God’s Magical Womb

Pregnancy, Power, and the Feminized Divine in Jewish Ritual Texts

Bibliographic Data

ID8206473
AuthorsMarla Segol (University at Buffalo, State University of New York, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume91
Issue2
Pages382-407
Publication date2023-12-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfad082
OpenAlexW4391346492
LanguageEN
References cited40

This article explores the ritual functions of medical and mythical embryologies in Jewish ritual texts from late antiquity to the present. Together these sources tell three stories that show the development of participatory models of ritual efficacy. The first is the integration of medical embryologies into Jewish ritual practice. The second is that of a growing collaboration between human and divine in reproduction, and in prayer, through shared experience, shared embodiment and affect, and mutual mimesis that together constitute a powerful methexis. These in turn grant increased access to power. The third story is the growing maternalization of the divine, which in turn amplifies human-divine collaboration and inter-embodied participation in pregnancy. Thus from the period of late antiquity to early modernity, we see the ritualization of embryologies, remythologized to articulate an emerging theology of divine maternity and of inter-embodied human-divine participation in reproduction

Aesthetics · Biology · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Judaism · Modernity · Period (music) · Power (physics) · Prayer · Reproduction · Sociology · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Ecology · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Religious studies

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