3 - Mother of the Messiah

Summary

One of the most elaborate visions of apocalyptic transformation in early medieval Jewish writings comes from Sefer Zerubbabel. The work was most likely composed in the early seventh century and reflected the apocalyptic mindset that formed in the wake of the bloody war between Byzantium and Sasanian Persia. Sefer Zerubbabel creatively combines traditional apocalyptic themes, elements of rabbinic literature, and new images to create a remarkably powerful vision of apocalyptic upheaval. The book's symbolism was destined to play an important role in the formation of Jewish messianic and apocalyptic themes well into modern times.

It has long since been noted that two female characters, the mother of the Jewish Messiah and the mother of his demonic adversary, feature prominently in Sefer Zerubbabel and indeed are central to its plot. The majority of scholars have argued that both women reflect a complex reaction to the figure of the Theotokos in contemporaneous Byzantine theology. Thus David Biale used the female characters of Sefer Zerubbabel as an example of “counter-history” produced by the Jewish inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire to engage and subvert the symbolic universe of the dominant Christian culture. In the text that follows I shall take this discussion one step further by arguing that the female figures in Sefer Zerubbabel are part of a broader narrative that developed in early medieval Judaism and attempted to reinterpret Byzantine imperial and religious symbolism to discover its “true” meaning within Jewish messianic context.