Geoffrey D. Miller, «Canonicity and Gender Roles: Tobit and Judith as Test Cases», Vol. 97 (2016) 199-221
Clues from rabbinic literature suggest that several factors were at play in establishing the early Jewish canon, including the dating, theology, and language of disputed texts. Another vital yet overlooked criterion is adherence to patriarchy, and a careful analysis of the Books of Judith and Tobit illustrates how these texts failed to meet rabbinic standards for gender roles. Most notably, the countercultural figures of Judith and Anna would have scandalized the rabbis by their encroachment on traditionally male spheres of activity, their freedom of movement inside and outside the home, and their ability to chastise male characters without repercussions.
210 GeoFFreY d. MILLer
these bounds and fails to be molded into the wife she ought to be,
then her husband has no other choice but to sever the relationship.
A bad wife is a “plague”, and the only remedy is to “give her a letter
of divorce and be healed of his plague” (Yebam. 63b). In fact, it is a
“meritorious act” to divorce an unfit wife (Yebam. 63b).
The rabbis were aware that not all biblical women conformed to
this submissive, domesticated lifestyle, and they made sure to malign
those who did not. Women are too frail to succeed on the battlefield,
and so Jael’s defeat of the Canaanite general Sisera must have been
the result of the former’s licentiousness. The rabbis aggrandize the
original tale from Judges 4 by “noting that [Jael] was unusually beau-
tiful and that even her voice aroused desire (Megillah 15a); and they
increase the erotic element by noting that Sisera had sexual relations
with her seven times on the day that he fled from battle (Yevamot
103a, Nazir 23b), and that she gave Sisera to drink from the milk of
her breasts (Niddah 55b)” 32.
Jael’s counterpart deborah also receives poor treatment from the
rabbis, who take great pains to bring her under the umbrella of patri-
archy. Judges 4,4 says she is the wife of Lappidoth but says little more
about her family life, yet the rabbis speculate at some length about
“what sort of person her husband was — a typical preoccupation of
rabbinic interpretation. They seem to be puzzled by the possibility that
a man might be secondary in importance or stature to his wife” 33. The
rabbis also focus on another minor detail in the narrative by highlight-
ing the public space deborah chose to hear cases brought before her.
Meg. 14a implies her chief concern was “privacy”, meaning that she
wanted to be viewed as sexually chaste and therefore “judged out-
doors beneath the shade of a palm tree to avoid being secluded indoors
with men” 34. Josephus, meanwhile, turns his attention to a more sig-
nificant aspect of the story by altering the dialogue between deborah
and the Israelite commander Barak. When he insists that deborah ac-
company him in battle, she responds, “Thou resignest to a woman a
rank that God has bestowed on thee” 35, thus emphasizing that Barak
32
L. FeLdMAN, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible (Supplements to the
Journal for the Study of Judaism 58; Boston, MA 1998) 159.
33
L. BroNNer, “Valorized or Vilified? The Women of Judges in Midrashic
Sources”, A Feminist Companion to Judges (ed. A. BreNNer) (The Feminist Com-
panion to the Bible 4; Sheffield 1993) 72-95, here 79.
34
BroNNer, “Valorized or Vilified?”, 85.
35
Josephus, Ant. V, 203.