸¹ “our rabbis taught,” as many have noted, this is suspect.Footnote ⁸² In the Yerushalmi's version (Y. Kil'aim 8:4 [31c]) it is not introduced as a baraita.Footnote ⁸³ Furthermore, in the parallel versions of this tradition from the Land of Israel, there is no explicit reference to seed. The Yerushalmi version rather states, “The white [substance] comes from the man, from whom the brain, bones, and tendons are provided, and the red [substance] comes from the woman, from whom the skin, flesh, and blood are provided. And the breath, spirit, and soul come from the Holy One, blessed be He. And all three are partners in his creation.”Footnote ⁸⁴

R. Isaac's statement also finds a close parallel in LR 14:8, which many regard as the Palestinian parallel of R. Isaac's statement.Footnote ⁸⁵ However, as noted above, Leviticus Rabbah neither explicitly mentions seed nor how the parents physically contribute to fetal formation. As such, while the statement is presented as a baraita, the traditions reflecting a two-seed theory in which women also emit seed are only expressly found in the Bavli.Footnote ⁸⁶

The analysis of the Bavli sugya demonstrates that it derives from Leviticus Rabbah 14 or an earlier shared source that serves as its backbone. However, it combines these received Palestinian traditions with others that present the mother as contributing to the development of the embryo in various ways. This redactional effort results in a multivocal sugya evincing a significantly more inclusive attitude toward the role of the mother.

The Sasanian Persian Context of B. Niddah

On the one hand, B. Niddah's inclusion of traditions that reflect a two-seed theory returns to earlier Jewish traditions described above that appear to have been set aside by the authors of Leviticus Rabbah 14. However, significant analogues with Zoroastrian texts also point to the importance of the Bavli's Persian context in this discursive shift.Footnote ⁸⁷ The Middle Persian cosmological work known as the Bundahišn (or “Primal creation”) describes the mother as emitting seed in a remarkably similar manner to R. Isaac b. R. Ami's statement and parallel alleged baraita, “If a woman emits seed first, she bears a male: if the man emits seed first, she bears a female” (B. Niddah 31a). In Bundahišn 15:4 we find: “When the time of conception has come, if the seed of the man is stronger, a son is conceived. And if that of the woman is stronger, a daughter. If both seeds are equal then twins and triplets result from it.”Footnote ⁸⁸ Notwithstanding clear differences—the parents’ roles are reversed and in the Bundahišn sex is determined by whose seed is stronger, whereas in the Bavli, it is based on whose seed is emitted first—like the Bavli text, this passage attributes seed to both father and mother and depicts their abilities to determine the sex of the fetus as equal.Footnote ⁸⁹ Though the tenth-century composition of the Bundahišn significantly postdates the Bavli traditions, it includes older Iranian traditions, including Old Avestan as well as Sasanian material that had been transmitted orally for centuries.Footnote ⁹⁰ Recent studies have also demonstrated several instances in which the Bavli includes textual formulations that are found in the Bundahišn.Footnote ⁹¹ In this instance, the affinity to the Bavli tradition appears to reflect the acceptance of a two-seed theory in Sasanian Persia, which would be expected given the overall greater prevalence of that model in the ancient world.Footnote ⁹² The reappearance of a two-seed theory in the Bavli may have a good deal to do with the diffusion of Galenic and Hippocratic medical knowledge in Sasanian Persia during the fifth and sixth centuries.Footnote ⁹³ Hence, a tradition that in LR 14 merely alludes to the mother's physical contribution in the Bavli is made to overtly express the idea that the mother likewise releases seed when conceiving.

Having described the mother as actively involved in conception, the Bavli can more easily incorporate a tradition that, unlike Leviticus Rabbah, depicts the womb in positive terms.Footnote ⁹⁴ The first tradition of the aggadic cluster attributed to R. Simlai, while borrowing from LR 14:1, 2, and 8, diverges significantly by recounting that the fetus is taught the Torah in its entirety, such that “there is no time in which a person enjoys greater happiness than in those days.”Footnote ⁹⁵ The positive depiction of the womb complements the “three partners” tradition; the mother is both vital in the process of procreation and her womb is envisioned more favorably.Footnote ⁹⁶

Furthermore, the tone of these Bavli traditions comports with trends in contemporaneous Zoroastrian and Syriac Christian texts that foreground mothers rather than diminish their importance. The Dēnkard (or “Acts of the religion”), a compendium of the Zoroastrian religion, provides a detailed account of Zoroaster's mother, Dugdhōv's, birth and early years along with her active role in protecting her child (section vii.2). She ensures that Zoroaster is born safely despite a demonic onslaught that threatened his life. Although composed during the ninth to tenth centuries, after the Muslim conquest, the Dēnkard contains material transmitted across many centuries, attributed to the pōryōtkēšān, “ancient sages.”Footnote ⁹⁷ Book 7 is based on the Pahlavi version of several nasks, the written Avestan canon from much earlier periods.Footnote ⁹⁸

Similarly, the Christian pseudepigraphic work, Protevangelium of James, which scholars have dated to a period overlapping with the amoraic period,Footnote ⁹⁹ is notable for placing Mary in an unusually prominent role, in contrast to the Gospels and other early Christian works. Highly popular among eastern Syriac Christian communities in the Persian Empire,Footnote ¹⁰⁰ the Protevangelium of James describes Mary's birth and childhood, and later the immaculate conception of Jesus. There are several motifs shared by R. Simlai's tradition in the Bavli and Mary's and Jesus's births recorded in the Protoevangelium of James: both traditions depict angelic communication (an angel teaches the fetus the Torah in its entirety and causes it to forget it, while angels announce and cause Mary's and Jesus's births); both present the protagonist as receiving and forgetting divine communication (the fetus forgets the Torah, Mary forgets that she has conceived through immaculate conception); and both place great emphasis on remaining pure (the fetus takes a vow to remain pure, and Protoevangelium of James extends much of the narrative to describing Mary's constant purity). Although Protoevangelium of James focuses on Mary and her experiences, while the Bavli is centered entirely on the fetus, Mary's purity functions to ensure “Jesus’s prenatal sanctuary” so that her body is an appropriate dwelling that is worthy to house the Son of God.Footnote ¹⁰¹ The presence of traditions in B. Niddah that emphasize the mother's contributions may therefore reflect both the dominant medical theories of Sasanian Persia, as well as the more favorable attitudes towards mothers evidenced in contemporaneous religious texts.Footnote ¹⁰²

Even so, the Bavli redactors did not dispense with received rabbinic traditions. They incorporated opposing views into one sugya, carefully organizing the material to both highlight the Leviticus Rabbah traditions and frame them with dissenting views. Thus, while material from Leviticus Rabbah makes up much of the sugya and is placed as the focal point of the chiasm, opposing ideas that apparently had greater currency in Sasanian Persia are arranged in a manner that frames it and therefore somewhat undermines it.

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This study has explored the different representations of conception, the mother's role in gestation, and her relationship to the fetus in Leviticus Rabbah 14 and B. Niddah, suggesting various cultural factors that may have contributed to these differing depictions, and detailing how the Bavli both incorporates and diverges from the Leviticus Rabbah traditions in a carefully constructed sugya. Notably, it offers a novel analysis of Leviticus Rabbah 14 that highlights many similarities between depictions of birth goddesses in ancient Near Eastern mythology and religion and the images of God directly intervening to nurture and birth the fetus, leading to a revised understanding of Leviticus Rabbah's extensive relegation of the mother. In this rabbinic text, the life-giving powers that had once been the province of female deities in ancient Near Eastern cultures are now attributed to the God of Israel—by extension displacing women's natural procreative powers in the rabbinic imagination. With this insight, new possibilities for understanding the interplay of theology and gender in the formation of rabbinic culture emerge. Moreover, the prospect of identifying lingering traces of ancient Near Eastern culture in later rabbinic texts informs the larger picture of classical rabbinic cultures. For obvious reasons the cultural points of reference for interpreting rabbinic texts tend to be located in contemporary classical sources, but this study has shown that in some cases the ancient Near Eastern context should be taken into consideration as we map out the rich landscape of rabbinic literature.