Women in the Apocrypha
The Apocrypha consists of texts that are found in the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Bible, and in the Vulgate, the first Latin translation, but that were not included among the canonical texts of the Hebrew Bible. The word apocrypha means “secret” or “hidden” and was applied to these books because of their extracanonical status for Jews. In Jewish tradition, these texts and others from this period are referred to as sefarim ḥitsoniim (lit., external books) and were preserved in the Christian canon. The works likely date from as early as the third century BCE and were produced through the first century BCE, shedding light on the Jewish community in the late Second Temple period. Among these texts are the books of Tobit and Judith and additions to the biblical book of Daniel. The excerpts here focus on their female protagonists.
These works were written in the context of ancient Mediterranean civilization and Hellenistic culture, and they reflect the fact that their authors largely adopted the gender norms and binaries of the world of the ancient Greeks. At the same time, these works also reflect Jewish tradition in that they prize fear of God and Torah observance by both male and female characters.
The female characters represented here exhibit a variety of traits valued in contemporary Jewish and Hellenistic culture. In a typical depiction of a woman as the object of the male gaze and sexual desire, Susanna is a woman prized for her beauty and sexual purity, even as the work critiques corrupt communal male leadership. Additionally, in the book of Tobit, Sarah of Ecbatana is the only child of her parents and, after the deaths of her first seven husbands, is depressed because she wants to have children, a reflection of her commitment to family. The angel Raphael praises her for her sensibility, bravery, and beauty and for coming from a good family. As a woman who wields a sword, typically a male weapon, Judith exercises tremendous agency. When male leadership fails, she emerges as the savior. The diversity of female portrayals here reminds us that the literature of this period contains many cultural ideals that diverge, overlap, and contradict one another and cannot be simplified into one succinct tradition.