Signs of Virginity Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity

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Signs of Virginity
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Signs of Virginity
Testing Virgins and Making
Men in Late Antiquity
z
MICHAEL ROSENBERG
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1
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For my father, Joshua Baruch Rosenberg, of blessed memory.
This is not the book that he wanted to write, but I think

he would have understood that, at its roots, I’m struggling
with the same questions.
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vi
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction: Defining Virginity, Making Men 1
PART I. Testing Virginity in the Body
1. Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 21
2. Bloodied Sheets: The Biblical Nuptial Bed as Rape Scene 31

3. “Trustworthy Women” and Other Witnesses: Tweaking
Deuteronomy in Pre-Rabbinic and Early Rabbinic Judaism 44
PART II. Testing Virginity through Faith
4. Doubts and Faith: Possible Alternatives in

Three First-Century Jewish Authors 79
5. Struck by Wood, Struck by God: Virginity Beyond/Despite

Anatomy 90
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viii Contents
PART III. Subjecting Virginity
6. Open Doors and Accused Brides: Subjectivity and

a New Standard for Virginity Testing in Rabbinic Babylonia 119
7. Impure Nuptials and Sex as Work: The Bavli’s Attempted

Divorce of Virginity from Violence 148
8. (De)Mythologizing the Hymen: Augustine, the Bavli, and the
Rejection of Force 182
Epilogue 207
Notes 215
Bibliography 289
Index 305
Index of Primary Sources 309
ix
Acknowledgments
If the only reward for the time I’ve spent on this book is the opportu-
nity to thank some wonderful people, it will have been worth it. To begin,
many institutions and teachers have been critical to my development as
a reader of text and cultures—more than I can thank here. But particular
thanks are due to my teachers at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS),
including Eliezer Diamond, Judith Hauptman, and Neil Danzig, and espe-
cially to Israel Francus, who taught me how to read for inconsistencies that
can point to a world of meaning, and who demonstrated a love for Tractate
Ketubot. Though my own love for this challenging and perplexing trac-
tate has developed in ways that are perhaps far from Prof. Francus’s own
research interests, it still takes its roots in Dr. Francus’s passion.
During my time at JTS, I was fortunate to be a recipient of the Wexner
Graduate Fellowship, a beneficence that not only freed me to explore
widely in my learning, but also put me in contact with outstanding schol-
ars and phenomenal thinkers working in a variety of fields. My debt to
the Wexner Foundation and to the members of WGF Class 14 is palpable.
I also benefited from a Hadassah-Brandeis Institute research award, which
supported my early research on virginity testing in Rabbinic literature.
My doctoral advisor at JTS, Richard Kalmin, has been an incredible
resource, both patient and critical. When I decided not to turn my dis-
sertation into a book, for the time being, but rather to take one tangen-
tial point from it and spend years expanding it into the volume in front
of you now, he supported me and offered advice and guidance that went
beyond any reasonable expectation. His model of careful, critical research
coupled with the very best of scholarly kindness has been and remains an
inspiration to me.
Many of the ideas for this book first percolated in my head when I was
a rabbinical student at Yeshivat Ma’aleh Gilboa, on Kibbutz Ma’aleh Gilboa
x
x Acknowledgments
in Israel. My colleagues Aryeh Bernstein and Ethan Tucker were incredi-

ble conversation partners during that time, and I am thankful to the rashei
yeshiva of that wonderful institution of learning, Rabbis Yehuda Gilad,
Shmuel Reiner, and rosh ha-yeshiva Rabbi David Bigman for welcom-
ing me into the environment of passionate inquiry that they have built.
During my time there, I learned much from all of them, and especially
from my rebbe there, Rabbi Dr. Elisha Ancselovits, who challenged me
from almost literally the first moment he met me to ask deeper and better.
Although I suspect he will disagree with much in this book, I know that
almost everything I write and teach requires the caveat: “This I learned
from my teacher, Rav Elisha.”
This book would not have come into being were it not for a partner-
ship in life and learning with my spouse, Miriam-Simma Walfish. During
the academic year 2005–2006, I was studying the laws of niddah, as well
as the tenth chapter of Tractate Niddah intensively; at the same time, she
was studying the first chapter of Ketubot. Our conversations that year—
passionate, challenging, sometimes tearful—led to the realization that
these two seemingly distant chapters were speaking to the same con-
cerns, and we cotaught this material at the National Havurah Committee
Summer Institute in 2007. I will have more to say about my personal debt
to Miriam-Simma below, but her role in the formation of the ideas in this
book demands thanks in its own right.
In recent years, I have been blessed to be part of a wonderful crew
of scholars curious about, perplexed by, horrified at, and otherwise fasci-
nated by constructions of female virginity in antiquity. Jennifer Collins-
Elliott, Julia Kelto Lillis, Caroline Musgrove, and Melanie Webb have been
some of my most valued conversation partners, pushing and critiquing
me, and helping me to remember why this (to some, strange choice of)
research project is important. Our week together at the Oxford Patristics
Conference in 2015 and the workshop we participated in there was one of
the most thrilling and compelling academic experiences I have ever had.
I am incredibly thankful for your colleagueship.
For nearly the entirety of my time working on this book, I have been
blessed to teach at Hebrew College in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. My
colleagues here are an inspiration as well as valued conversation partners.
In particular, I want to thank my dean, Sharon Cohen-Anisfeld, who made
possible a semester of teaching leave at a critical moment in my writing,
without which this book might never have been finished. It meant much
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Acknowledgments xi
more work for her—and my colleagues—to pick up the slack, a sacrifice

on their parts that I recognize and appreciate.
During that semester off, I wrote huge amounts of this book at CafeNation,
my only source in the Boston area for decent Americanos and a good playlist
over the speakers. To the excellent baristas there: you were probably wonder-
ing what I was working on there all day, every day. Here it is.
A much-abridged version of chapter 5 is set to appear in volume 80 of
Studia Patristica; I am thankful to Peeters Publishers for permission to
reproduce here.
Cynthia Read and Drew Anderla of Oxford University Press have been
wonderful to work with, ushering this process through with utmost pro-
fessionalism, even when I may have been a wee bit neurotic and asked too
many questions. Thank you (and apologies).
Many people have read drafts of part or all of this book, and I am
grateful for their critical feedback (and probably guilty of not having
taken as much of their advice as I should have): Rachel Adelman, Chaya
Halberstam, Richard Kalmin, Jane Kanarek, Joshua Kulp, Julia Kelto Lillis,
Adele Reinhartz, Barry Walfish, and Miriam-Simma Walfish.
I am grateful for the superb and critical readings I received from the
Press’s reviewers, Christine Hayes and Andrew Jacobs. Their criticisms have
significantly improved this book with regard both to the content of its claims
and to its clarity, for which not only I, but also the reader is thankful. It has
become a kind of boilerplate to say that, where the author has not followed up
on reviewers’ suggestions, it is to the book’s detriment; nonetheless, I feel that
acutely here. In some cases, constraints of time and space have prevented me
from taking them up on their suggestions; in others, it is the scholarly sin of
stubbornness. But throughout, their comments challenged me and engaged
my work in ways that represent academic discourse at its very best.
I am embarrassed by the good fortune of my family and the support
that they give me. My in-laws, Barry Walfish and Adele Reinhartz, pro-
vided substantive advice about this project, practical advice about how to
get it from my head to a published book, and, crucially, time off from pick-
ing the kids up at school that allowed me to make tangible progress. I can’t
imagine having completed this without your help.
My mother, Chaya Rosenberg, will never appreciate how much she has
given me, both in the process of writing this book, but more generally in
life—because her love and generosity is so overflowing that she simply
takes it for granted. To be sure, she has been an incredible support in
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xii Acknowledgments
helping with child care, especially during the summers of 2013–2015, but
her influence goes well beyond that. She has always encouraged me to
pursue my passions—even when she might have preferred that they led
me in other directions—because her support is simply unqualified and
unlimited. Whatever I produce in the world—including but not limited to
this book—is thanks to you.
Miriam-Simma Walfish has been a partner at work and at home, my
sharpest critic and fiercest defender. I know the depths of my good for-
tune that I have found someone who shares my values and commitments
with whom to build a life together. My children, Nehemia David and Adira
Hana Rosenberg Walfish, are very excited to see this book come out—both
because they are happy for me, and because they are eager for conversa-
tions at the dinner table to focus less on Augustine and Shmuel and more
on Pokémon. During the editing of this manuscript, Miriam-Simma and
I were fortunate to welcome our third child, Shia Nahum Eliezer into the
family as well. I happily assign the blame for any typos to his well-timed
birth. I hope that someday my children will live in a world in which gentle
masculinity is not subversive, but rather, an ideal that folks of all genders
simply take for granted.
xi
Abbreviations
When discussing texts from the Tosefta, Mishnah, and the Palestinian
and Babylonian Talmuds, I cite according to the format “bKet,” where the
initial lowercase letter refers to the corpus (t = Tosefta, m = Mishnah,
p = Palestinian Talmud, and b = Babylonian Talmud), and the capitalized
abbreviation refers to the specific tractate, according to the following:
Bek Bekhorot
Ber Berakhot
BK Bava Kama
BM Bava Metzi‘a
Ed ‘Eduyot
Git Gittin
Hag Hagigah
Hul Hullin
Ket Ketubot
Kid Kiddushin
MK Mo‘ed Katan
Nid Niddah
Pes Pesahim
San Sanhedrin
Shab Shabbat
Yev Yevamot
Zev Zevahim
Translations of Rabbinic passages are my own, based on editions as cited
in the notes, though citations of biblical verses, including those contained
in Rabbinic passages, follow the new Jewish Publication Society (NJPS)
edition (or are based on it with slight modifications), unless otherwise
noted. Translations from the Gospels are taken from the New Revised
Standard Version (NRSV) unless otherwise noted.
xvi
xiv Abbreviations
References to editions of early Christian works make use of the following

abbreviations:
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
GCS Die Greicheschen Christlichen Schriftsteller
PL Patrologia Latina
xv
Signs of Virginity
xvi
Since I am a gynê [wife/woman-not-maiden] I did not suffer now.

Long ago another man educated me, taking my virginity as his pay-
ment. But when Chloe wrestles with you in a bout like this, she will
scream and she will cry and she will lie in a large pool of blood as if
slain. You should not fear the blood, but . . . bring her to this place,
so that even if she cries aloud, no one will hear, and even if she weeps
tears, no one will see, and even if she is bloodied, she may wash her-
self in the spring. And remember that it was I who have made you
an anêr [husband/man-not-boy].1
Rav Samuel b. Oniya said in the name of Rav: “A woman forms a

covenant only with the one who makes her into a vessel, as it says:
For He who made you will espouse you [bo‘alayikh]—His name
is ‘Lord of Hosts’ (Isa. 54:5).”2
For Samuel said: “I can penetrate many virgins [betulot] without

causing bleeding”. . . . Samuel is different, for his manhood/potency
[govreih] is great.3
My seed [semen] is a hundred times more fertile.4
Why fill the bedchamber with a swarm of deities. . . . For the goddess
Virginensis is there, and the father-god Subigus, the mother-goddess
Prema, the goddess Pertunda, and Venus, and Priapus. . . . Would
not Venus alone have been equal to the task? For her name is said
to be derived from the fact that it is not without force [vi non sine]
that a woman ceases to be a virgin. . . . And certainly, if the god-
dess Virginensis is present to unfasten the virgin’s girdle; and if the
god Subigus is present to ensure her husband will be able to sub-
due [subigere] her successfully; and if the goddess Prema is there to
press her down [premere] once she has submitted, so that she will
not struggle—then what is the goddess Pertunda doing here? Let
her blush and go forth; let the husband himself have something to
do. It is surely dishonorable for any but him to do the act which is
her name.5
1
Introduction
Defining Virginity, Making Men
Despite its title, this book is not really about female virginity.1 It is
not even about testing virginity, nor the even more careful formulation
of “men’s constructions of [testing] female virginity”—though at various
points in the process of writing it, I have thought about it in all of these
ways. At its core, this book is about cultural constructions of men’s sexual-
ity as ideally aggressive, and how those constructions are reflected in, and
produced by, male definitions of women’s virginity. Specifically, I argue
that the model of virginity presented in Deut. 22:13–21, in which a bride’s
virginity on her wedding night is asserted or denied on the basis of blood-
ied nuptial sheets, is intimately connected to a sexual culture that valo-
rizes male sexual aggression. In a society that prizes female virginity, this
bloody marker necessarily encourages males to engage in penile-vaginal
intercourse on their wedding nights in ways most likely to produce such
bleeding.
This Deuteronomic model for testing women’s virginity dominates
among both Jewish and Christian interpreters in the first four centuries of
the “Common Era.”2 Only two truly significant exceptions to this pervasive
presentation of female virginity exist: Babylonian Rabbis3 beginning in
roughly the mid-fourth century ce and continuing through the redaction
of the Babylonian Talmud (a period that students of Rabbinic literature
generally think of, and that I will regularly refer to, as the second half of
the amoraic period),4 and Augustine of Hippo.
I have grouped late amoraic Babylonian Rabbis and Augustine together,
but their responses to earlier traditions about testing female virginity and
male sexuality are quite different from each other. For Augustine, the very
2
2 Introduction
notion that virginity is something physical, something that can be read in

a person’s body, is laughable. Augustine deviates from the Deuteronomic
model of testing virginity by removing virginity entirely from the realm
of the physical. The Babylonian Rabbinic texts that I analyze, by con-
trast, maintain the biblical assumption that a woman’s virginity can be
attested to by her body. Rather than mocking anatomical virginity as does
Augustine, they exchange one anatomical model of virginity for another.
I will argue, however, that both Augustine and these Babylonian Rabbis
radically disrupt earlier notions of women’s virginity in ways that also
serve to undermine preexisting ideals of men as sexually aggressive.
Babylonian Rabbis, even as they continue to prize female virginity, empha-
size other markers of this virginity, almost to the point of rendering blood
on the sheets legally irrelevant, and thereby attempt to rescind the earlier
encouragement for men to engage in more vigorous—that is, violent—
penetrative intercourse. What is more, a variety of legal and nonlegal texts
of this period actually encourage gentleness as the marker of male sexual
prowess.
Augustine similarly continues to prize female virginity; however, he
rejects the notion that the physical rupture (or any other trait) of a woman’s
body has any relevance to her virginity, which is fundamentally a spiritual
state. Augustine’s view is in keeping with his broader conceptualization
of ideal sex as sex that is thoroughly subject to the will, denying lust—a
notion that for Augustine has both sexual and military-political connota-
tions. In this regard, Augustine resembles the Babylonian Rabbis, disdain-
ing the image of a sexually aggressive male as an ideal man. The North
African Catholic bishop and the Rabbinic sages of western Mesopotamia
are far more similar than we might have expected.
Augustine and the Rabbis of late antique Babylonia are similar in
another way as well: both are radical outliers in their respective traditions,
rather than “natural” outgrowths of preexisting trends. Both break with
what came before them, and both are relatively uninfluential on later inter-
preters and legal authorities in their respective traditions. In the case of
the Babylonian Talmud, this total reversal of received traditions is more
obvious—we see little development in thinking about virginity testing
in earlier Rabbinic texts, and to the extent that we do, it is a strengthen-
ing in amoraic Palestinian sources of Deuteronomy’s idea that virginity
manifests through the bloody remnants of aggressive penetration. The
Babylonian Talmud thus represents a seemingly unprecedented break
with pre-Rabbinic and earlier Rabbinic traditions.
3
Introduction 3
The radical nature of Augustine’s break with the past is less imme-
diately apparent, since, as I will describe in chapters 5 and 8, it is pos-
sible to read Christian sources in a teleological way, with faith-based,
rather than anatomical, aspects of virginity first implied in the Gospel
of Matthew and then becoming more and more central, at the seeming
expense of anatomical testing of chastity. In light of this background,
one might understandably read Augustine as simply representing the
apotheosis of this development. However, I will argue that such a read-
ing of the sources misses two vital points. First, Augustine, unlike late
antique Syriac authors or Ambrose of Milan, completely displaces the
Deuteronomic model, rather than simply subjugating it rhetorically to
virginity-expressed-through-faith. This move represents a difference in
kind, and not only of degree. Secondly, the uniqueness of Augustine is
evident through his relative lack of influence on later Christian texts. As
is the case in Rabbinic culture following the Babylonian Talmud, after
Augustine, Christian texts and practices by and large return to a more
“mixed” discourse in which the forensics of Deuteronomy continue to
loom large.
To be clear at the outset: my argument in this book is primarily about
discourse—that is, what ancient authors say, and how those words might
have affected how their readers/hearers thought about male sexual aggres-
sion and female virginity. These effects are significant irrespective of
whether grooms in biblical Israel, or Roman Palestine, or fourth-century
Babylonia ever actually looked for blood on their nuptial sheets. Men hear-
ing Deuteronomy 22, or the Protevangelium of James, or the Palestinian
Talmud, would have been influenced in their thinking about how to “be
a man,” even if blood-stained sheets had become (or always had been) a
dead letter. Thus, most of the time in this book, I will not consider whether
these texts tell us something about the actual lived experience of Christians
and Jews in late antiquity.
There will be moments, however, where analyzing the effects of a par-
ticular discourse requires considering explicitly the social setting in which
that discourse would be heard. A particular discourse will have a differ-
ent effect on its listeners depending on what those listeners’ social real-
ity looks like. To take an example from chapter 3: if the lived experience
of matriarchs in a community suggests to them that evidence of genital
rupture often correlates with a bride’s wedding-night experience, then dis-
courses that invest female elders with the power to assess young wom-
en’s virginity will affect grooms’ thinking about female virginity differently
4
4 Introduction
from cultures in which the social realities are different. Thus, at certain
junctions I will take time to assess those lived realities and the assump-
tions that they would have supported.
Moreover, as I will discuss more below, in some cases the discursive
effects of a particular text may prove enlightening even as the social his-
torical effects on women in antiquity could have been deleterious; in such
cases I will do my best to draw the reader’s attention to these damaging
consequences. My primary focus, however, will be on the implications of
the way ancient Christian and Jewish authors speak about female virginity
for their constructions of ideal male sexuality.
Masculinity and Aggression in Late Antiquity

Greek, Roman, and Christian Masculinity
Foundational to my argument in this book is the recognition that tests
of women’s virginity are imbricated with cultural constructions of mas-
culinity. In chapter 1, I will argue that, across cultural divides, when men
construct female virginity and tests to assess it, they are simultaneously
constructing—and reflecting—their own notions of male sexuality as ide-
ally aggressive. This book thus stands in the stream of studies in the last
nearly forty years that have endeavored to analyze ancient and late antique
constructions of masculinity. In the wake of groundbreaking studies by
Kenneth J. Dover and Michel Foucault, scholars have begun to appreciate
the ways in which cultures define and redefine what constitutes mascu-
linity or ideal malehood. This scholarship points to the common cultural
ideal of masculinity as a kind of sexual dominance—a dominance both
of the self and of others. Thus, as in the boast that appeared in the epi-
graph, a continent Church Father such as Jerome can describe himself as
decidedly manly—his “seed” as “a hundred times more fertile.” Similarly,
Lycainion can describe herself, following her description of first-time
penetrative intercourse as a rape scene, as having made Daphnis into a
man. Though to twenty-first-century eyes, Jerome’s statement may appear
ironic, or Lycainion’s shocking, the history of masculinity makes clear that
these sentiments fit into a several-centuries-long development of Greek,
Roman, and Christian ideals of manhood.
The historiography of masculinity begins in a fundamental sense with
two works of the late 1970s and early 1980s: Kenneth J. Dover’s Greek
Homosexuality, and the final two volumes of Michel Foucault’s three-
volume History of Sexuality.5 Both scholars emphasized the central role
5
Introduction 5
of penile penetration in Greek and Roman culture. To be a proper man,

Dover and Foucault both point out, is not only to penetrate others, but
to do so in a way that asserts superiority and domination.6 The work of
John Winkler, as well as that of David Halperin, followed in the footsteps
of these two scholars—especially Foucault—and developed more fully the
tandem of domination and penetration as a male ideal in classical and late
antique literature.7
Foucault, building on the earlier work of Paul Veyne, also pointed to
an apparent increasing stringency regarding sexual matters in the first
two centuries of the Common Era. Rather than attribute a newfound sex-
ual prudishness to the rise of Christianity, as was then common to do,
Foucault connected this development to the rise of the care of the self,
the application of sophrosyne, manly self-control, to sexual matters: to be
a man is to be able to control one’s own desires.8 It would be easy to take
this emphasis on sophrosyne as a subversion of dominant ideals of mas-
culinity as active and aggressive, but to do so is an error. As Dover writes,
“[O]‌bdurate postponement of any bodily contact until the potential part-
ner has proved his worth . . . insistence on an upright position . . . denial
of true penetration. In Greek eyes . . . this was the antithesis between
the abandonment or the maintenance of masculinity.”9 Or, in Foucault’s
words: “The penis thus appears at the intersection of all these games of
mastery: self-mastery . . . superiority over sexual partners . . . status and
privileges.”10 That is, for all of its variety over the years, masculinity in
Greek and Roman eyes resulted from exhibiting self-control and thereby
never allowing oneself to participate passively in a sexual encounter with
someone of lower status, be they woman, boy, or slave. Such a model of
male sexuality indeed coheres with much of the biblical, early Jewish,
Rabbinic, and Christian texts about virginity testing that I analyze in
this book.
But something truly subversive appears to have begun in the first cen-
turies of the Common Era.11 Judith Perkins describes this time as a per-
iod of competing discourses of the self, with one model—the one that
will eventually be central in Christian self-conceptions—presenting the
self as suffering and enduring.12 Brent Shaw, in an article discussing
early Christian texts as well as not-specifically Christian Jewish texts that
would nonetheless become important to early Christians, depicts a simi-
lar development and explicitly links it to gender. Studying works such as
4 Maccabees, the Testament of Joseph, and the Pauline letters, Shaw notes
that men in these texts are valued precisely for their passivity and ability
6
6 Introduction
to suffer. Shaw further draws our attention to the extreme heresy of such a
gender depiction in the world of the early Roman Empire:
What is stated here is so ordinary that it might escape notice—so

understated that it might be dismissed. It is a subtle part of a move-
ment or shift that constitutes a moral revolution of sorts. Praises
of active and aggressive values entailed in manliness (andreia) by
almost all other writers in the world of the Maccabees could easily fill
books. The elevation to prominence of the passive value of merely
being able to endure would have struck most persons, certainly
all those spectators, as contradictory and, indeed, rather immoral.
A value like that cut right across the great divide that marked élite
free-status male values and that informed everything about bod-
ily behaviour from individual sexuality to collective warfare: voice,
activity, aggression, closure, penetration, and the ability to inflict
pain and suffering were lauded as emblematic of freedom, courage,
and good. Silence, passivity, submissiveness, openness, suffering—
the shame of allowing oneself to be wounded, to be penetrated, and
of simply enduring all of that—were castigated as weak, womanish,
slavish, and therefore morally bad.13
Whether pre-Constantinian Christian authors similarly blur the dominant

definitions of femininity is more ambiguous.14 But in any event, this sub-
versive gender-bending in the depiction of ideal manhood became more
complicated when the Roman Empire became Christian. Both Shaw and
Virginia Burrus make clear that Christian portrayals of passive, enduring
men as manly were political acts of resistance. As Shaw writes of a depic-
tion of Roman manliness in Jerome, Roman scripts of masculinity served
to assert Roman power: “This was not just an act of bare physical violence
or coercion. It was also the sexual assertion of a social order.”15 Thus, when
Christians become the beneficiaries, rather than the preferred victims, of
imperial power, gendered political resistance becomes a dicier endeavor,
and women in post-Constantinian Christian texts increasingly look like
classical Roman heroines.16
Perhaps precisely because of this newly traditional depiction of
the Christian virgin, these same authors can continue to portray ideal
Christian men in classically feminine terms—the discourse of the suffer-
ing, patient self described by Perkins and Shaw. But when male Christian
authors living in a Christian Roman Empire portray themselves thus, they
7
Introduction 7
at the same time assign to themselves classically male powers. Consider

Burrus’s description of Ambrose of Milan’s justification of his writing
public treatises: “[Ambrose] represents his own struggles to align the act
of writing with the virtue of modesty, and to conjoin the assertive claims of
a sublimated phallic sexuality with the empowering receptivity of a femi-
nized submissiveness.”17 Burrus helpfully summarizes her findings:
To state the thesis in general terms: post-Constantinian Christianity

lays claim to the power of classical male speech; yet at the same
time late ancient Christian discourse continues to locate itself in
paradoxical relation to classical discourse through a stance of femi-
nizing ascesis that renounces public speech.18
In considering Christian authors of late antiquity, I will highlight a related

“paradoxical relation” to female virginity and its verification, a wavering
between classical notions of men as penetrators and women’s bodies as
appropriate for—indeed, destined for—penetration, and models of sexu-
ality that trouble those classical notions by devaluing the significance of
men’s penetrating female bodies for asserting their subjectivity.
Rabbinic Masculinity: An Imperial Divide

In his book Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention
of the Jewish Man, Daniel Boyarin introduced Rabbinic literature, roughly
contemporaneous with the authors studied by Burrus, into this conver-
sation about the construction of masculinity in late antiquity. Boyarin
argues that in Rabbinic texts we find a particular stream of thinking that
specifically extols gentleness and the avoidance of force as the marker of
the ideal Jewish man. Unlike the paradigmatically aggressive and pene-
trating Roman, the ideal man in these passages is praiseworthy precisely
for his vulnerability—a vulnerability often depicted specifically as pene-
trability. Like Shaw and Burrus, Boyarin describes gender-bending as a
kind of resistance to Roman gender norms. But, Boyarin claims, unlike
his cognate in early Christian texts, this particular Rabbinic male is neither
emasculated nor desexualized through his vulnerable presentation, but
rather remains decidedly physical and sexual. In Boyarin’s words, “The
Rabbis . . . provide a uniquely different exemplum of this oppositional
form of masculinity in that they, like ‘philosophers,’ did not regard vio-
lence as enhancing of or definitional for masculinity,” even as “for [the
8
8 Introduction
Rabbis], being philosophers (i.e., students of Torah) did not entail entering
into a eunuchlike state.”19
The Babylonian Rabbinic legal developments regarding virginity tests,
which valorize sexual activity that does not leave physical marks on a female
partner, fit this paradigm perfectly, setting side by side male gentleness
with sexual activity. Indeed, Samuel’s statement from the opening of this
introduction, in which the Babylonian sage presents himself as capable of
penetrating “many virgins” without producing any bleeding, depicts this
Rabbinic male as at one and the same time nonviolent and hypersexual.
Samuel describes with glee his sexual prowess, but his boast is precisely
about his ability to penetrate while leaving no mark, as it were—not the
sort of boast that we are likely to hear in an American men’s locker room,
and one that contradicts the core assumptions about female virginity that
lie behind Deut. 22:13–21. Indeed, Samuel finds a nearly perfect foil in the
statement attributed by Rav Samuel b. Oniya to Samuel’s contemporary,
Rav, also included at the start of this introduction, in which a marital cove-
nant can be formed only when a man penetrates a woman, thereby (trans)
forming her. Rav represents the earlier model in which to be a man meant
to change another’s body and thereby mark it as his own. Samuel, by con-
trast, revels in his ability to have sex without changing the other’s body.
The anonymous editor of the Talmud picks up on Samuel’s inver-
sion of masculinity and highlights it. Samuel’s potency/manhood (the
overtones of the related Aramaic word gavra—“man”—are too obvious
to ignore) is directly tied to this ability to engage in sexual relations that
do not rupture or wound. Samuel is thus at one and the same time a
sexual(ized) male, and a male who is proud of his ability to avoid making
a violent mark on his sexual partner(s)—in other words, an exemplar of
Boyarin’s Rabbinic male.20 Virginity testing provides us with a corpus of
primarily legal texts that express similar cultural work to the narratives
discussed by Boyarin.
Rabbinic texts about virginity testing also highlight an aspect of
Boyarin’s depiction of Rabbinic masculinities that, while often alluded
to in Unheroic Conduct, Boyarin himself does not focus on, and which
he at times even denies: the uniquely Babylonian provenance of the
Rabbinic preference for male gentleness.21 Boyarin repeatedly notes that
the Rabbinic preference for the gentle male is only one depiction of mas-
culinity among many in the Rabbinic corpus, but he does not view it as
tied to a particular place or moment in Rabbinic culture.22 The texts that
he analyzes in Unheroic Conduct (and in Boyarin’s earlier book on gender
9
Introduction 9
and sexuality, Carnal Israel), however, are almost all Babylonian passages
from the Babylonian Talmud.
Similarly, the marker of female virginity that implicitly discourages
vigorous male sexual activity appears in Rabbinic literature only in the
Babylonian Talmud.23 Furthermore, careful source criticism makes it clear
that this trend likely originates, or at the very least only becomes a signifi-
cant voice in Rabbinic conversation, in the mid-fourth century ce and later.
This model of marking female virginity and its consequent encourage-
ment of male gentleness is indeed thus only one possibility among several
found in Rabbinic literature. But we can—and should—be more precise
than that: this one stream among several in Rabbinic literature is distinc-
tive of fourth-century and later Babylonian Rabbinic texts. Describing that
setting with this level of specificity allows us to think more critically about
the possible factors that allowed for and/or caused such a legal-cultural
innovation to develop.24
Naming the trend that Boyarin describes in Unheroic Conduct as late
and Babylonian is important for several reasons. First of all, rather than a
“somewhat discordant chorus” of ideas about masculinity, we find in the
Babylonian Talmud a historically identifiable moment of change. Taking
note of the uniqueness of Babylonian Rabbinic attitudes to virginity test-
ing allows us to ask with greater clarity, What allowed for (or perhaps even
caused) the surprising Babylonian departure from models of verifying
female virginity that encouraged sexual violence, replaced by those that
promoted gentleness in sexual activity?
Additionally, identifying explicitly the late Babylonian provenance
of the Rabbinic preference for gentleness in sexual activity also high-
lights the fact that, though it certainly is only one voice among several in
Rabbinic literature, it is a voice that holds a particular pride of place. That
is, the Babylonian Talmud became the most studied and referenced text in
Rabbinic Jewish communities. Thus, it should not surprise us that Boyarin
finds that this Rabbinic ideal of masculinity also appears as a significant
trope in the yeshiva culture of modern Europe. When the Ashkenazi men-
tsch and yeshiva bokhr, to whom Boyarin points as modes of resistance to
Western European norms of masculinity, entered the beis medrash to sit
down and study, it was not the Mishnah or Palestinian Talmud that they
encountered, but rather the Babylonian Talmud—or as they might have
called it, “the Talmud,” so total was its hegemony. It was thus necessar-
ily that work’s models of masculinity that would have been most likely
to inform their own (not necessarily conscious) thinking about what it
10
10 Introduction
means to be a (Jewish) man. As Boyarin usefully puts it, “The Talmud,

as the canonical text of Ashkenazic culture . . . provided the cultural mod-
els and resources around which the self-representation of a gentle, reces-
sive, nonviolent masculinity could crystallize under specific material and
historical conditions.”25 The only emendation I offer is the reminder that
“Talmud” here is shorthand for the Babylonian Talmud. But that descriptor
may well turn out to be crucial in understanding what motivates or allows
for such a significant shift in thinking about male sexual violence.
Locating the preference for gentle, sexual men in Babylonia also pro-
vides an important corrective to an argument Michael Satlow has made
regarding Rabbinic masculinity. Satlow argues that Palestinian Rabbinic
literature presents a view of masculinity that is very much in keeping with
Greco-Roman, and in particular with Stoic, notions of manhood. That is,
to be a man in Palestinian Rabbinic texts very often means to be capable
of controlling one’s emotions and desires. This construction of manhood,
Satlow continues, works hand in hand with the construction of Torah
study as a fundamentally male activity; only those who display manly self-
control can engage in the sacred act of Torah study. When the tradition of
gendering Torah study as male reaches Babylonia, however, Satlow main-
tains that the Babylonian author/editors, lacking the cultural context of
masculinity as sophrosyne, transformed Torah study into their own concep-
tion of manliness, namely, a violent and militaristic vision of the Torah as
battleground and study partners as combatants.26
Satlow’s depiction here is nearly opposite mine (as well as, I would
maintain, the implicit argument of Boyarin’s Unheroic Conduct).27 The
model of manly self-control, on the face of it, is less violent than the mil-
itaristic images of the Babylonian Talmud with its warriors engaged in
“the war of the Torah.” Satlow thus sets up Babylonian Rabbinic culture as
the more aggressive of the two primary Rabbinic communities, misunder-
standing the traditions about masculinity that they received from Palestine
and thus turning the most prized activity in Rabbinic male culture into a
violent one. What is more, the model of manliness as self-restraint that
Satlow sees in (Palestinian)28 Rabbinic literature is far from resistant to
Roman norms; as Satlow points out, this construction fits perfectly with
dominant Roman fictions.29
I disagree with Satlow’s description for three reasons. The first is a
theoretical problem: Satlow’s scheme assumes a relationship between
Palestinian and Babylonian Rabbinic texts that is far too unidirectional,
with traditions leaving Palestine for Babylonia, where they are received and
1
Introduction 11
then transformed. But in truth, the pathways of traditions between these

two Rabbinic centers were surely far more dynamic than this model allows
for.30 Secondly, while Satlow wants to locate Rabbinic interest in sophrosyne
in Palestine—which, on the face of it, given its location in the Roman
empire, makes sense—the texts he cites as examples of this phenomenon
are nearly always Babylonian.31 Thus, Rabbinic interest in masculine self-
control appears most prominently specifically in Rabbinic Babylonia—a
finding that, in light of more recent studies about the reception and influ-
ence of non-Rabbinic sources from the Roman East actually makes a great
deal of sense.32 Last, Satlow’s depiction of Babylonian Rabbinic texts as vio-
lent by comparison with their Palestinian counterparts takes those images
too quickly at face value. For example, Satlow reads the classic story of
Torah study about Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish, two study partners
who end up dead as a result of their verbal violence, as depicting manly
Torah scholars as scholastic warriors.33 Such a reading, however, ignores
the clear implication that the violence ascribed to these two Torah scholars
led to their demise. It may portray two classic (perhaps not coincidentally,
Palestinian) Rabbinic heroes as Torah soldiers, but the story does so pre-
cisely in order to critique this production of Torah as a field of battle.34 In
other words, Torah as battleground may indeed be a common trope in
Rabbinic texts (both Babylonian and Palestinian), but it is precisely in the
Babylonian Talmud that we find this male aggression implicitly, but none-
theless clearly, critiqued.
Locating the development of an ideal of the gentle male as arising spe-
cifically in Rabbinic Babylonia is thus important for understanding the
history of Rabbinic masculinity. Doing so requires a certain amount of
source-critical and philological work, and a good deal of c hapters 6 and 7
are devoted to precisely that kind of analysis. Of course, readers who are
not specialists in Rabbinic literature may want to gloss over some of the
technical details of these arguments in those chapters.
I have one more reason for focusing on the uniqueness of this model
in Rabbinic literature, which is that doing so sets the Babylonian Talmud
alongside an equally lonely author from the Christian world: Augustine
of Hippo. In chapter 8, I will argue that while Augustine’s predecessors
(and, alas, his successors as well) left us conflicted and paradoxical ideas
about the importance of male penetration and female penetrability in con-
structing women’s virginity and men’s masculinity, Augustine provides a
unique approach that turns our gaze away from the action and passivity of
men’s and women’s bodies respectively. As Foucault puts it, for Augustine,
12
12 Introduction
“the main question is not . . . the problem of penetration: it is the prob-

lem of erection.”35 What is more, Augustine’s constructions of ideal
males and female virginity fully embraces male sexuality in a way that
makes the waffling of, for example, Ambrose or Jerome, seem downright
Manichean—an appellation that was indeed hurled at them by authors
such as Jovinian in response to their own anatomical definitions of Mary’s
virginity.36 Augustine thus looks surprisingly like the Babylonian editors
of the Talmud, imagining ideal men as sexual but not lustful, penetrating
women without violently piercing them.37
Two Overdetermined Terms:

“Virgins” and “Hymens”
Although relatively little has been written about the means of testing wom-
en’s virginity, a great deal has been said already about the valuation of
female virginity in a variety of cultures and throughout history. In particu-
lar, two questions have arisen that, at first glance, appear more important
to the work of this book than they in fact turn out to be, both of which
deal with ambiguity around common terms. The first is the difficulty in
translating words from a variety of languages that line up, partially or (and
this is indeed the question) fully with the English “virgin.” The second is
the meaning—and indeed, the very existence—of a physical structure now
called the “hymen.”
“Virgins”
Both the Hebrew word betulah and its Greek counterpart parthenos have
been subject to debate with regard to their meaning. When a text refers to
a betulah or a parthenos, is the author’s intent—or the imagined reader’s
assumption—to mean something like “a woman who has not previously
engaged in sexual intercourse” (leaving aside the additional ambiguity of
what counts or does not count as “sexual intercourse!”), or does it mean
more broadly something like “young woman” or “unmarried woman”?
Cases in the Hebrew Bible where betulah refers to a stage of life rather
than a sexual status clearly exist.38 At other times—most significantly
for my work here, in Deuteronomy 22—the word surely references sex-
ual status.39 The meaning of parthenos is similarly relevant to this study
because of its application to Mary in both Matthew and the Protevangelium
of James.40
13
Introduction 13
In truth, this ambiguity is far from unique to the Hebrew betulah

and the Greek parthenos. Similar unclarity attends to words such as the
German Jungfrau, and even the English “maiden,” all of which can refer
to a stage of life or a sexual history. This cross-cultural linguistic slippage
simply reveals an assumption on the part of biblical (and, more generally,
premodern) authors and readers: most of the time, to be a young, unmar-
ried woman would mean to be free of previous sexual encounters of some
sort or another. In the words of Tikva Frymer-Kensky, “The ambiguity
and variability of the term arises from the basic cultural assumption that
young marriageable women are virgins.”41 In any event, although when-
ever attending to a text that involves one of these words we must be careful
not to make assumptions about its meaning, in nearly all of the examples
that I cite, the intended focus on a woman’s sexual history will be clear.
The only exceptions will be some of the passages from the Hebrew Bible
that I analyze in c hapter 2; I will consider those cases on an individual
basis in the course of my analysis.
“Hymens”
Just as the ambiguous meaning of words such as betulah and parthenos
appears relevant but turns out to be fundamentally a distraction to the
argument of this book, so too the question of “the hymen” has divided
historians of medicine and would seem essential to my study but, in
the end, should not sidetrack us. Here we can trace the debate back to
a groundbreaking analysis by Giulia Sissa, which appears both in her
article “Maidenhood without Maidenhead: The Female Body in Ancient
Greece,” and part 2 of her book Greek Virginity.42 Sissa argues that though
Western moderns take for granted the existence of a distinct organ that
somehow “stands guard” at a woman’s virginity, such thinking is a con-
struct that appears no earlier than late antiquity. In particular, Sissa points
out that Greek and Roman medical literature make no reference to any
independently recognized membrane covering or otherwise surround-
ing female genitalia; the only such reference appears in the work of the
second-century Greek author Soranus of Ephesus, who mentions “a thin
membrane [that] grows across the vagina, dividing it, and that this mem-
brane causes pain when it bursts in defloration or if menstruation occurs
too quickly,” but Soranus discusses it only as something the existence of
which is a “mistake to assume.”43
14
14 Introduction
Ann Ellis Hanson has argued against Sissa’s sweeping claim, contending
instead that the view Soranus decries as “a mistake” was indeed a “pop-
ular anatomy which sees the uterus of the young girl as sealed off” and
which appears as well in the Hippocratic Diseases of Young Girls.44 Looking
to depictions of women’s bodies not only in medical literature but also
in amulets and literature, Hanson argues that the virginal “seal” does in
fact appear in evidence from the Greek world.45 Yet in a recent disserta-
tion, Julia Kelto Lillis brings us back in part to Sissa’s paradigm, carefully
demonstrating that the imagery of a woman’s body as a sealed enclosure
with a distinct “hymen” protecting her virginity, so often taken for granted
in interpretations of early Christian authors, does not appear in Christian
texts until the mid-to late fourth century.
We can easily get lost in this debate about how precisely ancient and
late antique authors (as well as our best possible reconstructions of their
readers) understood the anatomy of virginity. My argument in this book,
however, does not depend on how one comes down on the question of
whether a “virginal seal” was part of ancient writers’ conception of wom-
en’s bodies. Soranus, in explicitly rejecting such a presentation, writes
that “[the vagina] possesses furrows held together by vessels which take
their origin from the uterus. And when the furrows are spread apart in
defloration, these vessels burst and cause pain and the blood which is usually
excreted follows.”46 In other words, even Soranus, in denying the existence
of an independent organ called the “hymen,” still assumes that the loss
of virginity is accompanied by bleeding and pain. As Simon Goldhill puts
it, “What is important . . . is what he takes for granted, what he sees as
‘usual,’ what he is setting out to explain: the spilling of blood and the pain
of defloration.”47
Whether the early Jewish, Rabbinic, and Christian authors I analyze
in the coming chapters imagined virginity as marked by—or even con-
stituted by—the existence of a hymen is immaterial for my purposes.48
Rather, my argument is that texts that not only set up female virginity
as a desideratum for males in their marriage partners, but also establish
postcoital bleeding as that standard, inherently incentivize men to pene-
trate more aggressively. This consequence holds true whether that bleed-
ing is perceived as the result of a rupture of the hymen or, as Soranus
would have it, the bursting of blood vessels in the furrows of a vagina.
Nonetheless, so as to steer clear of the debate, I will avoid using the term
“hymen” to refer to postcoital bleeding unless context makes clear that a
distinct membrane is intended.
15
Introduction 15
A Methodological Caveat
One final note is necessary here before beginning the actual work of
this study. Scholars of Rabbinic literature have now long been harried by
two enduring and related debates. The first has to do with the editing of
Rabbinic texts. What, if anything, can we determine about the editorial
and redactional history of texts such as the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the
two Talmuds? When studying a work such as the Mishnah, generally dated
to the early third century, but which regularly cites sages of the second cen-
tury and occasionally claims to relate the views of figures who lived prior to
the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, can we uncover earlier
versions of the text embedded within the final product and thus make
claims about developments in thinking about some topic? Or must we be
satisfied with discussing only what the final redactors left us?
The second, related problem is this: how reliable, if at all, are attribu-
tions in these various texts? Unlike the Christian texts that I will study
in c hapter 8, Rabbinic texts do not offer us a claim of authorship. And
unlike even the anonymous Christian works considered in chapter 5,
Rabbinic works are clearly the work of a collective authorship while claim-
ing to transmit the views of specific, earlier sages. When a statement in
the Babylonian Talmud, for example, is attributed to the third-century
Babylonian sage Samuel, can we assume that such a figure with such a
name indeed said these words? Or, at the very least, that such a view has
some meaningful connection to the thinking of (at least some) Babylonian
sages of the third century generally?
The minimalist school is most famously and significantly represented
by Jacob Neusner, who has argued that Rabbinic texts reveal the hands of a
strong editor, and that as such, all that can be done is to date works to their
final redaction and assume that the statements and ideas contained within
them are representative of the period in which that redaction occurred.
Although some traditions may have been preserved, one cannot speak
meaningfully of being able to discern anything about the periods prior
to the redaction of any given text.49 At the other extreme, we can look to a
scholar such as David Rosenthal, who claims to be able to discern entire
pericopae (or protopericopae) embedded in the work of later editing in the
Babylonian Talmud.50
My argument in chapters 6 and 7 follows in a scholarly tradition that
falls somewhere in between these two poles, not assuming perfectly
faithful transmission of earlier opinions and redactions, but nonetheless
16
16 Introduction
operating with the premise that attention to a host of factors can help us
to pull apart a talmudic passage and determine where development has
occurred.51 That said, I hope that even those readers whose assumptions
about the viability of this sort of source-critical work are more minimalist
will still be able to accept the basic outlines of my argument. In particular,
though I will date the rise of sexual gentleness as a Rabbinic desideratum
for men to the late fourth century on, I will make my case in such a way
that even a scholar more inclined toward Neusner’s views will recognize a
Palestinian-Babylonian divide, even if the internal dating of this develop-
ment within Babylonia would remain impossible.
Outline of the Book
This book is divided into three parts. Part I, which comprises three
chapters, begins with a consideration of virginity testing in a cross-cul-
tural perspective, then moves on to treat the biblical underpinnings of
Rabbinic and Christian virginity testing and some early interpretation
thereon. Chapter 1 sets the scene for the remainder of part I by demon-
strating the ways in which virginity testing and male sexual aggression
have generally come hand in hand. My argument continues in chapter 2,
where I set the bloody sheets of Deuteronomy 22 in their biblical context
and, by reading them both independently and alongside the attempted
rape scene of Genesis 19, I highlight the violence inherent in this descrip-
tion of virginity testing. I then turn in chapter 3 to a number of texts of
both the Second Temple period as well as Rabbinic works of later antiq-
uity. All of these works reinterpret the bloody sheets of Deuteronomy 22;
however, I argue that these differences reflect juridical concerns about
the reliability of the biblical standard, rather than deeper doubts about
the very notion of locating female virginity in a physical body. In these
non-Christian Jewish works, Deuteronomy’s presentation of female vir-
ginity as a trait best measured through the body’s response to trauma
goes unchallenged.
Part II is composed of two chapters and considers works that hint at
an alternative conception of female virginity. In chapter 4, I analyze three
first-century texts originating in three distinct Jewish communities, each
of which leaves open the possibility of an alternative standard for testing
virginity. Josephus and Philo both gloss over the details of Deuteronomy
22 in their respective paraphrases of the biblical pericope. However, I will
argue that this omission is likely not indicative of a meaningful departure
17
Introduction 17
from the Deuteronomic paradigm in the case of Josephus; by contrast,

there is reason to believe that it may signal something larger for Philo,
though here too, we must read a great deal into his silence. In any event,
the Gospel of Matthew, which depicts a kind of testing of Mary’s virginity,
produces a viable alternative to Deuteronomy that will become significant
in later Christian texts. In chapter 5, I consider a number of these Christian
texts, alongside the decidedly non-Christian Mishnah. I argue that the
appearance of a vaginal examination in the Protevangelium of James should
be understood as part of the work’s “Jewish” nature, reflecting a kind of
shared heritage with the authors of the Qumran texts. Furthermore, both
the Mishnah and the Protevangelium share important traits, betraying
some amount of anxiety regarding earlier Jewish ideas of anatomical vir-
ginity. Anonymous Syriac poetry of the fifth and sixth centuries reveals
an increased emphasis on nonanatomical standards for female virginity.
However, despite the increasing significance of virginity- as-
expressed-
through-faith in the Christian texts (and, at least, anxiety about anatomical
virginity in the Mishnah), the Deuteronomic depiction of female virgin-
ity as something reflected in the body is never displaced in these works
and remains an important, if not central, mode of thinking about female
virginity.
Part III, which spans c hapters 6 through 8, is the heart of this book.
I consider two (sets of) authors—the Babylonian Talmud and Augustine
of Hippo. I argue that these authors produced a body of work regarding
virginity testing that represents a radical (and short-lived) departure from
earlier biblically influenced thinking about female virginity. In chapter 6,
I analyze in detail a surprising Babylonian development and argue that this
new standard for establishing—or denying—a bride’s virginity reverses
the biblical model and its encouragement of aggressively sexual men,
replacing it with a glorification of gentle Rabbinic men. Chapter 7 looks at
two cases from the Babylonian Talmud that are not directly about virginity
testing in order to show that the shift I demonstrate in chapter 6 is part of a
larger project of redefining the kind of man desired. In chapter 8, I turn to
Augustine of Hippo, first setting him in the context of the Latin Christian
traditions that he inherited. Cyprian and Ambrose, like the Protevangelium
and late antique Syriac authors, share a perhaps surprising amount with
earlier Jewish authors, most notably a concession to (and, in the case of
Cyprian, even endorsement of) the use of physiological examinations to
assess a woman’s virginity, coupled with a certain level of conflict about
the relative merits of this anatomized virginity. Augustine, by contrast,
18
18 Introduction
radically departs from his predecessors, thoroughly removing female vir-

ginity from the realm of the anatomical and placing it entirely in the juris-
diction of the will.
The book concludes with an epilogue considering the medieval fate of
the innovations of Augustine and the Babylonian Talmud, which at the
same time serves as a reminder of the importance of understanding what
produced these singular approaches to female virginity. I conclude with
some thoughts on how the fundamentally historical work of this book
might, I hope, be useful in the contemporary construction of a feminist
masculinity.
19
PART I
Testing Virginity in the Body

20
21
Virginity and Violence in

Cross-Cultural Perspective
Although the diversity of forms that it has taken is wide-ranging, the

phenomenon of testing a woman’s virginity appears in a host of cultures
and literatures. Orienting ourselves in the range of modes for virginity
testing highlights a number of aspects of Jewish and Christian models that
we might not otherwise pay sufficient attention to. First of all, despite com-
mon Western assumptions to the contrary, the idea that genital rupture,
marked through bleeding or lacerations, is a useful marker of a woman’s
virginity is actually a fairly unusual phenomenon, perhaps even unique to
Deuteronomy and its intellectual descendants. Although what we might
term “medical” tests for virginity appear in various settings, they generally
do not involve examination of sheets or a woman’s genitalia. In any event,
far more common than any kind of medical test is the ordeal, in which a
woman must prove her virtue through some dangerous or magical test.
Although these ordeals are quite different in their form from the bloodied
sheets of Deuteronomy, they nonetheless very often highlight the violence
of virginity testing in nearly all of its forms.
The Surprisingly Biblical Nature

of Bloodied Sheets
It is far too easy for moderns—both those who consciously accept tra-
ditional views and those who work actively to subvert patriarchal struc-
tures—to take for granted genital bleeding as the classical standard for
female virginity. The realization, then, that virginity tests that claim to
judge a woman’s sexual history based on wedding-night bleeding are
2
22 Testing Virginity in the Body
rare or nonexistent outside of cultures influenced by biblical texts is

striking. Although the prizing of female virginity is not unique to the
Hebrew Bible, neither is it universal;1 more important, even in societies
that assert the importance of female virginity, tests designed to establish
or disprove a woman’s virginity, where they appear, display a remarkable
diversity. Outside of cultures influenced by the Hebrew Bible, bloodied
sheets rarely if ever appear.2
The far-reaching influence of the Hebrew Bible on the modern world,
however, has meant that blood and bloodstains resulting from genital rup-
ture are the virginity test best known to contemporary readers. Kathleen
Coyne Kelly catalogues numerous examples of the ongoing power of the
Deuteronomic trope in contemporary American culture. Thus, for exam-
ple, the novelist Gabriel Garcia Márquez, writing about a character’s
first sexual encounter, refers to the “bloody ceremony” and the “rose of
honor on the sheet”;3 the character Cher in the movie Clueless reframes
the notion of virgin as “hymeneally challenged”;4 an anonymous contrib-
utor to Kelly’s website described a story in which her father brought her
to a hospital to be tested for “the possibility of intercourse.”5 The “red
apple” ritual in Armenia, which assumes bleeding as a sign of female vir-
ginity, has been contested in recent years, but its very contestation bears
witness to the continuing influence of Deuteronomy’s picture of female
virginity.6 Examples of the assumption that lacerations and/or bleeding
somehow “prove” or mark a woman’s virginity in modern Western culture
abound. As Kelly writes, representations in popular culture of virginity
and virginity lost “tend to go unexamined, because they are so pervasive
and ubiquitous.”7
A less well-known virginity test, but one that I will argue in c hapter 3
is intimately connected with the bloodied sheets of Deuteronomy 22, is
the phenomenon of women performing a vaginal examination to testify
to the “virginal” state of a woman, sometimes a bride before her wedding,
but also often women who have committed to lifelong chastity whose
(physical? moral?) integrity has been called into question. Although this
practice is, unfortunately, not unknown in the twenty-first century,8 prob-
ably its greatest ongoing significance in Western culture is as part of the
legend of Joan of Arc, who was subjected to such exams as part of her tri-
als.9 Yet the practice is clearly legible even to twentieth-century American
readers; Kelly directs our attention to a similar exam in the 1959 film A
Summer Place, which she proceeds to analyze productively (and necessar-
ily disturbingly).10
23
Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 23
In light of the widespread use of both bloodied sheets and midwives’

examinations in postbiblical communities, the absence of such measures
of virginity in other settings is quite startling. To begin with, although legal
rulings in the Hebrew Bible generally and the book of Deuteronomy in
particular very often find cognates—identical or similar—in other Ancient
Near Eastern texts, the use of postcoital bleeding to testify to a bride’s vir-
ginity is unique. Female virginity is clearly prized in ancient Mesopotamian
texts, but no physical test of this virginity appears in that corpus.11 Rather,
when male judges in these texts are interrogating a woman’s sexual sta-
tus, they rely on a woman’s own claims about her sexual status in the
form of oaths.12 I will return to consider the use of oaths below, but for the
time being, I want only to highlight what appears to be the uniqueness of
Deuteronomy’s anatomical appraisal of a woman’s virginity.
The distinctiveness of the biblical test of female virginity is paralleled
by the ongoing singularity of the continued use of this model in postbibli-
cal authors. Although many texts written by Christians in Latin and Greek,
as early as the second century, mention the practice of midwives’ examina-
tions (see c hapters 5 and 8), no evidence of such a practice exists in non-
Christian Greek and Roman texts. Roman legal texts, despite extensively
discussing sexual crimes and explicitly requiring vaginal penetration for
someone to be guilty of such a crime,13 provide no indication as to what
constitutes “evidence” of such an act.14 The total absence of descriptions of
physical tests of virginity suggests that when postbiblical Jewish and early
Christian authors discussed bloodied sheets or midwives’ examinations of
virginity, they did so primarily under the influence of Deuteronomy and
not the dominant Roman culture.
This impression from silence finds some possibly affirmative evidence
as well in a line from the novel Leucippe and Clitophon, likely composed
in second-century Alexandria or thereabout by an author named Achilles
Tatius. One of the story’s protagonists, a young girl named Leucippe,
stands accused by her mother of unchastity upon finding a man in her
daughter’s bedroom. Leucippe cries out exasperatedly, “What more can
I say? What kind of proof would satisfy you that I’m telling the truth? If
there is a virginity test, I’ll take it.”15 Leucippe’s desire for a defense—“if
there is a virginity test”—suggests that no such test exists. Her mother’s
response perhaps muddies our understanding of this passage (“That’s all
we need now, for everybody to know about our disgrace!”), since it may
imply not a lack of means to test a girl’s virginity, but rather, a lack of a
test that would satisfy the girl’s mother. But in any event, as I will note
24
below, the novel later resorts to a test that has nothing to do with the body
of the accused. Thus, it seems more likely that the sort of virginity test
familiar to contemporary Western readers simply was not on the minds
of the characters in and readers of Achilles Tatius’s novel. Although the
trope of lost virginity attested to by blood or lacerations is so common in
contemporary American culture (and Western society more generally) that
one might well take it for granted, its lineage appears to be closely tied to
Deuteronomy 22 and its reception.
Other Medical Exams
Bloodied sheets and vaginal examinations are unusual; however, other
methods of examining a woman’s body to assess her sexual history do
appear elsewhere. Thus, for example, a number of Greek and Latin writ-
ers refer to the “increase in size of the young girl’s neck and a consequent
change in the quality of her voice” as a sign of previous sexual experience.16
This increased size of the neck likely results from the confluence of two
ancient medical assumptions: that sexual intercourse widens the vaginal
canal or cervix, and that the female body is symmetrical, with the neck the
upper, mirror image of the vaginal canal. Yet it is the neck specifically, and
not female genitalia, to which these ancient writers look for evidence of
sexual activity.
Medieval European medical texts, alongside continued reference
to genital rupture, present other anatomical tests of virginity. The late
thirteenth-/early fourteenth-century work De secretis mulierum, composed
by a student of Albertus Magnus, introduces urinalysis, stating that “clear
and lucid” urine testifies to unsullied chastity.17 The thirteenth-century
Italian surgeon William of Saliceto invokes a similar, though also clearly
distinct, test: examining the sound a woman’s body makes and the time
that it takes her to urinate, with “a subtle hiss” and a longer episode indi-
cating virginity.18
The combination of the hissing sound and the slower rate of urina-
tion suggests that this test, like the measuring of the neck, derives from a
notion that virgins have narrower vaginal canals.19 Indeed, the author of
De secretis mulierum states explicitly that when a woman’s vagina “becomes
so widened that a man can enter there without any pain to his member,”
it “is a sign that the woman was first corrupted.”20 This interest in vag-
inal narrowness is instructive in the context of this book because of its
central role in c hapter 6, where I will argue that the Babylonian model,
25
by directing grooms’ focus away from blood and toward vaginal narrow-
ness, encourages gentleness and deliberation in the sexual act. Thus, the
statement in De secretis mulierum that vaginal widening occurs specifi-
cally because “the male member is exceedingly large and inept,”21 which
seems to make male transformation of a female body a negative—and
avoidable—consequence of heterosexual penetrative intercourse (“exceed-
ingly large and inept”), provides a useful point of comparison for my anal-
ysis of the Babylonian Talmud, where I find a similar correlation between
vaginal narrowness as a standard of virginity and a disdain for aggressive
male penetration.
Of course, as both Ann Ellis Hanson and Kelly point out, the “most bla-
tant”—and only reliable—test of virginity (if we can indeed call it a “test”)
is pregnancy.22 That is, only pregnancy makes clear that a woman has
indeed engaged in some sort of penetrative sexual intercourse.23 But even
the phenomenon of pregnancy generated a genre of virginity tests with
a shakier medical basis. Thus, Hanson describes the ancient belief that,
upon successful insemination, the uterus would immediately close over
the seed, thus providing evidence of previous sexual activity long before a
woman began to show. Unfortunately for any parties interested in discern-
ing a particular woman’s sexual status, this state of the closed uterus was
discernible only to the pregnant woman herself, thus rendering it useless
for establishing virginity (though introducing a particularly striking case
of subjectivity into this discourse).24
Ordeals
Until now I have considered various methods of examining a woman’s
body to make a claim about her sexual history. But when we focus on
those texts available to us from classical and late antiquity (as opposed to
those from the later Middle Ages), the most prominent means of testing
virginity do not look to virgins’ anatomy at all.25 Rather, we find virginity
tests based not on the physical traits of a woman, but instead on her abil-
ity to survive some ordeal or to perform some particular task. The Greek
historian Herodotus, for example, describes a community in what is now
Libya in which every year, during a festival celebrating the virgin goddess
Athena, the young women of the community would be divided into two
groups to attack each other with sticks and stones, with only those surviv-
ing deemed true “virgins.”26 Here virginity is read not through a wom-
an’s anatomy, but rather through divine providence; neither a woman’s
26
genitalia nor any other aspect of her anatomy is significant in determining

her sexual status.
A less gruesome test, but one that also looks outside of the virgin’s
body for its evidence, appears in the Facta et dicta memorabilia of the first-
century historian Valerius Maximus. Valerius reports that a consecrated
virgin by the name of Tuccia, accused of “impurity,” grabbed hold of a
sieve, called upon Vesta for support, and thereby carried water in the sieve
from the Tiber to Vesta’s temple.27 Yet another ordeal comes to us from
the third-century Roman author Aelian, who describes the sacred virgins
of Lanuvium.28 The maidens of the place would enter a cave in the forest
blindfolded to serve cakes to a snake. If the cakes were accepted, the tested
woman was proved a virgin; if, however, the ants crushed the cakes and
then removed the debris, she was determined to be a “false” virgin.29
Unsurprisingly, given the nature of the genre, the Greek romance novel
of the Second Sophistic in particular frequently features ordeals as tests
of virgins’ chastity. I have already mentioned the dramatically conspicu-
ous absence of a virginity test early in the narrative of the novel Leucippe
and Clitophon. Later in the novel, however, Leucippe is again accused of
unchastity; this time, she is indeed tested, sent ominously into Pan’s cave
(though the precise danger is not made explicit). Shortly after entering,
however, “a melody began to be detected, and it was said that never before
had such delicate music been heard.”30 Thus is her virginity proved with-
out any examination of her body.31
So too in Heliodorus’s novel An Ethiopian Story, written anywhere from
the mid-third to mid-fourth centuries, in which, fascinatingly, both a boy
and a girl are tested by means of a gridiron on which the candidates to be
sacrificed must walk, those who have known sexual intercourse are ruled
unfit, “allocated to Dionysos and the other gods,” rather than to the Sun
and Moon. The male protagonist of the story “passes” the test, that is,
proves himself worthy to be sacrificed; the female protagonist, Charikleia,
also does so, but in truly spectacular fashion. After putting on her Delphic
robe “woven with gold thread and embroidered with rays . . . she let her
hair fall free, ran forward like one possessed, and sprang onto the gridi-
ron, where she stood for some time without taking any hurt.” The crowd
marvels “that she had preserved pure and undefiled a beauty so far sur-
passing that of humankind . . . the greatest ornament to her beauty was
chastity.”32 In these Greek novels of late antiquity, girls’ and women’s vir-
ginity is repeatedly tested—in both senses of “to test”—but never through
the examination of her physiology, but rather through the successful
27
managing of an ordeal. This phenomenon is consistent with Greek and

Roman texts of other genres.
Looking for ordeals as virginity tests can bring us back to the Ancient
Near East as well. As I noted above, Jerold Cooper has demonstrated that
testimony is the only clearly discernible mode of proving virginity in
Mesopotamian law. He also points out the great fear and trembling that
inhered in the notion of a false oath in the Ancient Near East; for a woman
to take a formal legal oath testifying to her own virginity may have indeed
carried with it the sort of panic and sense of testing “virtue” as is implied
in the ordeals described above.33 In other words, though our evidence for
virginity testing of any kind is scanty, ordeals were perhaps more promi-
nent in the cultural context of Deuteronomy and clearly so in the world in
which Rabbinic and early Christian texts were authored.
Even in postbiblical societies under the influence of Deuteronomy, in
which bloodied sheets and midwives appear regularly, ordeals still occur
alongside the biblical models as a means of testing a woman’s virginity.
According to a medieval German folk belief, if a woman goes near a bee-
hive and comes away unstung, her virginity has been proved.34 In the
Middle English romance Floris and Blauncheflur, the Sultan of Babylon
tests prospective brides’ virginity by means of a magical fountain, the
water of which will “scream out as if it were completely mad and become
red as blood” should a woman with previous sexual experience place her
hands in it.35
Indeed, Rabbinic literature itself includes one such ordeal as a test of
women’s virginity. At bYev 60b, discussing Moses’s instructions to the
returning soldiers from the Israelite massacre of the Midianites, the anon-
ymous voice of the Babylonian Talmud asks, “How did they know [which
women had ‘known men’ and which had not]?”36 Rav Huna b. Bizna reports
in the name of Rabbi Simeon Hasida that “they passed them before the
high priest’s frontlet; any whose face turned green, she was known to be
fit for intercourse.” Given the context—those girls who are “fit for inter-
course” will be put to the sword—this magical test displays the classic
traits of an ordeal to prove virginity.
Virginity Tests, Symbolic Violence, and

the Violence of (“Taking”) Virginity
Following Kelly, I have until now divided these tests into two sorts: “med-
ical tests” and “ordeals.”37 I will return to Kelly’s distinction in my
28
consideration of the Protevangelium of James in chapter 5. But I now want

to consider these virginity tests via a different criterion, one based not on
their means, but rather on their effects: do they encourage, or discourage,
male physical violence as a component of sexual activity in general and ini-
tial sexual experience in particular? Certainly, when we consider the effects
of virginity tests based on either vaginal bleeding or the existence of lacera-
tions, we should be acutely aware of the connection between this initial act
of penetrative intercourse and such violence. As I have argued above, if
the only way to attest to a woman’s virginity is through her bleeding or her
otherwise showing visible signs of previous bleeding, then a groom intent
on “knowing” that his bride was a virgin is more likely to engage in sexual
relations that will wound her.
But virginity can be violent even where there are no bloody sheets and
no literal wounding. Thus, for example, Kelly directs our attention to the
way in which the Sultan’s fountain in Floris and Blauncheflur, with its water
turning red and its screams when touched by a false virgin “impersonat[es]
the young woman at the precise moment of penetration.”38 Herodotus’s
description of the Libyan festival pitting two teams of virgins against each
other similarly connects violence and blood—in this case, the actual blood
of death—with proof of virginity. And the German belief in the power
of bees to establish a woman’s virginity through their stinging (or lack
thereof) certainly carries the connotations of penetration and violence in
the form of the bees’ stings.39 In testing virginity through methods that
highlight violence against women, these ordeals suggest that the construc-
tion of virginity as something that can be verified or disproved, kept or
lost, is nearly always tied up with images of aggression and violence.
And indeed, both in antiquity and more recent times, virginity and its
“loss” is very often portrayed as violent, even when it is not specifically
being tested. Consider the passage that appeared at the opening of the
introduction, from the second-century Greek novel Daphnis and Chloe.
The male protagonist, Daphnis, eager to consummate his relationship
with his beloved Chloe, but unable to because neither he nor she under-
stands the mechanics of intercourse, has just been “educated” by his expe-
rienced neighbor Lycainion, who has offered him a real-life practicum, as
it were, as a means of convincing him to sleep with her. Following their
coupling, she warns him that, unlike the experience that he has just had
with her, his first sexual relations with Chloe will be marked by Chloe’s
“scream[ing]” and “cry[ing],” that she will “lie in a large pool of blood as
29
if slain.”40 Furthermore, Daphnis should bring her to the secluded spot in

the woods where this very conversation is taking place “so that even if she
cries aloud, no one will hear.” The pool of blood—the blood of Chloe’s vir-
ginity—is starkly evocative of the blood of a murder scene (“as if slain”),
and Lycainion’s encouragement to Daphnis to bring Chloe to this hidden
place lends to the act of initial penile-vaginal intercourse the disturbing
implication of a sexual assault.
The intent of this stunning passage is debatable,41 but the connection
between loss of virginity, blood, and violence is unmistakable. As John
Winkler puts it, “[E]‌ven the loving, protecting, and tender male falls inev-
itably into the category of Chloe’s enemy (polemios). If he thinks about it,
Daphnis must recognize that Chloe’s pain is inextricable from his own
desire: he has to acknowledge his desire as, inter alia, a desire to hurt
her.”42
Augustine’s description of the wedding night, also found at the head of
the introduction, similarly describes the wedding night as a scene of con-
flict and physical violence—although I will argue in c hapter 8 that in this
passage he actually is mocking the dominant culture around him, which
indeed portrayed the “taking” of virginity as a military victory. Still, despite
the polemical nature of Augustine’s tirade, the description of gods who
reflect the different aspects of first-time penetrative intercourse as con-
structed in Roman thought—subjugation and pressing, piercing and vio-
lence—is of a piece with Lycainion’s depiction of loss of virginity. Similar,
if less dramatic, depictions of the connection between loss of female vir-
ginity and male sexual violence appear in a number of texts of classical and
late antiquity.43
In a similar vein, but studying texts from a very different time and
place, Peter Cryle describes French medical manuals of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries that also depict the wedding night as a vio-
lent affair, with long-lasting effects on the sexual health of the bride and
on her relationship with her spouse. Cryle cites descriptions of brusque
grooms unable to satisfy their brides sexually, failing because of both their
inability to pleasure them and, relatedly, their excessive “impetuousness
and brutality” and “abruptness.”44 In a most grotesque but nonetheless
(indeed: and therefore) instructive formulation—a statement attributed to
Balzac and cited in a variety of manuals of the time—men are advised
“never [to] begin marriage with a rape.”45 The male physicians who author
these texts judge harshly the unthinking violence of grooms, but they also
30
view this violence as nearly inevitable, bemoaning the typical wedding

night and its barbarity. At the same time, novels of the same era depict
men who reveal the “unpardonable error” of excessive “gentleness or
refinement,” men who are unable to muster the daring and vigor needed
to consummate their marriages.46 Cryle reconciles the dismissive tone of
the physician-authors toward male brutality and the vilification of male
meekness expressed in contemporary novels as both expressing aware-
ness of and anxiety around the violence of the wedding night.47 The texts
Cryle studies may be separated from Daphnis and Chloe by nearly two mil-
lenia, but the conceptions of male sexuality and female virginity seem
barely to have changed.
All of which is to say that despite a wide variety of modes for “verify-
ing” female virginity in an array of cultures and literary genres and vari-
ous assumptions about what indeed marks such virginity, one common
thread is the idea that penetrative intercourse in general—but in particular
a woman’s first act of such intercourse—is tied up with violence, a prom-
inent component of which is very often the bleeding that may accompany
this moment, whether real or symbolic. The late nineteenth-/early twen-
tieth-century sexologist Havelock Ellis’s claim is perhaps the most direct
expression of this commonality: “[the hymen] is an obstacle to . . . impreg-
nation. . . . The hymen is thus an anatomical expression of that admiration
of force which marks the female in her choice of mate.”48
Ellis’s association of a woman’s first experience of penetrative inter-
course with male “force” is an unsurprising descendant of Deut. 22:13–21.
This context is important for understanding the significance of the moves
made by late Babylonian Rabbis as well as Augustine. The Babylonian
Talmud, I will argue, by de-emphasizing bleeding and lacerations as evi-
dence of virginity and instead focusing on vaginal narrowness as the pri-
mary marker of chastity, discourages the male sexual violence that is so
commonly associated with the cult of female virginity (even as, as we will
see, this move may allow for greater emotional and/or economic abuse
of women). Similarly, Augustine’s total rejection of physical standards of
virginity and his related revulsion at actions that betray a lack of control
are manifest in a rhetoric critical of violent constructions of the wedding
night. But first, we must turn our attention to the text that set the standard,
for both Jewish and Christian authors in antiquity, that they would either
affirm or subvert.
31
Bloodied Sheets
The Biblical Nuptial Bed as Rape Scene
That the Hebrew Bible prizes female virginity—or at least some qual-
ity or qualities associated with that perplexing English word “virginity”—
is clear. The Hebrew word commonly translated as “virgin”— betulah
(pl. betulot)—appears repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible as a praiseworthy
or desirable state.1 Kings seek out betulot as companions,2 and both the
nation Israel and land of Zion are called betulah as a term of honor and
endearment.3 Female virginity is even given a precise economic value of
fifty units of silver.4
Although my primary interest in this chapter will be the “bloody sheets”
pericope of Deut. 22:13–21, I begin here by treating several passages that in
fact have little to say specifically about the verification of female virginity,
but that will help orient us in considering both the Deuteronomic pas-
sage and later material. The first of these biblical texts is a single verse in
Genesis describing the biblical matriarch Rebecca, a verse that will appear
in Rabbinic literature as a site of anxiety about female virginity and its
verification.5 Since I will treat Rabbinic texts that make use of this verse
in c hapter 3, I consider the biblical forerunner here. I then analyze Lev.
21:13–15 and the related text at Ezek. 44:22, both of which deal with the
laws governing priests and their appropriate marital partners. These pas-
sages provide an opportunity to explore in a more general way the priz-
ing of female virginity in the biblical world and thus set the contextual
stage for the centerpiece of this chapter, a consideration of Deut. 22:13–21.
Those verses represent the lone biblical passage that deals with the actual
verification of female virginity. In my analysis of this “bloody sheets”
pericope, I will draw attention to the legal and exegetical problems that
32
it raises and, most important, try to make explicit the discursive effects
of these verses on male readers. This latter effort will be aided by reading
Deuteronomy alongside Gen. 19:4–11. These famous and much-misused
verses, describing the men of Sodom, their attempt to rape Lot’s visitors,
and Lot’s horrifying offer of his daughters in their stead, bring to light the
close association between the prizing of female virginity and male sexual
violence, one of the central themes of this book.
Rebecca the Betulah (Gen. 24:16)

Genesis 24 relates the mission of Abraham’s unnamed servant to find a
spouse for Isaac. Upon arriving in Nahor, the servant meets Rebecca, who,
we are told, is “very beautiful, a virgin and no man had known her” [tovat
mar’eh me’od betulah ve’ish lo yeda‘ah] (v. 16). As I will describe in c hapter
3, at least one passage in Rabbinic literature sees (or claims to see) the
relationship between the words a virgin and the phrase whom no man had
known as a redundancy. Reading contextually, however, two understand-
ings are possible. We could view the latter phrase as explicating the former.
According to this interpretation, the second phrase (whom no man had
known) defines the first [betulah].6 Alternatively, and in accordance with
my discussion in the introduction regarding the ambiguity of the Hebrew
betulah, that word may refer simply to Rebecca’s life stage.7 If so, then the
phrase whom no man had known, rather than defining the word betulah or
emphasizing Rebecca’s sexual status, provides new information, namely,
that not only is she of young, marriageable age (a betulah), but also that
she is a “virgin.” Either interpretation, however, makes clear that for the
intended reader, the absence of a sexual past with a male is prized, since
the information that “no man had known” her is paired with the fact that
Rebecca is very beautiful.8 The biblical author provides this description of
the future matriarch to the reader in order to extol Rebecca’s status, and it
is thus an example of the general prizing of female virginity so common
in the Hebrew Bible.
Importantly for my purposes, however, there is no mention of
Rebecca’s virginity in the spoken dialogue of the chapter, but rather, only
in the narration.9 Abraham’s servant either assumes Rebecca’s virginity
or does not care about it. There is no reference here to signifiers of vir-
ginity, nor is there any indication of what such verification might be. The
omniscient narrator has told us that Rebecca has not been known by a
man; Abraham’s servant apparently assumes it. Since Rebecca’s virginity
3
Bloodied Sheets 33
is never challenged in the narrative, her story reveals no information about

the verification of virginity.
For that matter, while it is clearly prized here, we do not even know
how to define virginity in this passage. What is the meaning of “and no
man had known her” [ve’ish lo yeda‘ah]? Even modern Americans com-
pletely unfamiliar with biblical literature understand and occasionally use
the euphemistic rendering of “ ‘knowing’ in the biblical sense.” Genesis
24:16 certainly references something sexual with its use of this phrase.
But does such “knowledge” necessarily mean penile-vaginal intercourse?
Had Rebecca engaged in anal intercourse with a man, or heavy petting,
or a legally-valid-but-never-consummated marriage, would the text still
describe her as a virgin whom no man had known? What if she had planned
on having sexual relations with a man but then changed her mind? All
of these ambiguities about the meaning of female virginity will be raised
explicitly, and in many cases specifically in the context of this biblical text,
by a variety of authors in texts that I will discuss in c hapters 3, 5, and 8. The
biblical concern with a woman’s previous sexual experience, then, which
at first appears perfectly unambiguous, is in fact relatively opaque. If we
are careful not to make assumptions about the meaning(s) of female vir-
ginity, then the most we can say is that this particular biblical text reveals a
prizing of a young woman’s abstinence from at least some form of sexual
activity with a man prior to her marriage.
Virginity and Genealogy

(Lev. 21:13–15 and Ezek. 44:22)
Virginity and Genealogy
The discussion of female virginity in Lev. 21:13–15 provides us with some
clues as to why biblical authors and readers might have valued female
virginity. In a discussion of the additional prohibitions relevant to the
high priest (as opposed to run-of-the-mill priests), the biblical text states,
“He may marry only a woman in her betulim [bivtuleha].10 A widow, or a
divorced woman, or one who is degraded by harlotry—such he may not
marry. Only a virgin [betulah] of his own kin may he take to wife—that he
may not profane his offspring among his kin, for I the LORD have sancti-
fied him.”
As in Gen. 24:16, the text clearly values a woman’s virginity, in this
case as a prerequisite for marrying the high priest. The text bars the high
priest from marrying any woman—widow, divorcee, or a woman who is
34
known to have had sexual relations outside of licit marriage (Heb: halalah

zonah)11—whose legal status implies previous sexual experience with a
man. Strikingly, the ruling for the high priest is different from that of
priests in general. Leviticus 21:7 forbids the same list of women to regular
priests, but with the omission of the widow. Picking up on this difference,
many commentators suggest that divorce in Israelite society carried with
it a stronger social stigma than widowhood, such that even run-of-the-mill
priests were discouraged or forbidden from marrying divorcees. In the
words of Jacob Milgrom, “The exemption of the widow would, therefore,
indicate that the prohibition focuses on reputation, not on virginity.”12 In
particular, the fact of divorce may imply to the imagined biblical reader
“other deficiencies: she may be pregnant, barren (B. Leigh), or unfaithful
(Abravanel).”13
The difference in legislation for regular priests and for the high priest
may suggest another set of concerns at play here as well. We can summa-
rize concisely the marriage legislation of Leviticus 21 as follows: priests
may not marry a woman who has had sexual relations (however defined)
with any living man; the high priest may not marry a woman who has
had sexual relations with any man, even if that man is no longer alive.14
The restrictions on the regular priests thus may indicate a concern that a
priest’s marrying a woman who had been “known” by another man could
result in implicit or explicit challenges to priestly authority. In a religious
world in which priests are tasked with the maintenance of cultic regula-
tions and are understood as being in closer direct relationship to the divine
(“and you must treat them as holy, since they offer the food of your God;
they shall be holy to you” [Lev. 21:8]), the sexual past of the priest’s part-
ner with another man could blur the boundaries between lay and clerical
in ways that could threaten priestly authority.15 Of course, if this were the
only concern, then a woman divorced by a priest should also be allowed
to marry a priest, but the maintenance of boundaries between the priestly
religious leadership and the Israelite laity may nonetheless lie in part
behind these regulations.
A parallel biblical text at Ezek. 44:22 indicates an additional interpre-
tation with particular relevance for our consideration of the importance of
female virginity in the Hebrew Bible. In Ezek. 44:9–31, the prophet, him-
self a priest, restates and modifies the Pentateuch’s priestly laws. In verse
22, he states, “[The priests] shall not marry widows or divorced women;
they may marry only virgins [betulot] of the stock of the House of Israel,
or widows who are widows of priests.” Ezekiel has added a prohibition on
35
Bloodied Sheets 35
regular priests that was not present in Lev. 21:7; in the latter text, regular
priests were allowed to marry widows. But Ezekiel includes widows in the
list of relationships forbidden to all priests. Ezekiel does, however, per-
mit widows to priests, so long as they were previously married to a priest. As
Frymer-Kensky puts it, the defining trait of a suitable bride for a regular
priest in Ezekiel is “that she has not been stamped as a non-priest.”16
Frymer-Kensky’s reading of Ezekiel is similar though not identical to
the interpretation that I offered for Leviticus 21 above, that is, that there
should be no blurring of the boundaries between priestly and lay fami-
lies. But by expanding the prohibition, even for run-of-the-mill priests,
to include widows of Israelite men, Ezekiel also hints at the importance
of genealogy as a motivating factor in valuing female virginity. Limiting
priestly marital partners to “virgins” and women who have been married
previously to a priest means that any children born of the union are the
patrilineal descendants of a priest.17
This interpretation of Ezek. 44:22 also makes good sense of Lev. 21:13–
14’s ruling regarding the high priest. The biblical author wants to ensure
that the high priest’s line is genealogically pure, especially given the likeli-
hood that one of his sons will be not only a priest, but the succeeding high
priest. He must therefore marry a virgin, defined here18 as a woman who
has not had penile-vaginal intercourse with a man.19 Ezekiel’s standard for
all priests is insufficient for the high priest in Lev. 21:13–15; should the high
priest’s wife be pregnant with a child from a previous marriage to another
priest, that child will not be the paragon of genealogical purity represented
by the line specifically of the high priest.
The use of language about tribe and progeny bolsters this understand-
ing of Lev. 21:13–15. The priest must marry a virgin of his own kin, and if
he does not, he will profane his offspring among his kin. The reference to
the profaning of his kin makes clear that inappropriate marriage creates
some kind of problem for the high priest’s offspring. Rabbinic literature
understands this to mean a disqualification of the high priest’s children
from the rights and privileges of priesthood;20 regardless, this connection
of priestly marital malfeasance with consequences for offspring may sug-
gest that purity of line lies behind the rulings here.
The limitation of marriage to a virgin of his own kin similarly invokes
the specter of genealogical purity. The Hebrew phrase for of his own kin
here is me’amav, which is somewhat ambiguous. The phrase may require
marriage to a virgin Israelite, with the word am referring to the nation.21
But a number of commentators argue in favor of reading the word more
36
narrowly as referring to the high priest’s tribe, that is, he may marry only
the daughter of another priest.22 Either way, the role of genealogical purity
is clear, though it certainly reverberates more strongly if the high priest is
limited in his choice of marital partner to the daughters of other priests.
Genealogy is thus connected to the prizing of female virginity, albeit
to different extents, in both Lev. 21:13–15 and Ezek. 44:22. Genealogy does
not appear to be a concern for regular priests in Lev. 21:7, since they are
allowed to marry widows. This difference makes clear that female virginity
is not required of marital partners for priests in that verse. This analysis of
Leviticus 21 and Ezekiel 22 provides us with two important insights into
the prizing of female virginity in the biblical world: it is, at least in these
passages, connected to concerns for purity of genetic line, and secondly, as
a result, it is not prized equally for all men. It is possible, and even likely
that regular priests would have preferred to marry a “virgin” rather than a
widow (as Gen. 24:16 surely indicates). But only for a very select group of
people, namely the high priests, does this prizing rise to the level of legis-
lative fiat.
Does Lev. 21:13 Teach Us about

the Definition or Signs of Virginity?
We can also interrogate Leviticus 21 with regard to the understanding of
female virginity that it presents. The key phrase for my purposes is ishah
bivtuleha (v. 13), which I translated above (deviating from the NJPS transla-
tion) as “a woman in her betulim.” The second word in the Hebrew phrase
is a possessive construct—“her betulim.” The question, then, is the mean-
ing of this word betulim, which is clearly related to the word betulah—a
word with a slippery meaning in its own right—but which is in masculine
plural form. Biblical dictionaries translate the word to mean virginity but
note that it often (as in Deut. 22:13–21, in the next section) carries the con-
crete sense of tokens of virginity, that is, proof that the woman in question
is a virgin.23 One might therefore try to understand Lev. 21:13 quite literally:
the high priest’s bride must be bivtuleha, that is, she must have some phys-
ical marker of virginity.24 Perhaps a wedding night without physical proof
of “virginity” in the form of blood would invalidate a high priest’s mar-
riage. Gordon Wenham has argued convincingly, however, that the word
more likely refers to a state of being (i.e., the state of being a girl or young
woman of reproductive age), rather than to a concrete object.25 Though I
will argue against Wenham’s interpretation vis-à-vis Deut. 22:13–21 below,
37
Bloodied Sheets 37
in this context, the point is sound. Thus, as was the case with Gen. 24:16,
Lev. 21:13 does not provide us with any insight into how female virginity
might be defined or marked in the biblical world.
Virginity and Violence (Deut. 22:13–21)

Female Virginity as a Male Weapon
Leviticus 21 presented us with insight into why some authors and/or read-
ers in the biblical world might prize female virginity, even as it refused to
yield insight into how such virginity might be defined or marked; Deut.
22:13–21 does the opposite. In this text, female virginity and male anxiety
about its verification take center stage:
13
A man marries a woman and cohabits with her. Then he takes an
aversion to her 14and makes up charges against her and defames
her, saying, “I married this woman; but when I approached her,
I did not find betulim in her.”26 15In such a case, the girl’s father
and mother shall produce the girl’s betulim27 before the elders of
the town at the gate. 16And the girl’s father shall say to the elders, “I
gave this man my daughter to wife, but he has taken an aversion to
her; 17so he has made up charges, saying, ‘I did not find betulim for
your daughter.’28 But these are my daughter’s betulim!”29 And they
shall spread out the garment before the elders of the town. 18The
elders of that town shall then take the man and flog him, 19and
they shall fine him a hundred [shekels of ] silver and give it to the
girl’s father; for the man has defamed a virgin in Israel. Moreover,
she shall remain his wife; he shall never have the right to divorce
her. 20But if the charge proves true, betulim were not found for
the girl,30 21then the girl shall be brought out to the entrance of
her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to
death; for she did a shameful thing in Israel, committing fornica-
tion while under her father’s authority. Thus you will sweep away
evil from your midst.
The pericope describes a woman accused of some sort of lack of chastity.31

The father, defending his daughter against the false charge, brings out
a garment (simlah) and displays the betulim. Here the word must mean
something physical—something is being held up for inspection—and the
most reasonable understanding of this physical evidence is that it refers to
38
postcoital bleeding.32 The betulim on the garment serve as the verification

of the girl’s status as a “virgin” at the time of the wedding.
In light of the sampling of biblical texts considered above, it is utterly
unsurprising that female virginity here is prized, and even commodified.33
As opposed to Leviticus 21, in which the requirement of a “virgin” bride
was limited to the high priest, here female virginity is socially (and eco-
nomically) relevant to all Israelite males, without any differentiation based
on the male’s social status. That is to say, Deut. 22:13–21 makes clear that
female virginity is a desideratum, even if not a requirement, in finding a
mate for all Israelite males. If a man thought his marital partner was a vir-
gin and later suspects that he was misled, he will seek retribution.34
Before proceeding to a closer analysis, I note that the invocation of
the death penalty in verses 20–21 is, even leaving aside the other bizarre
aspects of this pericope, a mighty challenge for biblical interpreters. As
generations of interpreters have pointed out, a penalty of death for pre-
marital unchastity stands at odds with the rulings of Deut. 22:25–29 and
especially Exod. 22:15–17, none of which suggest such a consequence for
premarital sexual relations.35 This biblical incongruity motivates (at least
in part) the Rabbinic move to read Deut. 22:13–21 as discussing a woman
who forfeited her virginity following betrothal and prior to her wedding
night.36
The passage disturbingly and clearly shows the ways in which virgin-
ity can be used as a tool by a spiteful husband. In the first case (vv. 13–19),
the man makes use of social-legal assumptions about female virginity to
accuse a wife to whom he has taken an aversion. Based on verses 20–21, we
know that the consequence, should he be successful in his claim, will be
the death of his wife.37 In light of the commodification of female virgin-
ity in these passages, we may assume that this groom, should his claim
be upheld, would also be entitled to the return of the bride price (and/or
to keep the dowry), although this is not made explicit. Should the elders
affirm the man’s accusations, he will be able to end his marriage and mur-
der his bride while suffering no personal consequences.38
Tikva Frymer-Kensky points out that the no-divorce clause of verse
19 serves as a deterrent to prevent exactly such an abuse, since should
the elders discover the groom’s chicanery, he will be economically pun-
ished and required to remain in his marriage to—and thus obligated to
support—his wife.39 But the very existence of verses 13–19, even as they
serve to offer a defense of falsely-accused virgins, also makes clear the bib-
lical recognition of virginity’s possible violence. The demand for proof of
39
Bloodied Sheets 39
virginity in this pericope is thus a dangerous and violent entity, which not
only threatens women financially, but can even prove fatal.
Betulim, Blood, and Violence

Most important in this pericope for my inquiry is the discussion of the
physical mark of virginity here—the betulim. Bleeding following wedding-
night relations is both necessary and sufficient, the singular proof that
the bride was indeed a “virgin.” Should her parents prove able to produce
evidence of bleeding, she is acquitted and protected; but if the charge proves
true, if betulim were not found for the girl, then the biblical text rules her to
be unchaste with so high a degree of legal confidence that she is executed.
Deuteronomy 22:13–21 is the only passage in the Hebrew Bible that con-
nects postcoital bleeding with female virginity. But this connection creates
(or, alternatively, reflects and reifies) a paradigmatic way of thinking about
female virginity that will dominate Jewish and Christian literature.
At the most basic level, the standard of “finding” (or not finding) betu-
lim as determining a bride’s premarital chastity makes for deeply troubled
court procedure. For one thing, postcoital bleeding following a woman’s
first act of penetrative vaginal intercourse is far from inevitable, a fact
that, as I will show in the later chapters, was already recognized by early
Jewish and Christian authors. Thus, Deuteronomy’s standard of virginity
makes very likely the possibility that a woman falsely accused (intention-
ally or otherwise) could be wrongly convicted. From the other direction,
this “evidence” of virginity remains relatively easy to falsify, given the clear
assumption of the verses’ author that the bride’s parents kept the bridal
sheet (or whatever other garment is intended by the Hebrew simlah). In
Alexander Rofé’s unambiguous turn of phrase, “as a legal precedent, the
case is virtually worthless.”40
As I noted above, the word betulim in Deut. 22:13–21 is quite clearly
something physical, but the word nonetheless remains ambiguous, as evi-
denced by the inconsistency with which many English translations render
it.41 For example, NJPS understands betulim both as the state of being a
virgin (e.g., I found that she was not a virgin in v. 14; the girl was found not to
have been a virgin in v. 20) but also as evidence of virginity (as in v. 15 and
the father’s response to the groom in v. 17). Similar inconsistency appears
in the AKJV,42 NASB,43 and NIV translations.44
The difference in translation reflects ambiguity about whether the word
betulim should be read as a plural noun (male-gendered nouns in Hebrew
generally taking an -im ending) or an abstract noun (as in words such
40
as hayyim [life], elohim [God], and mayyim [water]).45 But the difference
between these two shades of meaning—virginity, or signs/evidence/tokens
of virginity—is more than semantic. The different translations reflect two
divergent attitudes about the meaning of this blood: is it merely the sign
that a woman is a “virgin,” evidence of something else that we might
call “virginity?” Is postcoital bleeding simply the best means the biblical
author can devise for assessing whether the young woman in question has
previously engaged in penetrative intercourse? Or is this blood in some
sense the very definition (in whole or at least in part) of female virginity? Is
the blood itself at least part of what the male groom desires in his marital
partner?46
If we read the word betulim as a plural noun, and thus as something
like tokens of virginity, then the male interest in blood recorded in this text
is secondary; men desire it solely to ensure that something else is the case,
whether that be a concern for genealogical purity/reliability, as was indi-
cated by Leviticus 21, or some other set of concerns. But if we read the
word as an abstract noun—virginity—then physical rupture is synony-
mous with the loss of virginity (rather than being merely a signifier of it);
what comes to be called the hymen is synonymous with virginity.47 Would
a woman whose genitalia had been ruptured by nonsexual penetration be
considered a betulah?48 Translating betulim as “virginity” means that the act
of causing bleeding is itself part of what the grooms constructed by Deut.
22:13–21 prize about female virginity. Put more baldly, understanding the
sought-after betulim of this pericope as “virginity” implies an element of
male aggression that is inherent in the biblical prizing of female virginity;
the male readers implied by the passage actively desire bleeding as part of
the sexual act.
In truth though, even if we understand the word betulim to mean
“tokens of virginity,” the effect on male readers may well be the same. In
a culture that values and even commodifies female virginity, men reading
Deut. 22:13–21 will learn to do what they can to “find” blood. Verifying vir-
ginity based on the physical remainders of the initial sexual act trains men
to view that act as inherently violent.49
Indeed, the groom’s claim in verse 17 that he did not “find” blood
actively elides his own role in producing it. The bleeding that he expects
to find is his bride’s, but it is a bleeding that he is directly responsible for
causing: a more accurate claim on the groom’s part would be “I did not
produce betulim for your daughter.” Thus, just as the death penalty of verse
21 makes explicit the possible violent consequences of valuing virginity,
41
Bloodied Sheets 41
at least in its “absence,” the virginity test of verses 13–19 implies violence
through its verification.
The example of Leviticus 21 revealed elements of female virginity
in the biblical world that were not primarily motivated by male sexual
aggression. But the invocation in Deuteronomy 22 of the death penalty
for the bride who cannot produce betulim is a powerful indication of the
dangerous importance of blood in the testing of female virginity. Given
the myriad juridical inconsistencies that blood as evidence of virginity
engenders, the punishment of stoning for the convicted bride suggests
that her lack of bleeding in some sense actually renders her a “nonvir-
gin.” I will now turn to one final biblical text that highlights precisely
this connection between male sexual violence and female virginity in the
Hebrew Bible, and which consequently must inform our reading of Deut.
22:13–21.
Genesis 19:4–11: Female Virginity

and Male Sexual Violence
Genesis 19:4–11 tells the story of Lot, his visitors, and the men of Sodom.50
Two angelic messengers have just arrived in Sodom to visit Lot and warn
him of the city’s imminent destruction. The townspeople descend on Lot’s
home and demand that he present these visitors so “that we may be inti-
mate with them [venede‘ah otam]” (v. 5). In a misguided and misogynistic
attempt to save his visitors, Lot makes an unholy offer to his fellow deni-
zens of Sodom: “I have two daughters who have not known a man [asher
lo’ yade‘u ish]. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as
you please” (v. 8). Importantly, although NJPS translates differently in one
case (who have not known a man, v. 8) from the other (we may be intimate, v.
5), the Hebrew root is the same in both verses: y-d-‘.51
The tale is horrific, making it emotionally challenging to pay attention
to its details. Nonetheless, we must not pass over the description that Lot
provides for his daughters as having not known a man. As with Rebecca
in Gen. 24:16, this facet of the daughters’ portrayal is meant to raise their
value in the eyes of male viewers, the attempted rapists of Sodom—and
presumably in the eyes of the intended readers of the text as well. Lot men-
tions this detail because he believes it is an incentive for the townsfolk to
ignore his visitors and “satisfy” themselves with his daughters instead.
Thus, Gen. 19:8 reveals the same assumption about female “virginity”
found in Gen. 24:16, namely, that it is valued (at least) by men. But what is
42
the cultural background that makes Lot think that this datum will incen-
tivize the townspeople to accept this proposed “exchange”?
Nahum Sarna argues that “Lot is not appealing to the passions of the
men of Sodom but is underscoring the seriousness with which he treats
the value of hospitality.”52 In other words, Lot highlights for the townspeo-
ple how much he [sic] is willing to give up to save his visitors. In particular,
Sarna notes that the phrase who have not known a man frequently appears
in Akkadian legal texts referring to a woman already betrothed, implying
that Lot’s offer of his daughters, if accepted, would bring a serious loss of
status for him and, by extension, his family.53
Of course, by focusing instead on Lot’s “seriousness,” this reading
elides the fact that the daughters are the true potential victims of Lot’s
proposed deal. This detail about Lot’s daughters’ sexual status may well be
relevant to Lot’s and his family’s social status, but even more so it high-
lights the goal of violence on the part of the townsfolk, intended toward
the visitors, and which Lot hopes to redirect toward his own daughters. As
Alter puts it, “Lot is surely inciting the lust of the would-be rapists in using
the same verb of sexual ‘knowledge’ they had applied to the visitors.”54
The context here, unlike the passages discussed previously in this
chapter, is not a proposed marriage, but rather, an act of rape. And in fact,
the townsfolk actually want to rape Lot’s male visitors, not his “virgin”
daughters. They are not concerned about marital status or the identity of
possible progeny resulting from this reprehensible act; the concerns of
Leviticus 21 and Ezekiel 44 discussed above have no place in this text. The
male prizing of female “virginity” in this text is not related to the orderly
maintenance of genealogical records.
Rather, the explicitly violent context of the scene signals that Lot’s men-
tioning his daughters’ virginity is related precisely to that sexually violent
impulse here depicted. The townsfolk of Sodom are looking not (only)
to satisfy some vague sexual urge, but rather to violate and denigrate
these men who have come to visit through sexual violence.55 Their venom
for Lot’s attempted “bargain” in verse 9 provides some context for this
desire: “This fellow,” they said, “came here as an alien, and already he acts
the ruler! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” The defining
trait of these attempted rapists is a hatred of the foreigner (i.e., Lot and
his visitors), and their intended sexual violence toward Lot’s visitors is a
manifestation of that hatred. Lot assumes that his daughters’ virginity will
appeal to them precisely because of this violent urge.56
43
Bloodied Sheets 43
Genesis 19:4–11 and Deut. 22:13–21 thus both juxtapose virginity and
violence. In the latter, violence appears explicitly as the punishment for
the failure to preserve virginity, but it also appears implicitly in the form
of the blood on the sheets, the visible remainders of a physical trauma. In
the former, the virginity of young women appeals (or is assumed to appeal)
precisely to men who intend to use sex as a weapon. These associations
are likely not coincidental. Lot believes that offering his specifically “vir-
gin” daughters to the mob will find receptive ears because the “taking” of
virginity in this culture is constructed as violent. A culture that encour-
ages grooms to see blood on their wedding nights is a culture that creates
(intentionally or not) some kind of identity between female virginity and
sexual violence.57
Conclusion
Biblical texts consistently reveal a high regard for the status of the betu-
lah, whether in reference to a marital partner or to God’s chosen people.
Leviticus 21:7, 13–15 and Ezek. 44:22 suggest that female virginity is at
times based on male concerns for lineage and clarity of family lines, espe-
cially in the context of the Israelite priesthood.
The only means for verifying virginity found in the Hebrew Bible is the
presentation of betulim on a garment following the wedding. The blood
may simply be the best available testimony in the eyes of biblical author/
readers of a girl’s virginity. But the explicit violence of the death penalty in
Deut. 22:20–21, as well as the violent intertext from Gen. 19:4–11, suggest
that the blood itself, and the violence that it represents, is (or comes to be)
essential to the definition and prizing of female virginity in the Hebrew
Bible. Both Deut. 22:20–21 and Gen. 19:4–11 highlight the ways in which
the biblical construction of female virginity is tied up with male sexual
aggression. Whether this connection of virginity and violence reflects
something about the origins of this culture’s concerns with female virgin-
ity or is simply the consequence of some other set of concerns, we should
not read Deut. 22:13–21 without the implications of Gen. 19:4–11 informing
our understanding. The latter text connects female virginity to male sex-
ual violence, and the former brings together female virginity and bleed-
ing. These associations, consciously or not, would be familiar to any later
author for whom the Hebrew Bible served as a source and inspiration. It
is to those authors that I now turn.
4
“Trustworthy Women”
and Other Witnesses
Tweaking Deuteronomy in Pre-R abbinic
and Early Rabbinic Judaism
In the previous chapter, I argued for the violence encoded in the bib-
lical treatment of verification of female virginity. I also noted, following
earlier treatments of Deut. 22:13–21, the many problems generated by the
bloody sheets pericope, not least of which was its apparent inconsistency
with other biblical standards of evidence and juridical procedure. In this
chapter, I will consider ideas about the verification of female virginity in a
variety of texts: the works found in the Qumran caves, the Rabbinic midrash
Sifrei Devarim, the scholion to Megillat Ta‘anit, the Palestinian Talmud, and
Bereshit Rabbah. Though these works are very different from each other in
date, genre, and legal response, I will argue that they reflect similar anxieties
about the bloody sheets pericope of Deuteronomy, and that these anxieties
are specifically about the juridical problems raised by the biblical passage.
Though these literary corpora all depart from the literal instructions of
Deut. 22:13–21 in a variety of ways, all share the Hebrew Bible’s assumption
that female virginity can be located in the female body—or, to be a bit more
careful in the cases of Sifrei Devarim and the scholion to Megillat Ta‘anit,
none rejects that assumption. Rather, their differences from the biblical text
likely reflect an interest in better courtroom procedure, rather than a disa-
greement about the definition and verification of female virginity.
Virginity Testing in Qumran

The texts found in the caves near Qumran and published over the course
of the second half of the twentieth century, commonly known as the Dead
45
"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 45
Sea Scrolls, are an invaluable resource for the study of Second Temple
Judaism.1 The nearly one thousand scrolls contain a multitude of biblical
and other texts, some of which reflect widespread Jewish beliefs of the
time, while others almost certainly represent the views of the specific sect
associated with them. Three texts from Qumran deal directly with Deut.
22:13–21 and its interpretation. Although two of them display differences
in the way their authors treat the Deuteronomic material, what they share
is far more striking than their relatively minor differences.
Deuteronomy 22:13–21 in the Temple Scroll

The following appears in 11Q19—commonly known as the Temple Scroll—
column LXV, lines 7–15:
7 If a man takes a woman and marries her, but (then) hates her, and
accuses her of shameful things, 8 and thereby brings upon her an
evil name, and says: “This woman I took and came near 9 to her,
but I did not find in her (evidences of) virginity.” And the father of
the young woman or mother shall take and bring out 10 (evidences
of) the young woman’s virgini[ty] to the elders of the gate. (VACAT)
And the father of the young woman shall say 11 to the elders: “I
gave my daughter to this man for a wife, and now he hates her, and
accuses 12 her of shameful things, saying: ‘I did not find in your
daughter (evidences of) virginity!’ And now these are (the evidences
of) the virginity 13 of my daughter!” Then they shall spread the tunic
before the elders of that city, and the elders of that city shall take 14
that man and rebuke him and fine him one hundred (pieces of) sil-
ver. 15 And they shall give the father of the young women [sic] (the
money) for he brought an evil name upon a virgin of Israel.2
The most striking trait of the passage is the “slavish manner in which [it]
adhere[s]‌to Deuteronomy.”3 Although the passage is not a word-for-word
quotation of Deut. 22:13–21, it contains no substantive differences. As in
Deuteronomy, this Qumran text assumes that virginity is important—at
least to the groom, the court, and the father, who feels the need to defend
his daughter. The passage does not include the biblical information about
what to do should the groom’s accusation be upheld based on lack of
blood, but this information likely belonged to the next column, which is
damaged and cannot be deciphered.4 Regarding the evidence or definition
of female virginity, 11Q19 maintains the biblical view that the presence or
46
absence of blood on sheets or some other garment determines whether

the bride is believed to have been a virgin on her wedding night. Female
virginity remains located in a woman’s physical body and verified by her
postcoital bleeding.
Proof of Virginity in 4Q159

In contrast to the Temple Scroll, which simply reproduces the details
of Deut. 22:13– 21, 4Q159 2– 4, lines 8– 10 (sometimes referred to as
4QOrdinances), which takes the form of an independent legal ruling
rather than biblical interpretation, adapts and expands on the biblical text:
8 If a man slanders [lit. brings up a bad name upon] a virgin of

Israel, if b[ ]‌when he married her, let him say so. And 9 trustwor-
thy [women] shall examine her/it, and if he has not lied about her,
she shall be executed. But if he has testified against her false[ly], he
shall be fined two minas, and he shall [not] 10 divorce (her) all of his
days. All [ ] who [5
Though less “slavish” in its reproduction, this passage also generally fol-
lows the contours of Deut. 22:13–21.6 As in the biblical Vorlage, we have
a case of a groom’s suspecting that his bride was not in truth a “virgin.”
The use of the same language as in Deuteronomy 22 (e.g., “brings up a
bad name upon”), the mention of the bride’s status as a betulah, and the
rulings for what is to be done, including the fining of two minas and the
prohibition on his divorcing her “all of his days,” all closely track the basic
positions of Deut. 22:13–21.
Only one substantive difference separates this text from the biblical
pericope, and at first glance it appears to be a significant one. The author
of this passage has replaced the blood-stained sheets of Deuteronomy
with an inspection by “trustworthy [women]” who “examine” the bride.7
Although the text is not explicit regarding who these trustworthy women
are and what they do, Jeffrey Tigay has argued compellingly that they are
performing some kind of vaginal inspection to “ascertain” the bride’s
virginity.8
The introduction of a vaginal inspection into this setting is instructive
for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that similar refer-
ences to this kind of virginity test appear in Christian texts of the second
to fifth centuries—texts that I will discuss in chapters 5 and 8. In light of
47
the relative rarity of both bloody sheets and anatomical examinations as

evidence of virginity (as I discussed in the introduction to this book), the
shared motif of vaginal examinations in Qumran and, for example, the
second-century Syrian work Protevangelium of James, is significant. I will
return to consider this point in my treatment of the latter in chapter 5.
Here I will consider the meaning of physiological exams for the Qumran
authors’ notions of female virginity and constructions of male sexuality.
But before discussing the significance of the anatomical testing in 4Q159
2–4, I must first deal with one more Qumran text that also invokes these
“trustworthy women.”
Proof of Virginity in the Damascus Document: 4Q271 3

4Q271 3 is a part of the Damascus Document, a work originally found in
the Cairo Genizah prior to the discovery of the Qumran texts. In the con-
text of a warning regarding misleading others in business transactions,
the text launches into a discussion of appropriate marriage partners and
some details of preparing for a legitimate wedding:
8 [a man gives his daughter to a ma]n (in marriage), let him disclose
all her blemishes to him, lest he bring upon himself the judgment 9
[of the curse which is sai]d (of the one) “that makes the blind to wan-
der out of the way.” And also, he should not give her to someone not
established for her, for 10 [that is (like) kil’ayim, (plowing with o]x
and ass and wearing wool and linen together. vac Let no man bring
11 [a woman into the ho]ly [covenant] who has had sexual experience
so as to do an unseemly deed, (whether) she had such 12 [experience
in the home] of her father or (as) a widow who had sexual experi-
ence after she was widowed. And any 13 [woman upon whom there
is a] bad [na]me in her maidenhood in her father’s home, let no man
take her, except 14 [upon examination] by reliable and knowledge-
able [women] selected by command of the Examiner over 15 [the
many. After]ward he may take her, and when he takes her he shall
act in accordance with the l[a]‌w [and he shall not t]ell about [her]9
As was the case with 4Q159 2–4, this text exhibits a clear relationship to
Deut. 22:13–21, evidenced not only by the topics discussed but also by their
order, which closely parallels the biblical pericope.10 But unlike 4Q159 2–4,
a reader cannot understand this text as simply a paraphrase of the biblical
48
pericope with the “reliable and knowledgeable” women’s examination

replacing the bloody sheets. Despite the many allusions to Deut. 22:13–21,
the actual situation and rulings described here are clearly distinct from
those of the biblical Vorlage, and other biblical passages are incorporated
into the text as well.
4Q271 3 departs from Deut. 22:13–21 in a number of ways. First, in
what is almost certainly an expansion of Lev. 21:13’s ruling forbidding a
high priest from marrying a woman with previous sexual experience,
4Q271 3 prohibits any Israelite male from marrying a woman “who has
had sexual experience so as to do an unseemly deed” [Heb: asher yade‘ah
la‘asot ma‘aseh].11 The prohibition, addressed to men, on marrying women
who have had sexual relations prior to marriage is a significant departure
from biblical rulings. To be sure, as discussed in chapter 2, the male read-
ers implied by biblical texts clearly prized female virginity. Genesis 24:16
makes clear that for a highly esteemed male such as the patriarch Isaac,
marriage to a “virgin” was a desideratum, and Deut. 22:13–21 implies that
a young woman’s engaging in premarital sexual relations—at least in the
case where it was not known to her father—subjected her to the death
penalty.12 But only in Lev. 21:13 was that valuation translated into a formal
prohibition on marriage to a nonvirgin, and there, only for the high priest.
4Q271 3 is thus building and expanding on two different, albeit related
biblical paradigms. It extrapolates from Lev. 21:13’s ruling for priests to
all Israelites, extending biblical ideas about holiness to the whole of the
nation. But it also takes the cultural assumptions about the importance of
female virginity found in passages such as Gen. 24:16 and Deut. 22:13–21
and raises them to the level of a formal marriage restriction.13
A second major difference of 4Q271 3 from Deut. 22:13–21 (and a trait
that distinguishes this passage from the Qumran passages discussed
above as well, for that matter) is the former’s description of a premarital
examination designed to permit a marriage—as opposed to the postnuptial
investigations in Deut. 22:13–21, 11Q19 LXV, and 4Q159 2–4, all of which
are intended to determine, post facto, whether the assumed terms of the
marriage were met. This shift engenders three important consequences.
First of all, the shift to a premarital examination radically affects the stakes
of the procedure: whereas a “failed” examination in Deut. 22:13–21, 11Q19
LXV,14 and 4Q159 2–4 results in the defamed bride’s execution, here the
outcome is “merely” the prohibition of a proposed bride’s marriage.15
A related but distinct consequence of the shift from Deuteronomy’s
postnuptial examination to 4Q271’s premarital “verification” of virginity is
49
that the latter effectively shuts down the possibility of postnuptial accusa-
tions: assuming the women’s examination determines the proposed bride
to be a “virgin,” the matter has been settled, and the intended groom can
no longer accuse his wife of premarital infidelity/unchastity. Thus, the text
concludes, “He shall not tell about her” [Heb: velo’ yagid ‘aleha].
Cecilia Wassen is cautious regarding the meaning of this somewhat
opaque phrase, concerned that a “provision that prohibits a husband from
accusing a bride of not being a virgin after she has already been exoner-
ated appears redundant.”16 But the injunction for the groom to keep silent
following a marriage to a woman so justified by physiological exam may
reflect cultural anxiety about the reliability of such a test to “reveal” a wom-
an’s virginity. Does the trustworthy women’s report that the bride’s body
“verified” her virginity truly set at ease the mind of the potential groom?
To assume that it does requires first of all that he take seriously forensic
evidence as a sure way of assessing a woman’s previous sexual experience.
The phrase may therefore highlight the inability of this anatomical test to
set the groom’s mind at ease and thus serve precisely to foreclose any later
accusations.
But even if we assume that readers of 4Q271 would accept the text’s
implications about the location of female virginity, the text’s ruling also
requires that grooms respect and trust testimony of the decidedly female
examiners. Although some of the scholarly discussion of this text has
been overly influenced by Rabbinic texts that invalidate female witnesses,
4Q271’s need to silence the male groom following a ruling of “virginity”
may still reflect a cultural tension, with this legal ruling pushing against
cultural assumptions about gender and trustworthiness.17 In any event,
whether the groom’s doubts flow from skepticism about anatomical vir-
ginity and its verification, the trustworthiness of women witnesses, or
both, the phrase “He shall not tell about her” comes to makes clear that
the legal ruling of the “reliable and knowledgeable” woman’s examination
is determinative—for legal purposes, his wife was a “virgin” when they got
married.
“He shall not tell about her” following the premarital inspection
highlights a third possible effect of 4Q271 3’s premarital examination
as well. The official, legally binding determination of “virginity” prior to
marriage—at least in some cases—has the effect of de-emphasizing the
wedding night and its connection to female virginity. In Deut. 22:13–21,
the consummation of the marriage is the act of penile-vaginal penetrative
intercourse on the wedding night. This act, and the presumed consequent
50
rupture of the female genitalia, convinces the groom that he has “acquired”
that which he thought he was acquiring. If the bride’s virginity has already
been verified and legally asserted prior to the wedding, however, the first
act of penile-vaginal intercourse between bride and groom would shed at
least some of those cultural resonances. Thus, the innovation in 4Q271 3
of the premarital virginity test to some extent would have de-privileged the
wedding night and initial penile-vaginal intercourse as the consummation
of the wedding.18
In this final regard, then, 4Q271 3 indeed represents a departure not
only from Deut. 22:13–21, but also from the evidence of 11Q19 LXV and
4Q159 2– 4. The innovation of the premarital virginity test generates
consequences—the avoidance of the death penalty for premarital rela-
tions, a minimizing of postnuptial accusations, and a de-emphasis of
wedding-night coitus—that stand in opposition to the assumptions of the
other texts studied until now.19 Nonetheless, in one very important regard,
4Q271 3 is quite traditionalist. Like the biblical text and the two other
Qumran texts that engage with Deut. 22:13–21, it shares a physiological
definition for female virginity. It is to this point and its consequences that
I now turn my attention.
The “Innovation” of the Vaginal Examination

in 4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3
The one area in which both 4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3 innovate is the intro-
duction of an anatomical examination and its equally important counter-
point, the absence of bloody sheets as proof of female virginity. However,
though the use of trustworthy women to ascertain a bride’s virginity cer-
tainly introduces some important practical differences, I will argue here
that it operates with entirely the same assumptions about female virginity
as maintained by the authors of Deuteronomy 22 and the Temple Scroll
and thus would have similar consequences on male sexuality and notions
of masculinity.
What motivates the author(s) of 4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3 to deviate from
the clear ruling of the biblical text? Both Jeffrey Tigay and, following him,
Aharon Shemesh believe that a gynecological examination is a more reli-
able indicator of female virginity than the bloody sheet.20 Wassen rightly
takes this view to task; physical inspection of a woman’s genitalia is in fact
a notoriously unreliable way to determine female virginity.21 What is more,
in the case of 4Q159 2–4, we are dealing with a post-wedding-night claim,
51
after the bride and groom have presumably engaged in penile-vaginal

intercourse. Wassen understandably views this case as a virginity test even
less likely to be reliable; even if the bride had been a virgin on her wedding
night, she surely is no longer!22
Nonetheless, the common appearance in a variety of texts of this theme
of women verifying female virginity following the wedding night through
physiological inspection makes clear that at least some ancient authors
and readers indeed took it seriously as a means of testing virginity.23 What
is more, as William Loader has already pointed out, counterintuitively,
the specifically postnuptial examinations of 4Q159 2–4 may have some
support from modern medical research. A number of studies have con-
cluded that recent genital rupture can be recognized, with some statisti-
cally significant level of accuracy, by an observer.24 In other words, though
no evidence exists for the ability of an observer to recognize a woman’s
genitalia as “intact,” the recognition of recent rupture is, at least statisti-
cally, possible.
More importantly for my purposes, such findings make it quite believ-
able that women and men in the culture in which 4Q159 was produced
would have imagined these tests to be (more) reliable. These studies, by
filling in some of the picture of what some medical authorities currently
think about these physical measures as a marker of “virginity,” help us to
speculate more richly about what women in, for example, the first century
ce, might have thought based on their own experiences. For the authors
and readers of texts such as Deut. 22:13–21 and 4Q159 2–4, who assumed
genital rupture as typical of a woman’s first-time vaginal intercourse, a
postcoital vaginal examination may well have been a meaningful way of
establishing virginity—or its absence.
Considering this medical literature and 4Q159 2–4 in light of each
other highlights an important reality of the postnuptial examination that
we might otherwise miss: “hymenal integrity” is not the desired out-
come of the postnuptial examination; rather, it is the very rupture of the
woman’s genitalia that the examiners are looking for. To the extent that
vaginal examinations may be effective in establishing recent penetrative
intercourse, it is precisely because of the physical remainders of a violent
act of penetration. Thus, the use of anatomical investigation of brides to
establish “virginity” following the wedding night both assumes and per-
petuates a male sexual culture of vigorous and likely violent sexual activ-
ity. A groom who engages in wedding night sexual activity too gingerly
may not leave the wounds that would mark his bride as “legitimate”; he is
52
thus implicitly encouraged by a legal text such as 4Q159 2–4 to penetrate

violently. In this, 4Q159 2–4 is truly a faithful heir to the implications of
Deut. 22:13–21 (not to mention Gen. 19:4–11), which by requiring blood as
proof of premarital virginity necessarily encourages the same sort of vio-
lent sexual penetration.
By contrast, the premarital examination of 4Q271 3 cannot be interested
in lacerations, and thus it may seem to reflect a different assumption about
(or consequence to) verifying virginity. The examining woman here is likely
hoping to find some sign of “intactness,” perhaps even the vaginal narrow-
ness that will be so important in the Babylonian Talmud’s treatment of
female virginity (see chapter 6), and that appears in medieval medical texts
(see the introduction). But unlike the later Babylonian invocation of vagi-
nal narrowness, which, as I will show in chapter 6, is situated in a web of
texts that valorize gentle male sexual penetration, this exam, if we can situ-
ate it all, sits alongside the Temple Scroll’s reproduction of Deuteronomy’s
bloody sheets and 4Q159 2–4’s interest in recent lacerations.
This actually fits with the broader textual context: precisely because
this is a prenuptial examination, its interest in genital “integrity” (how-
ever understood) serves only to reinforce the male interest in postnuptial
genital rupture. The men implied by 4Q271 3 seek “intact” brides because
they intend to produce rupture on their wedding nights. This text does not
fundamentally challenge the model of male sexuality produced in those
works: virginity, sought in the “intact” body of the virgin prior to marriage,
reflects the absence of forceful male penetration, thus implying that vir-
ginity’s loss will subsequently be identified through the presence of these
signs of force.
The important differences between these Qumran texts and Deut.
22:13–21, then, do not reveal different attitudes toward female virginity.
Rather, the replacement of a medical examination for bloody sheets likely
reflects questions about rules of evidence and the possibility of juridical
reliability. The Qumran texts essentially interpret Deut. 22:13–21 as requir-
ing inspection of brides’ bodies, rather than sheets stained with their
blood. This shift only highlights these authors’ anxiety around the search
for and use of bloodied sheets as evidence of female premarital chastity.
Presumably, the community for whom 4Q159 was a relevant text saw the
problems inherent in Deuteronomy’s instruction regarding accusations
about virginity. Parents of an accused bride could easily forge a bloody
sheet, and vengeful or insecure grooms could make too much of a blood-
less one. In light of such an anomalous law—two witnesses are required to
53
convict someone of murder, but a sheet is all that is necessary to put a new
bride to death?—a reading community such as the one(s) that produced
4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3 may have sought out what they, like so many mod-
ern commentators, considered a more reliable means of verification. But
they continue to make use of a means that assumes female virginity is a
trait of the body and that assumes aggressive male sexual penetration. The
trustworthy/reliable women’s examination in 4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3 is
therefore not a departure from, but rather a cognate for, the bloody sheets
of Deut. 22:13–21.
None of this is to diminish the significance—either in principle, or pos-
sibly even in practice—of the introduction of at least somewhat empow-
ered women into a biblical scene in which previously the only woman
described was a passive object of examination.25 In the biblical passage,
only men are engaged actively in determining the accused bride’s fate: the
groom makes an accusation, the father defends his daughter, and the pre-
sumably male elders rule on her fate.26 These Qumran texts, remarkably,
replace the male partner with “trustworthy women.”27
But the increased visibility of empowered women in the Qumran
texts does not directly alter these texts’ fundamental continuity with
Deuteronomy’s treatment of female virginity. In both Deut. 22:13–21 and
these Qumran texts, something physical and “objective” (that is, objectify-
ing) marks a woman’s virginity. In all of these texts, if a woman does not
produce postcoital bleeding (Deut. 22:13–21 and 11Q19 LXV), show physical
evidence of “intact,” unruptured genitalia (4Q159 2–4), or display signs of
physical trauma (4Q271 3), then her “virginity” is sufficiently in doubt as to
trigger execution (or, in the case of 4Q271 3, denial of the right to marry).
Both the blood on the sheet and the female body to be examined are pre-
sented as being tangible signs of the bride’s “virginity.”
These signs are also “objective,” in the eyes of the authors, in the sense
that these texts imply an assumption that any “outside” observer will come
to the same conclusion about what she finds. Any viewer of the sheet will
see that there is or is not blood there. Similarly, any (trained?) woman
will come to the same conclusion about the “intactness” or rupture of the
bride’s body. This assumption of objectivity is far from necessary or inev-
itable. Indeed, I will argue in chapter 6 that Babylonian Rabbis power-
fully undermine the notion of the visual appearance of bloody sheets as
objective.
Thus, despite the appearance of innovation in 4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3,
we in fact see a basic continuity in these texts and the Temple Scroll with
54
a biblical model of constructing and thinking about female virginity. In

Wassen’s words, “The means of investigation has changed in 4Q159, but
the underlying principles of injustice, and the promotion of a humiliating
investigation for women based on ineffective ‘science,’ remains.”28 I add
here to Wassen’s pithy summary that these texts also reflect and reinscribe
a particular kind of male sexuality, focused on vigorous action and likely
resulting in violence, with obviously injurious consequences for women.
Deuteronomy 22:13–21 and the Qumran texts share a view of female
virginity as something defined by (or at least verified through) “objective”
physical evidence. This view of female virginity would encourage men to
be aggressive in their sexual penetration. In this sense, the authors of both
4Q159 2–4 and 4Q271 3, just like the Temple Scroll, break no new ground
in their thinking about female virginity. To the extent that the authors of
these Qumran texts modify their biblical inheritance, they do so because
of anxiety about the legal reliability of the bloodied sheets, not about a
changing view of female virginity or a desire to construct male sexuality
differently from how it had previously been constructed.
Sifrei Devarim
Radical Testimony and Rabbi Eliezer the Traditionalist
Sifrei Devarim (henceforth SD) is a tannaitic midrash, meaning it was
redacted in roughly the early third century in Palestine and is a product
of the Rabbinic Jewish community.29 SD’s treatment of Deut. 22:13–21 is
striking in that almost every time the biblical text references betulim, the
midrashic author interprets the word to refer to witnesses.30 Thus, this
midrash understands the groom’s claim that he did not find betulim to
mean that “there are witnesses that she committed adultery while in her
father’s house” (SD #235);31 the father’s presentation of his daughter’s
betulim in her defense in verse 17 means that “there are witnesses to dis-
credit this one’s witnesses” (SD #236); the scenario in which the bride is
convicted because the betulim cannot be produced becomes a failure to
find such witnesses to discredit those of the groom (SD #239).
SD’s most explicit discussion of this interpretive move appears in SD #237:
A. And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. This one’s
witnesses will come and that one’s witnesses will come and they will
speak their words before the elders of the city.
5
B. Rabbi Eliezer32 says: The words as they are written.

C. And they shall spread out the cloth. The matters should be made as clear
as a garment.
D. This is one of the three times that Rabbi Ishmael would expound the
Torah by way of analogy. . . .
E. And so it says And they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the
town. The matters shall be made as clear as a garment.
F. Rabbi Akiva says: Behold it says And they shall spread out the cloth before
the elders of the town. It was found that the husband’s witnesses were
plotting.33
Moshe Halbertal has argued compellingly that this midrash represents

an actual Rabbinic debate between a traditionalist, Rabbi Eliezer, defend-
ing what was likely the established understanding of the biblical pas-
sage, which took it literally, and a new and radical, nonliteral reading that
replaces bloody sheets with proper courtroom testimony.34 Rabbi Eliezer in
SD #237 (and, I would add as well, the anonymous voice at the end of SD
#235, which similarly interprets the parents’ bringing out of the garments
literally) represents a camp defending what had been the established tra-
dition. The dominant voice of the midrash moves away from that model,
arguing instead for witnesses as the proof of premarital infidelity.35 Such
an understanding of the debate makes sense in light of earlier scholar-
ship that showed attributions to Rabbi Eliezer often to be connected to
traditionalist, pre-Rabbinic law and interpretation.36 I have already argued
that while on a surface level, the interpretations of Deuteronomy 22 in the
Damascus Document and 4QOrdinances departed from the literal text of
the biblical passage, they reflect a shared set of assumptions about anat-
omy as the site of female virginity, not to mention the interpretation of the
Temple Scroll that indeed repeats nearly verbatim the biblical verses. Rabbi
Eliezer, then, may well be a defender of the pre-Rabbinic traditions here.
Changing Notions of Virginity, or Courtroom Procedure?

Rabbi Eliezer’s interpretation stands in opposition to the dominant view
in SD. In one obvious and important way, SD’s readings are a radical and
important departure from Deuteronomy. The dominant voice in SD elimi-
nates bleeding and/or other signs of physical trauma as evidence of vir-
ginity. Reading the bloody sheets of Deuteronomy as a reference to oral
56
testimony is far from literal. However, in SD and its broader tannaitic set-
ting, this consequence is not as significant as it at first appears.
For one thing, the first chapter of Tractate Ketubot of the Mishnah
(which I will analyze in detail in chapter 5), a roughly contemporaneous
text produced by the same Rabbinic Jewish culture as that of SD, fun-
damentally maintains the standard of postcoital bleeding as evidence of
virginity.37 This apparent contradiction—that the dominant voice of SD
rejects bleeding as a proof of virginity, attributing that position to the oft-
marginalized figure of Rabbi Eliezer, while the Mishnah makes no hint of
such radical interpretive change—is easily explained by appreciating the
other significant midrashic move that occurs in SD, namely, the reread-
ing of Deut. 22:13–21 as a text exclusively about brides accused of postbe-
trothal infidelity.38 Bothered by the incongruity of Deut. 22:20–21, which
demands the death penalty for a young woman’s premarital loss of vir-
ginity, and the broader picture of biblical law, which implies no signifi-
cant punishment for such behavior, Rabbinic authors rein in the entire
bloody sheets pericope to the specific case of an accusation about sexual
relations between betrothal and marriage.39 Thus, when SD interprets the
bloody sheets of Deuteronomy as testimony, the testimony is not proving
the virginity of the bride per se, but rather, her marital fidelity. The first
chapter of Mishnah Ketubot, by contrast, deals not with the punishment of
a vindictive groom or an unfaithful bride, but rather with the assumptions
men may make regarding who is or is not a “virgin,” and what to do when
such an assumption of virginity is tested.40 The fact that both Talmuds
cite and discuss a version of the midrash from SD without any indication
that it is at odds with mKet 1 makes clear that the witness testimony of SD
is in addition to, rather than in place of, the Mishnah’s continued use of
postcoital bleeding as the standard of virginity. Thus, motivations other
than changing conceptions of female virginity likely lie behind the legal
shift in SD.
Indeed, even without reading it alongside mKet 1, there is good reason
to understand SD’s elimination of the blood standard has having more
to do with its concerns about evidence than with ideas about virginity.
Chaya Halberstam has pointed out the strange refusal in Rabbinic law to
admit forensic evidence when deciding criminal law.41 Halberstam cites
the example of Mishnah Sanhedrin, which lays out the process for con-
ducting a capital case and which “implies a kind of comprehensiveness,”
yet which nonetheless makes no mention of physical evidence such as
the murder weapon or the body.42 What is more, in the Tosefta—a work
57
of similar provenance, dating, and genre to the Mishnah—Rabbi Akiva

actually rejects an opinion that would indeed require physical evidence in
order to convict someone of murder.43 Halberstam writes that “R. Aqiba’s
position that ‘all depends on witnesses’ ”—a turn of phrase that sounds
remarkably like our passage in SD—“is the dominant voice in rabbinic
criminal law.”44 It may then be significant that Rabbi Akiva’s is one of the
voices arguing against the literal understanding of Deut. 22:13–21 at SD
#237. The legal demands of the biblical pericope likely are an affront, not
to Rabbi Akiva’s ideas about female virginity or his thinking about male
sexual aggression, but rather, to his understanding of how serious legal
matters should be determined.
Such a reading finds support in the parallel version of this midrash
as it appears in the Palestinian Talmud.45 There the biblical phrase “I did
not find betulim in her” is not followed immediately by the midrashic
interpretation transforming the bloody sheets into oral testimony, as hap-
pens in SD, but rather, by an objection: “One should be concerned that
perhaps he found [blood] and lost [it]!” Only in response to this objection
does the midrash continue: “[It is a case] in which the husband brought
witnesses that she committed adultery while in her father’s house.” The
Palestinian Talmud’s editors similarly present the midrashic reworking
of the parents’ defense as a response to concerns about the reliability of
evidence: “‘These are my daughter’s betulim.’ One should be concerned
that perhaps it is blood of a bird! [It is a case] in which the father brought
witnesses to discredit the witnesses of the husband.” Here, the transfor-
mation of bloody sheets into witnesses is a direct response to the jurid-
ical problems raised by such a problematic standard of evidence. The
editors of the Palestinian Talmud understood the midrash as reflecting
juridical concerns, rather than changing notions of virginity. In light of
Halberstam’s conclusions, the Palestinian Talmud’s expansions here are
likely an accurate interpretation of the juridical anxiety that motivated the
midrash’s own author/editors.46
To be sure, if the author/editors of this midrash rejected anatomi-
cal markers of female virginity on substantive grounds, their interpreta-
tion of the bloody sheet as witnesses would bridge that gap as well; thus,
from the midrash alone, I cannot claim definitively that these tannaitic
figures shared the Deuteronomist’s views of female virginity. However,
Halberstam’s research suggests that the primary, if not lone, motivation
for this midrash lies in the realm of legal practice rather than ideas about
sexuality. The fact that Mishnah Ketubot, as I will discuss in chapter 5,
58
maintains anatomical markers for assessing female virginity, bolsters this

understanding of SD.
This concern for proper procedure is likely to be especially acute in
a case, as in SD #237, where capital punishment is at stake, as opposed
to Mishnah Ketubot, in which only the lower stakes of financial com-
pensation are in play. When we appreciate this aspect of Rabbinic court-
room ethics and apply it to the apparent contradiction between SD and
the first chapter of Mishnah Ketubot, it becomes even more likely that the
author/editors of this midrash were not motivated by changing beliefs
about female virginity. Rather, the authors of this passage in SD, like the
authors of Deuteronomy 22 and the texts found at Qumran, likely under-
stood female virginity as a primarily anatomical matter. Within the orbit of
Rabbinic authorities, the position of Rabbi Eliezer clearly aligns with these
earlier Jewish views, following in the footsteps of Deuteronomy’s thinking
about female virginity.47 For that matter, mKet 1 similarly takes physical
evidence of virginity for granted. SD’s midrash on Deut. 22:13–21, though
it may appear to depart from such thinking, most likely takes its cues from
attitudes toward courtroom procedure and not ideas about virginity, and
reflects the Rabbinic move to understand that biblical passage in a more
limited way, concerned with postbetrothal adultery rather than “loss” of
virginity generally. Thus, while its legal conclusions wind up far from the
picture painted in Deuteronomy 22, its assumptions about virginity are
likely the same as those of the biblical text and the authors of the Qumran
texts discussed above.
Megillat Ta‘anit
Megillat Ta‘anit is a unique work of ambiguous origins. Composed of an
earlier layer, written in Aramaic, which lists dates on which fasting is for-
bidden, and a later “scholion,” written in Hebrew, and which comments
and departs from that list, its relevance to the literature and history of
Second Temple and tannaitic Judaism has been much debated.48
The scholion itself comes to us in two, quite clearly distinct versions.49
In one of these scholia, we find the following:
[F]‌or the Baytusin would say: Eye for an eye, tooth for tooth (Exod.
21:24). If one knocked out his fellow’s tooth, he should knock out
his tooth. If he blinded his fellow’s eye, he should blind his eye,
and they will both be even. And they shall spread out the garment
59
before the elders of the town (Deut. 22:17). An actual garment [simlah
gemurah]50. . . . The sages said to them: Is it not written With the
teachings and commandments which I have inscribed to instruct them
(Exod. 24:12).51
The passage describes a debate between the “Baytusin”52 and the “sages”
about the interpretation of three passages (I include here only two for the
sake of simplicity), in which the Baytusin take a more literal interpretation,
while the sages demand that these verses be understood in light of inter-
pretive traditions (“the teachings and the commandments”). The similar-
ity between this text and the debate of the sages and Rabbi Eliezer in SD is
striking; if we take it seriously as a testimony to Second Temple interpreta-
tion of the bloody sheets pericope, then this would imply both an ongoing
practice of using physical evidence to “determine” female virginity as well
as resistance to such a practice (though we would not know from what
grounds such resistance derived).53
Unfortunately, too much in and about this text remains obscure to
make much of it. The dating of the scholion to Megillat Ta‘anit remains
uncertain,54 as does its reliability for evidence of Second Temple Judaism.55
Even more challenging, while we know that the Baytusin read this verse
literally, we do not know what the sages’ interpretation of it was—only that
it was different from “an actual cloth.”
Verifying Female Virginity in the Palestinian Talmud

Affirming and Questioning the Blood Standard
SD allows for a likely interpretation that coheres with the Deuteronomic
model of female virginity; the Palestinian Talmud (or, as it is often called,
the Yerushalmi), another product of Palestinian Rabbinic culture but one
that dates to roughly 400 ce, demands such an interpretation. Numerous
statements and discussions in the Yerushalmi make clear its continuity
with earlier Jewish texts, both in its continued use of bleeding as the pri-
mary marker of female virginity, and in its ongoing anxiety about this sign
as a legally reliable standard.
The importance of postcoital bleeding as the marker of female virginity
is obvious in a number of statements in the Yerushalmi. For example, in
multiple comments on the mishnayot about the rape of a girl younger than
three (mKet 1:2–3, discussed in chapter 5), named Rabbis as well as anon-
ymous editorial voices assert that in such cases the hymen “regenerates”
60
(betulin56 hozrin) in order to explain why she later receives a ketubah of 200
zuz, the value assigned to a betulah.57 The sense of betulim in these pas-
sages is unambiguously something physical, whether it refers to postcoital
blood itself or some specific membrane, the rupture of which will lead
to bleeding. Although it is more legally developed than what we find in
Deuteronomy, or even in tannaitic literature, this use of betulim clearly fits
into the model of female virginity established by the biblical text, a model
that recurs throughout the first chapter of Yerushalmi Ketubot.
The Yerushalmi also continues in the tradition of earlier texts in both
implicitly and explicitly revealing its doubts about the juridical viability
of blood as “evidence” of virginity. This juridical anxiety is most appar-
ent in the Yerushalmi’s discussion of the tractate’s opening mishnah. The
bulk of the Yerushalmi here consists of eight cases or rulings, in each of
which virginity claims are disallowed or rejected, and each of which is con-
cluded by the anonymous editorial voice limiting the ruling: “That which
you say is only with regard to not depriving her of her ketubah; however,
he is not permitted to maintain her [as a wife] because of the possibility
of adultery [mishum sefek sotah].”58 The legal limitation acknowledges the
evidentiary inadequacy of bleeding as a marker; there are so many cases
in which these male author/editors expect and accept a lack of postcoital
bleeding, and yet, in the absence of “better” modes for determining legally
a woman’s sexual history, grooms must resort to assuming the worst and
thus end their marriages.
The specific stories and cases are even more instructive in revealing
both the commitment to and anxiety about relying on blood claims. In one
such story, Rabbi Hanina relates that a young woman whose betulim were
not “found” came before Rabbi Judah the Prince (“Rabbi”). Rabbi asks her
bluntly, “Where are they?” The young woman responds that the stairs in
her childhood home were steep and that her betulim therefore “fell off”
(nosherin).59 Betulim here is clearly a concrete noun, evident in phrases
such as “where are they” and “they fell off.” The characters are talking
about the physical “evidence” of her virginity, that is, postcoital bleeding
resulting from hymenal rupture.60
At the same time, the story brings to the fore some of the challenges
inherent in men’s relying on blood as the proof that a woman’s wedding
night was her first act of penetrative sexual intercourse. Was the groom
who came before Rabbi truly appeased by the sage’s acceptance of his
bride’s justification? Could not any accused bride claim that her hymen
had been ruptured while climbing stairs? On what basis could he know
61
that the story was trustworthy? Once men appreciate the variety of reasons
for which a woman might not bleed following her first act of penetrative
intercourse, they must, this story reminds us, rely on testimony to explain
and accept the occasional absence of bleeding.
A similar phenomenon is at play in what is likely the most explicit
example of the Yerushalmi maintaining bleeding as the primary stand-
ard of female virginity. It appears in an unparalleled baraita: “A virginity
claim—in any amount. It once happened regarding a certain woman that
betulim only like a mustard-seed were found for her, and it came before
Rabbi Ishmael son of Rabbi Yose. He said: ‘There should be more like
you in Israel.’ ”61 The woman’s virginity is “verified” solely on the basis of
having found an extremely small amount of blood following the wedding
night, thus adhering to the biblical standard. Yet, at the same time, this
ruling also introduces doubt; by telling us that the only proof of virginity
for this woman was a mustard-sized amount of blood—an amount meant
to be so small that it could easily escape someone’s attention—the text
directs our attention to the possibility of this test leading a groom (or even
a judge) astray. The case brought to Rabbi Ishmael b. Yose raises the pos-
sibility of falsely convicting a woman of premarital unchastity. If a woman
might produce postcoital blood in so small an amount as that discovered
by Rabbi Ishmael b. Rabbi Yose, is it not reasonable to think that a simi-
larly small amount of blood will go undetected by some less careful, less
scrupulous groom or judge?62
Finally, a complex and much-debated baraita in this larger complex of
texts also simultaneously affirms and calls into question the validity of
blood-based virginity claims. The baraita is paralleled in both the Tosefta
and the Babylonian Talmud, though there are a variety of differences in
the various presentations.63 I present it here according to the first printing
of the Tosefta:64
A. Rabbi Judah said: Originally in Judea, they would examine65 the groom

and the bride three days66 prior to the huppah. But in Galilee, they
would not act thus.
B. Originally in Judea, they would place together in seclusion [hayu meya-
hedin] the groom and the bride an hour [sha‘ah ahat] prior to the hup-
pah so that he would be familiar with her [kedei sheyehei libo gas bah].
But in Galilee, they would not act thus.
C. Originally in Judea, they would set up two groomsmen [shoshbinin], one
from the house of the groom, and one from the house of the bride. And
62
even so, they would set them up only for the nuptials. But in Galilee,
they would not act thus.
D. Originally in Judea, the groomsmen would sleep in the place where the
groom and bride were sleeping. But in Galilee, they would not act thus.
E. Anyone who does not act in accord with this practice, he cannot make
a virginity claim.
The baraita describes an intense effort— at least in Judea— to estab-

lish procedures that minimize the risk of fraud that is so inherent in
Deuteronomy’s virginity test. The groomsmen, established for the wed-
ding, accompany the bride and groom into their bridal chamber, presum-
ably to verify the results of the bloody-sheets test. Line E is clear in its
implication that the Judean practice is a stringency to increase the reli-
ability of this virginity test—anyone who does not observe “this prac-
tice . . . cannot make a virginity claim.”
For my purposes, the accuracy of this text in describing some earlier
Judean practice is irrelevant.67 What is significant is that this tannaitic
description of Judean practice, reproduced in the Yerushalmi, is consist-
ent with the materials considered previously in this chapter, as well as
with the general approach of the Yerushalmi. Virginity claims are based
on the appearance or absence of postcoital bleeding, and that standard is
murky enough that at least some Jews sought to institute safeguards to
improve its reliability. This text’s Rabbi Judah is concerned enough about
the juridical weakness of bloody sheets to state that any groom who does
not observe these safeguards has forfeited the right to make an accusation
about his bride’s virginity: virginity is measured by blood, and blood is a
notoriously risky way to measure virginity.68
The Palestinian commentary on this baraita maintains this basic
approach:
What are we dealing with [in the baraita]? If it is [a case in which] he

examined and found, behold, he has found! If it is [a case in which]
he did not find, behold, he examined, but she did not examine!69
Rather, here we are dealing with [a case in which] he did not exam-
ine, and he found. She says it is virginity blood [dam betulim], but he
says it is not so, but rather, it is bird’s blood. His strength has been
diminished, for he has not acted in accord with the practice.70
Blood is at one and the same time the proof of virginity and the source
of immense doubt. Even when the groom finds blood, he can remain
63
skeptical of his partner’s virginity (“he says . . . it is bird’s blood”). And

where he does not find blood, his inherent subjectivity calls into question
the bride’s seemingly implied guilt (“but she did not examine!”). This pas-
sage echoes the Yerushalmi’s presentation of the midrash found at SD
#237, discussed above. Recall that the Yerushalmi presents the tannaitic
midrashic transformation of Deuteronomy’s bloody sheets into oral tes-
timony as responding to doubts about the juridical reliability of blood to
make any claim about sexual history (“perhaps he found [blood] and lost
[it]! [It is a case] in which the husband brought witnesses . . . perhaps it is
blood of a bird! [It is a case] in which the father brought witnesses”). In
affirming the Deuteronomic bloody sheets as the standard for measuring
female virginity even as it expresses doubts about the juridical reliability of
this model, the Palestinian Talmud fits perfectly into the culture of virgin-
ity testing found in Second Temple texts as well as Sifrei Devarim.
Is Blood a Sign of Virginity, or Is It Virginity Itself?

The Palestinian Talmud’s treatment of accusations against a bride’s claim
of virginity based on the presence or absence of bleeding does differ from
earlier texts in one important way. A crucial passage in the Yerushalmi
actually raises the status of postcoital bleeding from that of a mere sign of
virginity to that of its definition. The Mishnah relates that a woman who as
an “adult” (gedolah) had sexual relations with a “minor” boy (katan), when
marrying later in life, receives the 200-zuz ketubah of a “virgin.”71 In light of
their assumptions about postcoital bleeding and hymenal “regeneration,”
Palestinian Rabbinic authors are understandably perplexed by this ruling.
A. The case of an adult who penetrated [sheba‘al] a minor, or a minor who

penetrated a minor, makes sense; the hymen will regenerate. [But] a
minor who penetrated an adult—the hymen will not regenerate!
B. Rabbi Abin said: Resolve it as being about a case where he penetrated
her anally [literally: “not in her way”].
C. Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin said: And even if you say in her normal way—
a minor’s penetration counts as penetration [bi’ato bi’ah], but he does
not have the power to touch the signs [liyga‘ basimanim].
D. And it is taught thus [vetani khein]: It happened that a woman got preg-
nant and her hymen remained intact [uvetulehah kayyamin].72
The various anonymous and named speakers here all respond to the same
problem: the ruling that a woman or girl over the age of three who was
64
penetrated by boy younger than nine73 cannot be explained in the terms of

a standard of female virginity based on the rupture of the hymen. Recall
that Yerushalmi passages consistently explain the significance of the age
of three for girls as being the point at which “hymenal regeneration” is no
longer possible. But if that is the case, then a female older than three who
has penetrative vaginal intercourse with a male of any age should cease to
be a “virgin” according to Rabbinic definitions.
Rabbi Abin responds by radically limiting the scope of the mishnah.
He asserts that the mishnah must be speaking here only of a case in which
the woman engaged in penetrative anal intercourse with a young boy. This
preserves a hymen-based standard of female virginity, albeit at the cost of
reading the mishnah completely against its context. I will return below to
consider the significance of anal intercourse to male anxiety about verify-
ing female virginity.
The response of Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin, however, commands my
attention here. Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin manages to understand this
clause of the mishnah using the same model as that which had been
applied to the remainder of the mishnah: the determining factor in estab-
lishing a bride’s status as a “virgin” is the presence of the betulim and
the presumption that she will bleed on her wedding night. Rabbi Yose
b. Rabbi Abin accomplishes this shoehorning by claiming that, though
even boys younger than nine are capable of producing “effective” penetra-
tion, they lack the strength or vigor to rupture the hymen.
Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin’s statement includes at least two compo-
nents that merit closer attention, and I treat them in the reverse order
of their appearance in this statement. His interpretation of the mishnah
concludes with his claim that a boy younger than nine lacks the power
(ko’ah) to “touch the signs [simanim].” I would suggest that we can best
appreciate the use of the phrase by comparing it to a similar usage in the
laws of kosher slaughter, in which the windpipe and the gullet, both of
which must be severed or “touched” in order to render the slaughter valid,
are often referred to as “the signs.”74 The allusive locution, invoking the
slaughter of animals, forefronts the image of blood. Just as the slaughterer
actively intends to do violence to the gullet and the windpipe, releasing
blood and thereby accomplishing her or his goal, so too the male sexual
partner now is constructed as consciously working to rupture his partner’s
hymen, producing blood to a legally significant effect.
The application of slaughter terminology to penetrative intercourse
affects our very understanding of blood as a “sign” of virginity. After all,
65
in the case of slaughter, the severing of these two “signs” is more than a
sign, but in fact the very definition of what makes the slaughter kosher. The
cutting of the windpipe and the gullet do not merely provide evidence that
something else has occurred; rather, it is precisely and only this action that
makes the slaughter of an animal valid such that the flesh will be permit-
ted to one who observes Rabbinic food laws.75 Taking this usage seriously
and applying this meaning of siman to virginity turns postcoital bleeding
into the very definition of what it means to be a betulah.
The implications of Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin’s use of this suggestive
language are reinforced by his assertion that, although such a young boy
cannot rupture the hymen, he can engage in legally significant penetration
(bi’ato bi’ah). It seems reasonable to assume that this somewhat obscure
phrase means that such a boy is capable of ejaculating.76 Even if this is not
the intent of the statement’s original author, the editors of the passage
clearly understood it as such, since they connect it to a baraita (line D) that
relates the story of a woman who was pregnant despite having her betu-
lim intact. In other words, successfully reproductive intercourse need not
imply the rupture of the hymen.
Taken together, the two claims that Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin makes
in interpreting the mishnah—that a young boy can successfully ejaculate,
and that he cannot rupture the hymen—lead to a stunning conclusion.
Not only has postcoital bleeding become the very definition of female vir-
ginity in amoraic Palestine, but the one kind of evidence in the premodern
world that that could serve as incontrovertible proof of nonvirginity—
pregnancy—has in the Yerushalmi become, at least potentially, irrelevant.
I think it useful here to frame Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin’s ruling in the
context of the biblical passages about virginity that I analyzed in chapter 2.
Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin’s understanding of female virginity is firmly
at odds with the virginity concerns of Leviticus 21, in which a primary
reason for the valuing of female virginity was concern with genealogical
integrity.77 For Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin, a woman could (theoretically, at
least) be pregnant with a child fathered by another male on her wedding
day and nonetheless be a betulah entitled to a 200-zuz ketubah. Instead of
the genealogically motivated concerns of Leviticus 21, Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi
Abin’s notion of female virginity is a ramped-up version of Deuteronomy
22, picking up on and intensifying the violent elements of its bloody vir-
ginity, transforming the blood on the sheets from a sign of virginity to its
very definition and essentially aligning it with the assumptions about vio-
lent male desire for virginity so clear in Genesis 19.
6
Only in this light—blood as the defining characteristic of why men, in

the Palestinian Rabbinic imagination, should seek out “virgins” as their
marital partners—can we understand the Yerushalmi’s explanation of a
pivotal debate between Rabbi Meir and the Sages regarding the mukat ‘etz,
a woman whose hymen has been ruptured through nonsexual contact. I
will address this mishnah in detail in c hapter 5, but for now it will suffice
to summarize: while Rabbi Meir rules such a woman entitled to the 200-
zuz ketubah of a betulah, the Sages say that she receives only a 100-zuz
ketubah. The Palestinian Talmud’s discussion of this mishnah immedi-
ately follows the baraita in which pregnancy and hymenal rupture were
divorced.
E. They objected to Rabbi Meir: “There is no hymen [betulin] here, and you

say a ketubah of 200?”
F. He said to them: “Is the matter dependent on the hymen? Behold: the
bogeret does not have a hymen, and her ketubah is 200! Behold: the bet-
ulah from marriage has a hymen,78 and her ketubah is 100! What now?
The bogeret has not lost her loveliness [hen]; the betulah from marriage
has lost her loveliness.”
G. What is their disagreement regarding the mukat ‘etz? Rabbi Meir

says she has not lost her loveliness, but the Sages say she has lost her
loveliness.
The editor(s) of this pericope make explicit what is implicit already in the
mishnah; Rabbi Meir has decoupled female virginity from postcoital bleed-
ing. The imagined Rabbi Meir in this Yerushalmi passage states explicitly
that a hymen is not the determining factor in establishing a woman’s sta-
tus as a “virgin.” A woman who claims never to have had sexual relations,
but who previously has been married, receives the ketubah of a nonvir-
gin, while the bogeret—a young woman older than twelve years and six
months—receives the 200-zuz ketubah, despite the fact that Palestinian
sources state explicitly that no virginity claim can be lodged against her,
presumably because there is a higher-than-usual chance that she will not
bleed postcoitally.79 These cases make clear to the Yerushalmi’s version
of Rabbi Meir that bloody sheets are merely an indicator of virginity, and
as such, judges must appreciate that sometimes they will be inaccurate
indicators. Therefore, marital law must recognize, argues this voice, that
the status of “virgin” can devolve on a woman despite no legal presump-
tion that there will be “evidence” in support of her virginity. Rather, the
67
meaning of “virginity” in this context is simply a woman’s desirability

(in the Yerushalmi’s Hebrew, her hen) to men in this culture, and that
desirability derives from her sexual/marital past: the previously married
woman, even if she states explicitly that she has never engaged in penetra-
tive intercourse, has, in the eyes of her future husband, lost her hen, while
the woman who is mukat ‘etz has not.
The pericope’s authors apply this framing to the Sages as well, which
on the surface makes it appear as if they too can be explained in a way
that also divorces virginity from blood. The woman who is mukat ‘etz
receives a 100-zuz ketubah, according to them, not because she will “fail”
to bleed, but simply because she is less desirable (“she has lost her loveli-
ness”) to men in this Palestinian Rabbinic culture. But this framing elides
the clear implication for the meaning of the Sages: this future bride has
“lost her loveliness” precisely because they assume that she will not bleed
on her wedding night! Even though this “absence” of blood is expected
and attributed to some nonsexual event in the young woman’s life, she is
less sought-after in the marriage market that these Palestinian Rabbinic
authors are describing and constructing. In other words: the “virginity”
that men in that market are seeking out is blood on the wedding night.
The Yerushalmi’s construction of the Sages, then, is completely of a piece
with the statement of Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin and its imagery of slaugh-
ter, and both continue and build upon the biblical inheritance of Genesis
19 and Deuteronomy 22. These Palestinian Rabbinic voices did not create
this transformation out of whole cloth; rather, the move of blood from vir-
ginity’s sign to virginity itself represents an unsurprising outcome of the
imbricated nature of virginity and violence in the biblical sources.
Even as they place a greater emphasis on blood in their treatment of
verifying female virginity, these Palestinian pericopes telegraph ongo-
ing doubt. Consider the baraita cited to support the view of Rabbi Yose
b. Rabbi Abin, who argued that a young boy was at one and the same time
capable of ejaculating but not of rupturing the hymen. The context of that
baraita may well reflect (or attempt to construct) a culture in which virgin-
ity is defined by blood rather than sexual history, but one cannot escape
the sense that men in a culture in which genealogy looms as large as it
does in Rabbinic society would have a hard time accepting as a “virgin” a
bride who is eight months pregnant. Put differently: the Yerushalmi may
well play up themes about virginity that arise from Genesis 19, but men in
Palestinian Rabbinic society would have had a difficult time indeed trying
to ignore entirely the model of virginity as found in Leviticus 21, in which
68
a primary motivating factor in male concern for female virginity is the pro-
duction of genealogically pure lines. If pregnancy and postcoital bleeding
are compatible, then in what way can the latter be taken seriously as an
indicator of virginity?80
Anal Sex: A Different Kind of Anxiety

I return now to consider Rabbi Abin’s response to the problem posed by
mKet 1:3 (line B above). Trying to make sense of the ruling that a female
past the age of “hymenal regeneration” who has penetrative intercourse
with a boy younger than nine years old remains a “virgin” for purposes of
her future ketubah, Rabbi Abin radically limits the scope of the mishnah
to only cases of penile-anal intercourse. Such an act would have no effect
on the woman’s likelihood of bleeding on her wedding night, and thus she
remains a virgin in Rabbi Abin’s taxonomy.
Rabbi Abin’s limitation, however, contains an important ambiguity: are
both aspects of this particular act—the age of the male partner, and the
circumscription of the sex act described in the mishnah to an occurrence
of anal intercourse—necessary for the woman in question to maintain her
virginity? Could a woman who engaged in penetrative anal intercourse
with an adult male claim the 200-zuz ketubah-price of a virgin in a subse-
quent marriage? After all, such a woman would still be as likely as any other
to produce postcoital bleeding on her wedding night, and there should not
be any particular concerns about her being pregnant with a fetus fathered
by some other man on her wedding night. Thinking through this ambigu-
ity is important for understanding Palestinian Rabbinic ideas about sexual
experience and virginity—what actions render a woman “not a virgin?”
The two most well-known commentators on the Yerushalmi differ in
their understanding of the significance of age in Rabbi Abin’s resolution.
Moses Margolies, in his commentary Penei Moshe, writes that anal inter-
course between a female and a male would indeed render the woman no
longer a betulah. Rather, only the combination of factors here—sexual
activity with a male whose age renders him culturally insignificant, and in
a way that leaves the hymen unruptured—leads to the woman’s status as a
“virgin.” Margolies’s assumption that penetrative anal intercourse in gen-
eral (as opposed to the specific case allegedly referred to in this mishnah)
is legally equivalent to penetrative vaginal intercourse reflects the domi-
nant trend in the Babylonian Talmud, where the two forms of intercourse
are regularly equated.81
69
Another approach is taken by David Fränkel, author of the commentary

Shirei Hakorban. Fränkel is perplexed by Rabbi Abin’s attempted resolu-
tion: “If so, then why does it speak specifically of a minor who penetrated
an adult woman? Even an adult man who penetrated an adult woman,
her ketubah should be 200 zuz!” Apparently understanding Rabbi Abin’s
statement to mean that the only standard for female virginity is the likeli-
hood of postcoital bleeding, Fränkel makes explicit the idea that, in such a
model, a woman’s previous sexual activity is irrelevant to her virginity sta-
tus, so long as she has not engaged in penetrative vaginal intercourse. But
such an understanding, he notes, is at odds with the contextual meaning
of Rabbi Abin’s statement, namely, that anal intercourse is irrelevant only
when the male partner is under the age of nine.
Fränkel is bothered by the idea that Rabbi Abin might mean just that—
essentially, the reading of Margolies—on the basis of tSan 10:9, cited in
the Babylonian Talmud (bKid 9b and bSan 66b, with some variations): “If
ten men penetrated her, but she remains a virgin [betulah], they are all [cul-
pable to be executed] by stoning. But if she is no longer a virgin, the first is
[culpable to be executed] by stoning, but all the others are [culpable to exe-
cuted] by strangulation.” This baraita assumes that the rape of a betrothed
virgin is a more “serious” crime, punished by stoning, than the rape of
some other married woman, which is punished with the less severe conse-
quence of strangulation. Thus, in the first half, where she “remains a vir-
gin,” each man is subject to stoning, but once she is no longer a “virgin,”
subsequent violators receive only strangulation.
This passage’s horrific description of a woman who is penetrated by
multiple men but who “remains a virgin” is opaque, but it is certainly rea-
sonable to read it as equivalent to the more common phrase shelo’ kedar-
kah, that is, that it refers to anal sex. Such is the interpretation found in the
Babylonian Talmud. Thus, Fränkel reasonably reads this baraita as imply-
ing that penetrative anal intercourse does not render a woman a nonvirgin
in Rabbinic law. He therefore is frustrated by Rabbi Abin’s implication that
only in the case of a minor is such a sexual history inconsequential.82
These two different approaches to Rabbi Abin’s statement reflect, at
least in part, two different attitudes toward nonvaginal intercourse and its
relevance for Rabbinic thinking about female virginity. Margolies follows
the lead of the Babylonian Talmud in treating all forms of penetrative inter-
course as equally relevant in determining a woman’s virginity. A woman
who engaged in anal sex with an adult male would no longer be a virgin (at
least for purposes of her ketubah). The majority view in mKet 1:3 is lenient
70
only because the sexual partner there is a child, whose actions are appar-
ently less bothersome to the woman’s future groom than those of a fully
enfranchised adult male. To be sure, a woman who had penetrative vaginal
intercourse with such a young male would no longer be a virgin, but in
that case, the young boy’s actions are significant not because of the future
groom’s taking that sex act more seriously, but because men in Rabbinic
society considered this woman unlikely to produce the still-important
postcoital bleeding. In other words, Margolies’s reading of Rabbi Abin
suggests a female virginity that is composed in part by blood, but which
also—and indeed, primarily—is about a woman’s sexual history.
Fränkel’s suggested interpretation, by contrast, implies a set of assump-
tions about female virginity more in keeping with the resolution of Rabbi
Yose b. Rabbi Abin and the Yerushalmi’s framing of the Sages of mKet 1:3,
namely, that postcoital blood is the lone determining factor in establishing
a woman’s virginity. Thus, anal intercourse, regardless of the age of the
male penetrating partner, should be irrelevant to a woman’s status vis-à-vis
virginity. Fränkel’s reading seems to be more in line with general assump-
tions in the Yerushalmi about female virginity, in part because he does
not assume, as does Margolies, the Babylonian Talmud’s implications that
both vaginal and anal penetrative intercourse end a woman’s status as a
betulah.
But even more important, Fränkel’s interpretation, like my analy-
sis of Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin and the framing of the mishnaic Sages
above, understands female virginity in the Yerushalmi as defined by post-
coital bleeding. For Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin, the Sages as constructed in
the Yerushalmi, and for Rabbi Abin, heterosexual anal penetrative inter-
course is largely irrelevant to determining a woman’s “virginity.” So long
as a woman is likely to bleed on her wedding night, these voices in the
Palestinian Talmud consider her a “virgin.” However, anal sex (and non-
vaginal intercourse in general) does trigger Rabbinic anxiety about virgin-
ity and its ambiguities in another Palestinian source of roughly the same
period, namely, the Palestinian work of midrash Bereshit Rabbah.
Blood and Sex in Bereshit Rabbah

Female Virginity as Physical Virginity
Bereshit Rabbah (henceforth BR) is a collection of midrash on the book of
Genesis, composed in Palestine, that dates to roughly the fifth century.83
71
As is the case with the passage that I will analyze here, it often includes
material with close parallels in the Yerushalmi. Thus, though its relation-
ship to the Palestinian Talmud is far from clear, it derives from a shared
cultural milieu. I will argue that in its midrash on Gen. 24:16, BR is con-
sistent with the interests of the Yerushalmi, even as it plays up a concern
that appears to be less urgent in that Talmud, namely, the recognition that
a physiological exam cannot assess a woman’s sexual history with regard
to nonvaginal forms of intercourse.
The midrash begins with a citation of mKet 1:3:
We learn [in the following mishnah]: “A mukat ‘etz—her ketubah is

200; the words of Rabbi Meir. But the Sages say: a mukat ‘etz—her
ketubah is 100.”84
Rabbi Abahu in the name of Rabbi Eleazar: The reason for Rabbi
Meir[’s view] is and no man had known her. Therefore, if she was
penetrated [niv‘alah] by a piece of wood, she is a betulah. The reason
for the Sages[’ view] is a virgin. Therefore, if she was penetrated by
a piece of wood, she is not a betulah.85
Rabbi Abahu’s connection of the debate in mKet 1:3 about nonsexual rup-
ture of the hymen to midrashic interpretation of Gen. 24:16 does signifi-
cant work with regard to the mishnah. As I will discuss in c hapter 5, in the
context of the first chapter of Mishnah Ketubot and tannaitic literature gen-
erally, we might reasonably understand the Sages’ view in the mishnah as
simply asserting that since, in the absence of expected postcoital bleeding,
there is no way to “verify” a bride’s virginity, she is treated as a nonvirgin
for purposes of her ketubah. In other words, the Sages’ denial of a ketubah
of 200 zuz to a woman who is mukat ‘etz need not mean that they believe
she is not, in some meaningful sense, a “virgin”; rather, they may simply
believe that the inability to “prove” that “virginity” makes it necessary to
provide her the lesser ketubah value of 100 zuz.
But taking the discursive effects of this midrash seriously means that for
Rabbi Abahu’s version of the Sages, a woman who has been vaginally “pen-
etrated,” even by a nonsexual, nonhuman penetrator, is no longer a betulah.
As Lieve Teugels puts it, “[F]‌or R. Meir, virginity is first and foremost a ques-
tion of the absence of any sexual contact with a man; while for the Sages
virginity depends on the physical intactness of the betulim, the hymen.”86
72
Rabbi Abahu’s midrash presents a possible reading of the Sages in the

mishnah; as I have explained, however, it is by no means necessary. The Sages
in the mishnah may simply be motivated by principles of evidence. Rabbi
Abahu’s explanation of the mishnah is essentially equivalent to the interpre-
tation of the Sages offered in the Yerushalmi and discussed above: the pres-
ence of the hymen is now the very definition of female virginity.
Virginity, Sexual Purity, and Ethnic Boundaries

The midrash continues:
Rabbi Yohanan said: No woman was initially penetrated by some-

one circumcised on the eighth day [until] Rebecca.
Reish Lakish said: Because gentile women [benot goyyim] guard
themselves at the place of their testimony [mimmekom ‘eidutan], but
make themselves available at another place [mimmakom aher], but
this one: “a virgin” [betulah]—at the place of her virginity/hymen
[mimmekom betulim], “and no man had known her”—at another
place.
Rabbi Yohanan said: From the implication of its having been writ-
ten “a virgin,” do we not know “that and no man had known her”?
Rather, no person even claimed [tava‘] her, according to [the verse]
“The scepter of the wicked shall never rest upon the land allotted to
[goral] the righteous.” (Ps. 125:3).
Rabbi Yohanan’s first comment here is not, on its surface, related to the
verification of virginity. It does, however, provide a powerful framing for
the next statement, placing it in a context of ethnic boundaries.87 Rebecca,
Rabbi Yohanan tells us, was the first woman to be penetrated by a man
who was circumcised at the age of eight days old, recognizing that the
first Jewish couple, Sarah and Abraham, take on that identity later in life
and that their marriage precedes Abraham’s circumcision. Thus, Rebecca
has the merit of being the first woman to engage in sexual relations only
with a man already part of the covenant.88 But in making this statement,
Rabbi Yohanan uses decidedly physical terms. Not only is Rebecca’s sexual
purity described in terms of her being “initially penetrated,” but Isaac’s
Jewish identity also takes emphatically physical terms—what makes this
union so special is the confluence of the circumcised penis and the intact
hymen. Thus, Rabbi Yohanan’s midrash links ethnic identity with physical
73
perfection, the latter constructed as circumcision for men and as anatom-

ical virginity for women.
On the heels of this confluence of ethnic identity, physiology, and sex-
ual virtue comes Reish Lakish’s midrash. Like Rabbi Yohanan’s preceding
statement, it connects identity and sexual virtue, in this case describing
gentile women as at once licentious and conscientious in concealing their
licentiousness. What sets the biblical Rebecca (and, by implication, Jewish
women generally) apart is her rectitude, avoiding not only activity that
would technically and legally render her no longer a virgin, but any sexual
encounter prior to her marriage to her future husband.
Reish Lakish’s language here is particularly striking. Promiscuous gen-
tile women are careful to guard “the place of their testimony.” This unusual
way of referring to the vagina is in line with the model of viewing blood only
as an indicator of virginity, but not as part and parcel of its definition.89 The
vagina (or hymen, if the author/editor of this statement has such a construct
in mind) is the place that testifies to a woman’s virginity. However, the con-
text makes clear that this testimony is necessarily imperfect; a woman may
be able to maintain this witness while nonetheless living a fundamentally
unchaste life. And though this trait is applied to gentile women, there is no
reason that Jewish women could not equally make use of this consequence
of the evidentiary standard of Deuteronomy 22 to obscure a sexual history
at odds with that which is desired by men in Rabbinic culture.
Reish Lakish’s statement thus has the effect of raising the specter,
once again, of the fallibility of bloody sheets as a sign of female virginity.
However, this anxiety is of a different sort from that encountered in earlier
literature. The anxiety behind Reish Lakish’s midrash results not from the
possibility of falsely produced blood, nor from the recognition that blood-
less wedding-night relations often occur irrespective of a woman’s pre-
vious sexual history. Rather, this statement, attributed to a third-century
Palestinian Rabbi, reflects concern about the variety of sexual activities
that might, in the eyes of future grooms, render a woman less desirable,
even as they may not affect her anatomy.90
In this regard, Reish Lakish’s statement is startlingly similar to a pas-
sage in a letter of the third-century Carthaginian Christian author Cyprian.
Rejecting the practice of those who claimed to be celibate but nonetheless
lived together as husband and wife, Cyprian wrote,
No-one should imagine that she can defend herself with the plea
that it can be proven by examination whether she is a virgin, since
74
the hand and the eye of midwives [obstetricum] may frequently be

mistaken, and, besides, even if she is found to be an unsullied vir-
gin in her private parts [ea parte sui qua mulier potest esse], she could
have sinned all the same in some other part of her person [ex alia
corporis parte peccasse] which can be corrupted and yet cannot be
examined [quae corrumpi potest et tamen inspici non potest]. . . . If a
husband should come along and see his own wife lying with another
man, is he not outraged. . . . Christ is our Lord and our Judge: when
He observes His own virgin who has been vowed to him and dedi-
cated to His holy estate lying with another man, imagine His rage
and His fury and the punishments He threatens to exact for such
unchaste associations.91
I will discuss this passage and its place in the history of Christian thinking
about the anatomy of female virginity in greater detail in chapter 8, but it
is worth noting here the similar locutions in Cyprian’s and Reish Lakish’s
statements. Both reference another “part” or “place” where sexual activity
can take place, but which is not subject to being examined or giving testi-
mony.92 Cyprian is explicit about the social significance, at least to men, of
nonvaginal forms of intercourse, going so far as to refer to the “unchaste
associations” that these dedicated virgins take part in—unchaste despite
the fact that they cannot be detected by physical examination. I think it
likely that similar sorts of assumptions lie behind Reish Lakish’s dispar-
agement of gentile women who carefully guard their physical virginity.93
Reish Lakish, in praising Rebecca, subtly reminds the reader that the
standard for testing virginity from Deuteronomy and on, leaving aside
its many other flaws, says nothing about a bride’s sexual past, addressing
instead only her anatomy and, perhaps, one small piece of her possible
sexual history.
Such a reading of Reish Lakish derives more support from the state-
ment of Rabbi Yohanan that follows. Rabbi Yohanan explicitly states that
the meaning of “and no man had known her” is to highlight Rebecca’s
total sexual purity. Virginity may be marked, and perhaps even defined, by
physical traits, but true sexual virtue extends to a broader range of sex acts
than just penetrative vaginal intercourse.
Unspoken, of course, is the consequence of such thinking: if postcoi-
tal bleeding is the standard applied to “determine” virginity, but if men in
Rabbinic culture understand virginity, or more broadly, sexual purity, as
75
including abstinence from a broader range of sexual encounters, then in

what sense can those men be assured by the bloody sheets virginity test?
Cyprian puts it most clearly: there are so many parts of the body “which
can be corrupted and yet cannot be examined.”
Conclusion
The works considered in this chapter all remain faithful to the anatomical
standard of virginity articulated in Deuteronomy 22, even as each of them,
in different ways, departs from the literal details of that model in order
to address juridical concerns that the problematic bloody sheets engen-
der. The works of Qumran replace the stained garments with vaginal
examinations, while SD transforms the Deuteronomic pericope into a far
more familiar Rabbinic format, namely, a courtroom with oral testimony.
Yet even as they express their doubts about the Deuteronomic paradigm
and even as they innovate, these works never challenge the fundamen-
tal notion that a woman’s virginity resides in her anatomy. Indeed, the
Palestinian Talmud and Bereshit Rabbah both treat postcoital bleeding not
merely as an indicator of a woman’s virginity, but as the very definition
of this cultural status. These late antique Rabbinic works endow female
bleeding with even greater centrality in the culture than it had had in ear-
lier Rabbinic and non-Rabbinic Jewish communities. This intensification
of the Deuteronomic model occurs despite continued ambivalence about
the reliability and significance of blood-stained sheets as evidence of vir-
ginity; after all, it is precisely these works that raise the specter of anal sex
(and, by implication, any act of sexual intimacy that does not rupture the
hymen) as cause to be skeptical of not only Deuteronomy’s model for test-
ing virginity, but of any physical test. BR’s discussion of anal intercourse
and other forms of sexual intimacy suggests a Palestinian Rabbinic male
interest in women’s sexual lives that extends beyond the single form of
penile-vaginal intercourse; at the same time, this discussion reminds the
(presumed male) reader of the undetectability of generalized sexual con-
tact, and thus undermines the whole enterprise of virginity testing.
The doubts never lead to a change in prescribed practice; the pre-
Rabbinic and Palestinian Rabbinic authors and editors who produced the
passages discussed in this chapter take for granted that men will verify
their wives’ virginity on their wedding nights by searching for blood on
the sheets.94 Accordingly, the male sexual ideal of a man who penetrates
76
vigorously and violently enough that he can produce blood on his wed-
ding night is as much a part of Rabbinic culture in amoraic Palestine as it
had been in earlier Jewish societies. Despite the appearance of variety, the
vast majority of early Jewish and Rabbinic texts continue and affirm the
assumptions and consequences of Deuteronomy 22.
7
PART II
Testing Virginity through Faith

78
79
Doubts and Faith
Possible Alternatives in Three
First-C entury Jewish Authors
In part I, I analyzed a number of pre-Rabbinic and Rabbinic texts of the

first four centuries ce that, even as they departed from the literal instructions
of Deuteronomy 22, nonetheless remained faithful to the Deuteronomic
paradigm of female virginity as something to be tested through a woman’s
anatomy. This anatomical model of female virginity was surely the dom-
inant one among Jews in late antiquity. In part II, however, I consider a
number of texts that reflect (or, in some cases, might reflect) a countercur-
rent, another possible way of thinking about female virginity. At the same
time, even in these works, the influence of Deuteronomy looms large. As
we will see, in most cases where an alternative approach to testing virgin-
ity appears, it is only faintly articulated. Even in those cases where it is
stronger, as in late antique Syriac poetry, it nonetheless remains decidedly
intermingled with the Deuteronomic model of virginity.
In this chapter, I address three first-century authors—Josephus, Philo,
and the author of the Gospel of Matthew. The first two of these, through
their acts of interpretive evasion, allow for the possibility of an alternative
way of thinking about female virginity and its verification. In the case of
Josephus, I will argue that this possibility is faint. With regard to Philo,
by contrast, there is reason to believe, based on his wider oeuvre and
his cultural setting, that he may indeed have harbored ideas about vir-
ginity and its verification that would have undermined the fundamental
assumptions of Deuteronomy 22. In the end, even Philo remains only
a tantalizing possibility for which we simply lack sufficient evidence to
make firm claims.
80
80 Testing Virginity through Faith
The Gospel of Matthew, however, does suggest an interpretation that

wrests female virginity from its anatomical setting and sets it in more the-
ological terms. Though a critical ambiguity in one verse makes this inter-
pretation tentative, we will see in chapter 5 that later Christian authors
indeed pick up on this suggestion and expand on it. Reading the first gos-
pel in such a manner thus holds up another possible model for thinking
about female virginity in Jewish and Christian antiquity and will provide
a useful hermeneutical peg for considering the texts that I analyze in
chapter 5.
Josephus and Philo
In the first century, two Jewish authors, both writing in Greek and para-
phrasing the biblical text, avoided the legal pitfalls engendered by Deut.
22:13–21 through decidedly similar acts of literary evasion.1 In his Jewish
Antiquities, Josephus presents the material thus (Ant. 4.246–248):
246 If someone should betroth [a woman, thinking] that she is a vir-

gin, and then should discover that she is not such, let him himself
bring charges and make his accusation, citing whatever evidence
he has as proof; and let the young woman’s father or brother or
whoever seems nearer of kin after these defend her. 247. Should the
young woman be judged not to be guilty, let her live with the one
who accused her; but he has no right to send her away, unless she
should provide him with major reasons, which she would be una-
ble to refute. 248. Let him, for having brought an accusation and
slander boldly and rashly, pay an additional penalty, receiving forty
lashes minus one, and let him pay fifty shekels to the father. But if
he should prove that the young woman has been corrupted, for not
having chastely protected her virginity up until her lawful marriage,
let her be stoned . . . but if she has been born of priests, let her be
burnt alive.2
Philo’s version of the passage appears in his Special Laws (3.80–82):
80 In the case of persons who take maidens in lawful matrimony

and have celebrated the bridal sacrifices and feasts, but retain no
conjugal affection for their wives, and insult and treat these gentle-
women as if they were harlots—if such persons scheme to effect a
81
Doubts and Faith 81
separation, but finding no pretext for divorce resort to false accusa-

tion and through lack of matters of open daylight shift the charges
to secret intimacies and bring forward an incriminating statement
that the virgins whom they supposed they had married were dis-
covered by them, when they first came together, to have lost their
virginity already—then the whole body of elders will assemble to try
the matter and the parents will appear to plead the cause in which
all are endangered. 81. For the danger affects not only the daughters
whose bodily chastity is impugned, but also their guardians, against
whom the charge is brought not only that they failed to watch over
them at the most critical period of adolescence, but that the brides
they had given as virgins had been dishonoured by other men, and
thereby the bridegrooms were cheated and deceived. 82. Then, if
the justice of their cause prevails, the judges must assess the pun-
ishments due to these concoctors of false charges. This will consist
of monetary fines, bodily degradation in the form of stripes, and
what is most distasteful of all to the culprits, confirmation of the
marriage, if, that is, the women can bring themselves to consort
with such persons. For the law permits the wives to stay or separate
as they wish, but deprives the husbands of any choice either way, as
a punishment for their slanderous accusations.3
The biblical Vorlage of Deut. 22:13–21 is clear in both cases, even as both
authors depart from both the substance and the style of the original in a
variety of ways.4 But most important for my purposes is the striking absence
of bloody sheets or any other physical remainder of the sexual act in both
the Josephan and the Philonic paraphrases.5 Rather than relating a case
in which the groom does not find “signs of virginity” (or any other phrase
that we could read as an interpretation of the Hebrew betulim), Josephus
writes vaguely of a scenario in which the hypothetical groom “betroth[ed]
[a woman, thinking] that she is a virgin, and then should discover that she
is not such.” In response, the bride’s nearest male relative brings not a
blood-stained nuptial garment, but rather simply comes to “defend her.”
Similarly, Philo describes the parents of the bride “appear[ing] to plead the
cause in which all are endangered.” Neither author mentions any kind of
forensic evidence.
Does the absence of bloody sheets from both Philo’s and Josephus’s
paraphrases suggest that they rejected Deuteronomy’s locating of virgin-
ity’s evidence in a woman’s body?6 Might they have been disturbed by the
82
violence of that biblical pericope? Or did some other factor (or set of fac-
tors) lead them to gloss over the graphic depiction of the Hebrew Bible?
Do these authors’ use of phrases such as “if they appear to have justice on
their side” reflect euphemistic evasion, or a different conception of where
a woman’s virginity resides?
Josephus’s Silence
Given the laconic nature of Josephus’s text, the question of audience
becomes particularly important. Josephus’s Antiquities likely had several
audiences, and we cannot assume that all of them (or potentially, even any
of them) had access to or knowledge of Deuteronomy.7 A reader unfamil-
iar with the biblical text behind Josephus’s work, reading his paraphrase,
would have had no reason to imagine physical evidence of the bride’s vir-
ginity, or at least not physical evidence in the form of bloodied sheets. We
can imagine Josephus, writing for a non-Jewish audience, eager to leave
out the details of a biblical pericope so seemingly at odds with contempo-
rary notions of a proper courtroom process.8
Even if one takes such a view of his interpretive evasion, however,
Josephus himself was well aware of the biblical detail that he was eliding.9
Does the elision also signal an actual move away from locating a woman’s
virginity in her physical state, or is it only the result of anxiety about the
juridical inconsistency of relying on this sort of evidence, as I argued was
likely the case for the Qumran texts and Sifrei Devarim in the previous
chapter?10 Although I cannot answer this question conclusively, the ubiq-
uity of the Deuteronomic model of virginity testing in the wide array of
texts considered in c hapter 3 makes the latter a reasonable possibility.11
It is worth noting, however, that where the biblical text has both the
bride’s mother and father coming to her defense, Josephus mentions “the
young woman’s father or brother or whoever seems nearer of kin after
these defend her.” The invocation of male relatives may be significant;
in many if not most cultures that make use of some kind of wedding-
night chastity test based on postcoital rupture, the bride’s mother or other
female relatives or town elders are closely involved in the storage and pro-
tection of the bloodied garment.12 The unusual explicit inclusion of the
woman’s mother in the biblical pericope may reflect exactly such a sen-
sibility. The shift in Josephus’s paraphrase to specifically male defenders
could signal a move away from the sheet as the exclusive evidence of the
bride’s virginity.13 But in the end, we do not know if this was indeed his
83
Doubts and Faith 83
intent, and even if it was, we have no evidence for what replaced bloody
sheets as “evidence” in Josephus’s conception of testing female virginity.
Josephus likely was motivated primarily by juridical concerns, but we have
little to go on other than his silence and similar phenomena in other early
Jewish works.
A Possibly More Expansive Notion of Virginity: Philo

The situation with Philo is more ambiguous. As with Josephus, Philo’s
paraphrase of Deut. 22:13–21 alone offers little clear evidence, and there-
fore much of what I wrote above with regard to Josephus would hold here
as well. Like Josephus, Philo simply evades the details of the evidence
required by the Deuteronomic pericope, and as with Josephus, we might
wonder if the Greek-speaking, at least potentially gentile audience that
Philo wrote for influenced his decision simply to leave out details of the
pericope that he feared would not play well in Roman Alexandria.14 Philo
differs from Josephus, however, in remaining more faithful to the bibli-
cal text in his description of both parents of the bride appearing “to plead
the cause,” rather than Josephus’s assorted male relatives. Furthermore,
though he does not discuss bloody sheets or the like, he does refer spe-
cifically to the bride’s “bodily chastity,” which keeps our gaze focused on
physical aspects of female virginity.15
Passages from elsewhere in the Philonic corpus, however, give me
pause in ascribing with too much confidence such an interpretation to the
Alexandrian author. Philo expresses a particular concern with premarital
chastity and its spiritual, rather than its physical, content. For example,
writing about the marital laws legislated for the high priest and requiring
him to marry a virgin, Philo discusses not only the aspects of virginity tied
to anatomy and genealogy (“in order that the holy seed may pass into pure
and untrodden soil and the issue receive no admixture of another family”),
but also its spiritual aspects and effects (“that by mating with souls entirely
innocent and unperverted they may find it easy to mould the characters
and dispositions of their wives, for the minds of virgins are easily influ-
enced and attracted to virtue and very ready to be taught”).16 If virginity for
Philo is not only about the “untrodden” nature of the “soil” into which the
high priest will sow his seed, but also about husbands finding it “easy to
mould the characters and dispositions of their wives,” then physical testing
may well be irrelevant, and certainly would be insufficient, in establishing
virginity, since what matters in this description of virginity are the spiritual
84
characteristics that are part and parcel—indeed, the central feature—of

Philo’s virginity. Thus Philo concludes his discussion of marriage part-
ners for the high priest: “And when I say ‘virgin’ [parthenon] I exclude not
only one with whom another man has had intercourse but also one with
whom any other has been declared to have an agreement of betrothal, even
though her body is that of a maid intact [kan agneuh to soma].”17
What is more, Philo’s statement that “they may find it easy to mould
the characters and dispositions of their wives” is actually difficult to trans-
late because of the use of the plural form “they.”18 Colson dismisses
Heinemann’s apparent interpretation “that it refers to the couple” because
“it seems to [him] impossible that Philo should be supposing that the high
priest’s character is moulded by his wife.”19 But Colson’s inability to imag-
ine this possibility may say more about his own assumptions than those of
Philo, since the Alexandrian author indeed appears in his broader corpus
to be interested in the premarital sexual history of men as well as women.
This Philonic interest in male premarital chastity—a concern that is in
some ways typical of turn-of-the-millenium Alexandria, but which is quite
unusual in Jewish texts of antiquity more generally20—is clearest in De
Josepho 42–44, where he dramatizes Joseph’s refusal to fornicate with his
master’s wife thus:
We, the descendants of the Hebrews, live under special customs

and laws. Among others it is allowed, from the age of fourteen
onwards, to be freely intimate with harlots and prostitutes and
those who make profit from their bodies, while among us a cour-
tesan is not allowed to live, but the death penalty is appointed for
the woman who plies this trade. Before the lawful union we do not
know intercourse with other women, but come as chaste men [hag-
noi] to chaste virgins [hagnais parthenois], seeking as the fulfillment
of wedlock not pleasure, but the begetting of lawful children. To this
day I have remained pure and shall not begin transgressing against
the law by committing adultery, the greatest of crimes. Even if I had
in former times departed from my accustomed manner of life and
been drawn by the impulses of youth and had been emulating the
softness of this land, I ought nevertheless not make the wedded life
of another my prey.21
The penultimate sentence of this passage turns our attention to the fact
that for Joseph to engage in sexual relations with his master’s wife would
85
Doubts and Faith 85
be an act of adultery. The majority of Joseph’s monologue, however, focuses

on his own chastity.22 Jewish men, Joseph says, “do not know intercourse
with other women” prior to marriage, and enter marriage as “chaste men.”
In context, Joseph’s statement that he is “pure” is more than a testament to
his refusal to commit adultery, but a description of his sexual status—he is
sexually pure, that is, a virgin.
Philo presents this interest in premarital virginity for men as a uniquely
Jewish concern,23 and Philo may here be interpreting the prohibition on
prostitution in Deut. 23:18 (No Israelite woman shall be a cult prostitute [kede-
ishah]) as resulting from concern for male virginity.24 However, this focus on
a man’s sexual history prior to marriage likely would not have made Philo
the Jew all that distinctive in first-century Alexandria. I have in mind here
the Greek romances of the Second Sophistic, many of which are (or likely
are) of Alexandrian (or, more broadly, Egyptian) origins, and which are note-
worthy for, among other things, their relatively high interest in the chastity
of their male protagonists, as when Clitophon asserts that he has “imitated
[Leucippe’s] chastity, if that word has any meaning for men as it does for
women.”25 Philo’s interest in and emphasis on male sexual purity prior to
marriage fits well alongside these roughly contemporaneous Greek novels.26
In any event, Philo expresses a clear concern with the premarital vir-
ginity of both Jewish women and Jewish men,27 the latter of which he
explicitly compares to the former. Given this parallelism and, to my knowl-
edge, the total absence of anatomical tests for male virginity (in antiquity
or later times),28 as well as his emphasis on the spiritual aspects of vir-
ginity, we might imagine that female virginity as something anatomically
determined was, for Philo, as unthinkable as it would be for him to verify a
man’s virginity based on some observable bodily trait.29 It thus may be that
Philo, in omitting the gory details of Deut. 22:21–21, is not merely gloss-
ing over an embarrassing moment in his sacred text, but rather (or also)
leaving out a passage premised on a conception of female virginity that in
some core ways conflicted with his own.
This interpretation is necessarily speculative. Perhaps Philo, for all
his interest in spiritual virginity and male chastity, still fundamentally
assumed that a bride’s virginity should be tested by physical means. But
Philo’s distinctive approaches to virginity generally suggest at least the
possibility that he, unlike Josephus and other Jewish authors of the first
centuries ce, represents a departure from the otherwise monolithic por-
trayal of female virginity as something physical, proved by blood on the
nuptial bed or lacerations on the body of the bride.
86
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Matthew, a late first-century text,30 provides one of the earli-
est extant descriptions of the circumstances of Jesus’s conception:
18
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When
his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived
together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her
husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose
her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just
when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to
take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the
Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to
fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23
“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name
him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph
awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him;
he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until
she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.31
Two passages from the Hebrew Bible lurk behind this gospel peric-
ope: Num. 5:11–31, and Deut. 22:13–21. Numbers 5, which will play an impor-
tant role in several Christian works to be discussed in c hapter 5, relates that
a woman accused of adultery must submit to a humiliating ordeal, perhaps
alluded to by Joseph’s not wanting to “expose [Mary] to public disgrace.”32
Additionally, as in Deuteronomy 22, in Matthew 1 we find a man who has
reason to believe that his bride is no longer a virgin. This suspicion puts
the bride at grave risk (Joseph was “unwilling to expose her to public dis-
grace”). Her faithfulness and uprightness are thus tested.
Yet, though Mary’s virginity is impugned, neither the ordeal of
Numbers 5 nor the anatomical standard of Deuteronomy 22 make any
explicit appearance. On the face of it, this development is unsurprising.
I have highlighted one structural similarity between the Matthean pas-
sage and Deuteronomy 22, but the differences are likewise important. We
would not expect Joseph to invoke Deut. 22:13–21 in response to his suspi-
cion, since those protocols go into effect where a man has consummated
the marriage and, as a result of that wedding-night consummation, come
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Doubts and Faith 87
to suspect his bride of some premarital wrongdoing. Joseph, however,

has reason for suspicion prior to the wedding night—the swollen belly
of his clearly pregnant fiancée. Indeed, to whatever extent men in antiq-
uity might have viewed bloodied sheets as “objective” evidence of virginity,
pregnancy surely constitutes a far more reliable proof of nonvirginity. The
scene provides neither the circumstances nor the incentive for a physical
testing of virginity.
But we should not be so quick to dismiss the absence of bloodied
sheets or a cognate as a mere consequence of the narrative needs of the
scene. To begin with, as I described in c hapter 3, texts from Qumran main-
tain Deuteronomic assumptions about virginity even as they transform
postcoital bleeding into a premarital vaginal examination. The Damascus
Document invokes the need for a woman examiner in a set of circum-
stances that quite nicely describe Mary’s: “And any [woman upon whom
there is a] bad [na]me in her maidenhood in her father’s home, let no
man take her, except [upon examination] by reliable and knowledgeable
[women].”33 The infancy narrative of Matthew would have been largely
maintained had Joseph, instead of receiving an angelic message con-
firming Mary’s virginity, called for midwives and then, assured of his
betrothed’s sexual purity, connected the dots and understood the mirac-
ulous nature of the child dwelling within her. Indeed, as I will discuss in
chapter 5, late antique Syriac poems retelling Matt. 1:18–25 place in the
mouth of Mary a suggestion to Joseph to do just that. The absence here of
midwives, then, deserves our attention.
What is more, the Matthean pericope may hint at an echo of
Deuteronomy 22 in its background. In verse 19, the narrator relates, “Her
husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to
public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” The relationship in this
verse of Joseph’s being “righteous” [dikaios] to his desire not to “expose
her to public disgrace” has elicited debate among commentators. The crux
here is the Greek word kai, translated above as and, but which might be
rendered but. That is to say: is Joseph’s decision to divorce Mary quietly
a result of his uprightness (he was “a righteous man and [therefore was]
unwilling to expose her . . . ”), or a concession in spite of his rectitude (“a
righteous man but unwilling to expose her . . . ”)?34
In the former translation, Joseph’s desire to maintain Mary’s repu-
tation is a consequence of his goodness; in the latter, Joseph’s compas-
sion for Mary stands opposed to righteousness. However, both of these
share an assumption that something far worse than a quiet divorce was
8
the expected consequence for Mary’s premarital sexual experience. This

implication is clearer in the case of the second translation; the law calls for
one outcome, but Joseph opts for another. But even the first translation,
which conflates Joseph’s uprightness with his decision to forgo strict pun-
ishment, assumes another more deleterious option. As Raymond Brown
writes describing this interpretation, Joseph “showed himself upright
(merciful) in his unwillingness to enforce the law against adultery rigor-
ously.”35 In order for him to express his uprightness through compassion,
there must be a law that Joseph is unwilling to enforce rigorously!
We might reasonably imagine precisely the specters of Deuteronomy
22 floating behind this verse in Matthew.36 The veiled allusion to a more
punishing ordeal in verse 19 lends new significance to the angelic mes-
sage of verses 20–21. Read against the Deuteronomic virginity test, the
angel’s confirmation to Joseph that Mary has not violated the terms of their
engagement—that she remains a “virgin”—becomes an alternative model
for affirming or denying virginity, standing in place of the Deuteronomic
bloodied sheets. Blood following a physical trauma has been replaced by a
divine message as evidence of a woman’s sexual status.
To be sure, this is not a test in the sense of Deut. 22:13–21 (or, for that
matter, any of the ordeals discussed in the introduction). There is no active
testing of Mary, unless we want to consider Joseph’s doubt a kind of test-
ing. What is more, whereas bloodied sheets and public ordeals are all rep-
licable models, readers of the Matthean text are unlikely to have imagined
waiting for an angelic response as a functional means of dealing with
suspected premarital infidelity. But by alluding to some other regime of
testing and punishing women for their premarital sexual history and then
depicting Joseph as opting out of that model, Matt. 1:18–25 creates another
paradigm, one in which virginity is investigated not in a woman’s genita-
lia, but rather though divine oracle.
The pericope also draws our attention to the moral rectitude of both
groom and bride. As already noted, Joseph is described as dikaios, faith-
ful or upright. Strikingly, the passage does not explicitly describe Mary’s
moral status. However, the twice-repeated statement that she was preg-
nant through/from37 the Holy Spirit (verses 18, 20) serves to emphasize not
only her ethical well-being, but also her proximity to holiness. These traits
loosely associate the justification of her sexual status with the moral sta-
tus of the marital partners. In some sense, then, Matthew has substituted
for Deuteronomy’s anatomical standard of virginity a “faith-based” testing.
In the next chapter, I will consider a number of texts that, even as they
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Doubts and Faith 89
maintain the Deuteronomic model of virginity testing, nonetheless reveal

signs of a Matthean impulse toward faith-based testing as well—that is, a
vesting of virginity outside of the female body, tied instead, at least in part,
to a woman’s demeanor, or proper behavior and belief.
Two caveats are in order. First, though in what follows I will sometimes
refer to a faith-based model of virginity testing that stands opposed to a
Deuteronomic paradigm and that has its roots in Matthew, where I ascribe
such a stance to a particular text, the reader should not understand this as
implying that this stance results from the influence of Matthew. In at least
one case—the Mishnah—such influence is exceedingly unlikely. Rather,
my intent is to use the testing of Mary’s virginity in Matthew as a means
of drawing attention to moments in other texts that similarly depart from
the substantive assumptions of virginity testing in Deuteronomy and its
Second Temple inheritors.
Secondly, although I have tried to locate this alternative model for think-
ing about female virginity in Matthew, it is not essential that the reader
accept this argument for it to be a useful heuristic in the coming chapters.
This brief Matthean passage presents a number of ambiguities, and other
interpretive possibilities for Joseph’s uprightness and the paths that he
does not take in response to Mary’s pregnancy might lead to a different
understanding of what relevance, if any, this pericope holds for thinking
about virginity testing in early Jewish and Christian texts. But even if one
does not choose to read the narrative of Matt. 1:18–25 as substantively offer-
ing an alternative model of virginity, we will see that many later Christians
did in fact build rhetorically on the ambiguities in the Matthean pericope
to extol faith-based standards of virginity over anatomical ones.
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Struck by Wood, Struck by God

Virginity Beyond/D espite Anatomy
Matthew 1:18–25 opens the door to a possible countermodel for thinking

about female virginity, one in which the body is decentered, if not made
entirely irrelevant. Whether the author of Matthew intended to construct
such a countermodel or not, a number of Christian works build on it,
expanding and strengthening this alternative paradigm of virginity test-
ing.1 However, I will argue in this chapter that these Christian works, even
as they incorporate elements that undermine the Deuteronomic regime
of virginity and its verification, nonetheless remain deeply influenced by
Deuteronomy’s physiological conception of female virginity. Even those
works that most emphasize what, for lack of a better term, I call a faith-based
model of virginity testing, speak in a decidedly mixed register in which the
spiritual and the anatomical live—somewhat uncomfortably—side by side.
In this chapter, I first consider the second-century Protevangelium of
James (PJ). Although the dominant voice of this work focuses on physical
aspects of virginity, in important ways the model provided by Matthew
is nonetheless detectable. What is more, if we consider PJ alongside the
undeniably non-Christian, but roughly contemporaneous Mishnah, we
see a certain similarity between the two works in their mixing of a pre-
vailing approach to female virginity that remains faithful to Deuteronomy
with a subtle but nonetheless discernible voice that undermines that
model. Given the unlikelihood of the Mishnah reflecting influence from
the Gospel of Matthew, the similarity between the two works suggests that
rather than a literal expansion of an implied theme in Matthew, we are
dealing with a broader second-century Jewish anxiety about purely ana-
tomical definitions of virginity.
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Struck by Wood, Struck by God 91
I then turn to two works of late antique Syriac poetry that reveal the
growing influence of Matthew’s faith-based virginity testing. What for PJ
(and the Mishnah) was a subversive substrate in the text becomes in these
works the more significant mode for thinking about virginity and its verifi-
cation. However, even in these two poems, in which faith seems to replace
physiology, concrete metaphors for virginity betray the ongoing power that
Deuteronomy held on these Christian authors.
Testing Virginity in PJ
The Possibly Jewish Character of
the Community that Produced PJ
PJ and the Mishnah are not generally read together; indeed, they are too
rarely read even by the same readers. In recent years, however, a few
scholars have begun to take note of important similarities and possi-
ble points of contact between the communities that produced these two
works.2 The analysis in this chapter expands on the findings of those
scholars who have argued for a shared context for the authors who pro-
duced the Mishnah and those who authored PJ. A word is thus in order
about the ways in which we should and should not read PJ in the context
of early Judaism.
The origins of PJ, with regard to its date of composition, its provenance,
and the religious identity and self-perception of its authors have been
much debated. Scholars generally agree that PJ was composed sometime
in the second half of the second century,3 thus placing it in rough chrono-
logical proximity to the Mishnah and other works of tannaitic Rabbis. The
provenance of this work is more contested, but Lily C. Vuong has recently
argued, in my mind compellingly, that literary analysis of PJ supports ear-
lier arguments for viewing the work as deriving from Syria.4 Vuong argues
for a Syrian origin based on thematic concerns and common interests that
PJ shares with Syrian Christian texts. One of these common topics is a
particular interest in Mary’s perpetual virginity—her status as a “virgin”
not only when she conceives Jesus, but continuing to the end of her life,
an interest that will be the focus of my analysis in this chapter.
Finally, and related to the question of geographical provenance, is the
question of the religious identity of PJ’s authors—specifically whether
they were Jewish Christ-followers or gentile. This problem has divided
scholars into two camps, though only recently have those who have argued
for Jewish origins turned their sights to Rabbinic literature rather than
92
pointing out only interest in and knowledge of the Hebrew Bible.5 These
recent opening salvos in comparing PJ and contemporaneous, decidedly
non-Christian Rabbinic literature have shown greater similarity than pre-
viously realized. For example, some scholars point to a passage that I will
consider below in which Mary and Joseph are compelled to drink some
sort of water that will testify to their guilt or innocence as evidence of
Jewish knowledge, since it obviously echoes Num. 5:11–31. But opposing
scholars have turned to the very same passage in PJ and the ways in which
it deviates from the biblical test as evidence of ignorance of the Hebrew
Bible. Timothy Horner, however, has argued that though PJ’s deviations
indeed do not look like anything in the biblical text, they are similar, at
least in some broad strokes, to the interpretive work implicitly done on
this passage in the Mishnah.6
Horner is careful not to suggest some sort of direct relationship between
PJ and the Mishnah. Indeed, influence from one of these communities of
authors on the other is not necessary for the argument that I make in this
chapter either. Rather, PJ and the Mishnah, I maintain, reflect a common
cultural milieu in which at least some authors are coming to have substan-
tive doubts about purely anatomical definitions of female virginity.
The Threefold Testing of Mary in PJ

Perhaps the most curious aspect of PJ’s interest in Mary’s perpetual virgin-
ity is what later authors would come to call virginitas in partu, the idea that
her body experienced no physical change during and following the birth
of Jesus. In PJ, Mary’s virginitas in partu is manifest through a famous
depiction of a physical postpartum exam determining Mary’s continued
physical virginity.
The postpartum physical testing of Mary’s virginity by a woman named
Salome is likely PJ’s most well-known scene.7 Mary Foskett refers to it as
the “climax of the story” and cites Emile Amann’s calling virginity the “idée
capitale” of the work.8 But Vuong rightly points out that Salome’s physical
examination of Mary is in fact the third, albeit the most dramatic, of three
virginity tests in the story.9 Recognition of the threefold testing of Mary’s
virginity actually makes Salome’s examination even more significant; it is
the culmination of a thematic arc that has been extending for several chap-
ters in PJ, thus highlighting not only the importance of virginity generally
in this work, but also making clear the kind of virginity that is valued.10 At
the same time, the introduction of other kinds of virginity tests reminds
93
the reader that there were indeed other possible routes that could have
been taken, possibilities that were not raised in Deuteronomy or those
interpreters discussed in chapter 3.
The first of these virginity tests occurs when Joseph, returning after an
extended period away, finds Mary pregnant and accuses her of lack of chas-
tity: “So Joseph got up from the sackcloth and summoned Mary and said
to her, ‘God has taken a special interest in you—how could you have done
this?’ ” (PJ 13.6).11 Mary protests her innocence (PJ 13.8), but her claims fall
on Joseph’s deaf ears. In the end, the proof to Joseph of Mary’s virginity
comes from a divine message, delivered directly by an angel: “But when
night came a messenger of the Lord suddenly appeared to him in a dream
and said: ‘Don’t be afraid of this girl, because the child in her is the holy
spirit’s doing. . . . And Joseph got up from his sleep and praised the God
of Israel.” (PJ 14.5–7).
The entire passage is clearly patterned on Matt. 1:18–25. In both PJ 13–14
and Matt. 1:18–25, Joseph considers divorcing Mary in light of her preg-
nancy (Matt. 1:19, PJ 14.4); in both, an angel of the Lord tells Joseph that
the child Mary bears is the work of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20; PJ 14.5); in
both the angel relates that the child shall be named Jesus (Matt. 1:21; PJ
14.6); and finally, in both passages Joseph accepts his responsibilities as
husband/caretaker of Mary (Matt. 1:24; PJ 14.7–8). What is more, many
phrases appear in identical form in both passages.
Yet the different contexts of the story in its two settings affect its mean-
ings. In Matthew, Mary is a minor character. This story thus stands alone,
and one could read it simply as a dialogue between Mary and Joseph, fol-
lowed by a prophecy from the angel to Joseph. But since in PJ Joseph’s
doubt precedes two more attacks on Mary’s status as a virgin, the exchange
becomes far more clearly a test of virginity, with the angel’s testimony com-
ing as the proof rendering the test successful. What was an interpretive
possibility in Matthew becomes a far more pronounced trait in PJ.
Despite having convinced Joseph, Mary finds her virginity challenged
again, this time by the priests in the Temple. Upon seeing Mary preg-
nant, Annas “the scholar” runs to tell the high priest (15.3–4), who in turn
accuses Mary:12 “ ‘Mary, why have you done this? . . . Have you forgotten
the Lord your God?’ ” (PJ 15.10–11). This time the test takes the form of
Mary’s and Joseph’s drinking of water, which somehow displays the verac-
ity of their claim that they have not consummated their marriage: “And
the high priest said, ‘I’m going to give you the Lord’s drink test, and it
will disclose your sin clearly to both of you.’ ” (16.3).13 Both Joseph and
94
Mary are tested in this way, and both pass the test, returning unharmed
(16.4–5).
Unlike the first test, which is essentially an appeal to religious right-
eousness and faith, this is a classic ordeal as described by Kathleen
Coyne Kelly:
An ordeal . . . is a matter of performance: the virgin or faithful

wife must swear an oath, and/or successfully complete an impos-
sible, magical, or dangerous task in order to prove her chastity.
The consequences of failure are immediate and irreparable for the
accused: injury, banishment, or death.14
The drinking of water is not an examination of the woman’s body to deter-

mine her virginity (as evidenced by its application to Joseph as well),15 nor
is it a “proof” through her virtue or faith. Rather, it is some sort of magical
test; as indicated by the high priest’s ominous warning (“it will disclose
your sin clearly to both of you”), failure would indeed bring what Kelly calls
“immediate and irreparable” harm.
Thus, Mary’s virginity has been tested twice at this point, once by
Joseph’s doubt, with a divine message providing its proof, and once by the
successfully passed ordeal of the “drink test.” Only after these two tests
does the reader come to the most dramatic (and, accordingly, well-known)
verification of Mary’s virginity in PJ. After the second test, Joseph and
Mary travel to Bethlehem, and Mary gives birth to Jesus while en route.
Following the birth, a woman named Salome, doubting Mary’s mirac-
ulous virginity, enters the cave where Mary has given birth in order to
administer a vaginal examination to test the new mother’s virginity: “And
Salome replied, ‘As the Lord God lives, unless I insert my finger and exam-
ine her, I will never believe that a virgin has given birth’ ” (19.19). The test
goes better for Mary than it does for Salome: “and Salome inserted her
finger into her genitalia.16 And then Salome cried aloud and said, ‘I’ll be
damned because of my transgression and my disbelief; I have put the liv-
ing God on trial. Look! My hand is disappearing! It’s being consumed by
flames!’ ” (20.2–4).
Salome’s physical examination of Mary is at one and the same time
startling and completely predictable—at least if we accept a Jewish ori-
gin for PJ. For modern Western readers, a gynecological exam to “estab-
lish” virginity may well seem inevitable. It is important to realize, however,
that this assumption likely results from the influence of Deuteronomy 22
95
and its later interpreters. As I noted in the introduction to this book, both
examination of the nuptial sheets and the use of genital exams to establish
virginity are anything but universal tropes in the history of virginity test-
ing. Where we find them, we are likely in a biblically influenced commun-
ity, and, as I noted in chapter 3, it is striking that vaginal examinations,
found in texts from Qumran, reappear in a variety of Christian texts.17
Although this trope on its own may not be enough to place Christian
texts that mention it in an interpretive chain through Qumran and back
to Deuteronomy 22, neither should we dismiss it as simply a reasonable
coincidence. Rather, in combination with the argument that I make below
about the shared themes of PJ and the Mishnah, I suggest that we view the
very appearance of the genital inspection in PJ as evidence for its place in
a biblical interpretive tradition.18
Before I consider the Salome scene in detail, we should appreciate its
place in the larger narrative of testing Mary’s virginity in PJ. That these
three tests should be read as a series with increasing intensity is borne out
by the ever-widening audience of each.19 The initial test, answered by the
divine message of the angel, sets Joseph’s mind at ease. The community of
doubters grows for the second test, which takes place in the Temple; thus,
when PJ relates that “everybody [pas ho laos] was surprised because [Mary’s
and Joseph’s] sin had not been revealed” (16.6), “everybody” presumably
refers to priests and perhaps some other select group of onlookers. But
clearly, despite the fact that the ordeal—by its literary nature—is public,
this particular ordeal was not broadcast to Israel as a whole, because at
least two women—an unnamed midwife and Salome—doubt Mary’s vir-
ginity in chapter 19. The prominent presence of women in this final scene
itself is likely intended to represent its public implications, as women in
early Jewish texts are often portrayed as the most decentralized players
in Jewish society.20 The narrative itself reinforces this sense, since the
scene of Salome’s dramatic proving of Mary’s virginity concludes with a
message from an anonymous voice: “ ‘Salome, Salome, don’t report the
marvels you’ve seen until the child goes to Jerusalem’ ” (20.12). Though
the relaying of the message of Mary’s miraculous labor and delivery must
be delayed, the episode will be reported, presumably to all Israel or the
world at large. First an angel convinces Joseph; then an ordeal satisfies the
priests; but only the report of a woman’s vaginal examination will settle
the matter once and for all.
The final test of Mary’s virginity, a forensic examination of her body,
thus represents a juridical apotheosis of sorts, what the author(s) of PJ
96
consider the most decisive form of evidence. PJ’s three virginity tests take
the reader from divine message to survival of an ordeal and finally to phys-
iological evidence of virginity as the ultimate proof of chastity. The ana-
tomical nature of this test is manifest also in the language used to describe
it. The author writes that “Salome inserted her finger into her genitalia
[physis],” a surprising word that emphasizes the medicalized nature of the
scene.21 Thus, the climactic test of Mary’s virginity is one that places it fully
in the context of the physiological.
Indeed, Salome’s genital inspection of Mary implies not only an ana-
tomical test of female virginity, but an actual anatomical definition for that
virginity, because it follows the birth of Jesus. Salome doubts not only that
Mary could conceive without having penetrative sexual relations, but also
that she could give birth while her genitalia remained physically unchanged.
This too, PJ makes clear, is an aspect of Mary’s virginity.22 Thus, for Salome
at least—and for the reader who comes along with her—virginity is a mat-
ter not (only) of sexual history, but (also) of physical state.23
In truth, I should be bolder—Mary’s physical state is the only part of the
miraculous birth that matters to Salome. Given that this physical examina-
tion takes place after Mary’s delivery, Salome must expect to find ruptured
genitalia resulting from the birth process. Even if Mary had been a vir-
gin, in the sense of not having previously experienced sexual intercourse,
her body would not testify to such a status now, when the entry of a baby
into the world through her vaginal canal would have destroyed whatever
physical “integrity” Salome might have sought out. Mary’s antepartum vir-
ginity certainly could not be “proved” through a physical examination at
this point; the sole point of the examination is to test her in partu—that is,
her physical—virginity. The contrapositive of this claim is of course also
true: anyone who doubted Mary’s in partu virginity could not expect to
disprove her antepartum virginity through genital examination. Salome’s
doubt, then, must be specifically about Mary’s in partu, physical, virginity.
Physical virginity is what she doubts, and physical virginity is what the
scene proves.24
What would it mean were Mary not to maintain her virginitas in partu?
Such a claim would imply that her son Jesus had ruptured her body as a
result of his being born. In other words, despite having never engaged in
sexual relations, Mary would have “lost” some aspect of her virginity. By
this definition, Mary would equally cease to be a “virgin” if her genitalia
were ruptured in the course of quotidian physical activity or, to borrow a
metonym from Rabbinic literature that I will discuss below, if she were
97
struck on her genitalia by a piece of wood. Virginity, in this construct, is

defined by anatomy. It is this physical virginity that PJ places at its narra-
tive summit.
The Second-Century Syrian Context

for PJ’s Interest in Physical Virginity
PJ is not alone in extolling Mary’s in partu virginity; it finds kindred spirits
in a number of roughly second-century Syrian texts. For example, both the
Odes of Solomon (19.7–10) and the Ascension of Isaiah (11.7–8) describe the
painlessness with which Mary gave birth. Although painless delivery and
a delivery that leaves no marks on the mother’s body are not synonymous,
they surely are similar tropes. The Ascension of Isaiah, however, goes even
further, stating that “her womb was found as (it was) at first, before she had
conceived” (11.9), thus making a strikingly similar claim.25 Although less
clear, Ignatius’s Letter to the Ephesians may also allude to virginitas in partu.26
Vuong cites these passages as possible evidence for a Syrian provenance for
PJ.27 In any event, it certainly seems that in partu virginity, which in later
centuries would become an important idea to Christian thinkers in other
parts of the globe, was already present in the Mariology of second-century
Syrian Christianity. As I will argue below, this interest is of a piece with the
early third-century Palestinian Mishnah, none of which is all that surprising
in light of earlier Jewish writings about female virginity and its verification.
PJ’s Ambivalence about Physical Virginity

PJ, however, displays an ambivalence about anatomy as an indicator of
female virginity that we do not see in these other works. Unlike the other
second-century Christian works that mention and extol Mary’s physical
virginity, PJ’s climactic scene about virginity, even as it affirms the pre-
eminence of physical virginity by placing it front and center, also subtly
undermines the notion that true virginity resides in and can be proved
through the gynecological. As Françoise Meltzer has pointed out, “the
‘evidence’ for Mary’s virginity is not an intact hymen but the miracle of
punishing disbelief,” such that this episode actually critiques the “mixture
of medical register with that of faith.”28 Naomi Seidman makes a similar
point: Salome is critiqued (and critiques herself) because she “sets gynecol-
ogy” against theological claims about Mary’s virginity and thus “is turned
away—burned—at the very portals of the woman’s body. . . . [A]‌lthough the
98
tradition forthrightly admits that ‘there is no small contention concern-

ing’ Mary . . . it forbids us forever from wielding the speculum.”29 Indeed,
PJ never states explicitly that Salome found Mary’s body “intact,” as we
might be expecting; instead, her fiery consumed hand replaces the medi-
cal evidence we thought to find. In a very important sense, then, Salome’s
inspection betrays its author(s)’ doubts about the importance (and perhaps
even the category) of physical virginity.
We should not, though, misconstrue this ambivalence regarding physical
virginity for an actual rejection of the idea, or of its importance. PJ’s author(s)
make sure to include the graphic detail of Salome “insert[ing] her finger
into [Mary’s] genitalia,” and they still make the choice to place the scene at
the pinnacle of the narrative arc. Meltzer’s and Seidman’s insights thus live
alongside Foskett’s claim that “the narrative reveals an anatomical definition
of parthenia.”30 Through its presentation of Salome’s examination of Mary’s
body, PJ thus expresses doubt about anatomical definitions of female virgin-
ity, subverting the anatomical even as it places it front and center.
Indeed, the very introduction of multiple tests of virginity betrays the
author(s)’ anxiety about a construction of virginity rooted in anatomy. To
be sure, I, following Vuong, have already claimed that recognizing that PJ
presents not one but three virginity tests in one sense strengthens Amann’s
claim that virginity is the “idée capitale” of this work, since it sets up Salome’s
physical test as the climax of this part of the story. At the same time, though,
the inclusion of other tests of Mary’s virginity hints at the very ambiguity
of “virginity” and how it can or should be proved. The introduction of other
tests into the narrative deprives anatomical virginity of the status it has in
earlier Jewish works as the only explicit means of testing virginity. In addi-
tion to her vaginal examination, Mary proves her virginity through divine
message as well as magical ordeal. In these ways, PJ betrays its dominant
presentation of virginity in a Deuteronomic mode with an undercurrent of
faith-based virginity testing of the sort hinted at in Matthew.
It may also be significant that the latter of these two alternative tests
has parallels in contemporaneous Greek romance novels of the Second
Sophistic31 and thus could have been already in the backs of contempo-
rary readers’ minds. As I wrote in the introduction, for twenty-first-century
Western readers, both the influence of Deuteronomy 22 and the modern
culture of medicalization makes vaginal examinations appear almost
inevitable as a mode of testing female virginity. However, for Syrian
Christian readers in the second or third centuries, influenced by both the
Hebrew Bible and the literature and norms of Roman society, a medical
9
examination may have been, at most, of equal significance to a model of

virginity testing based on ordeal. The third test thus may represent the
literary climax of this process, proving Mary’s virginity to the entire peo-
ple Israel as represented by the woman Salome, but the very placement
of this test in the context of other modes of verifying virginity reflects and
affirms that this preference for a physical test of virginity was one choice
among several that could have been made, and thereby undermines any
sense that the physical verification of female virginity is the only means for
determining a woman’s sexual status.
Testing Virginity in the Mishnah

The Mishnah’s Continuity with the
Deuteronomic Model
Like the texts from the Qumran passages discussed in chapter 3, the cen-
tral Rabbinic work of the tannaitic period, the Mishnah,32 maintains the
biblical model of bleeding and/or lacerations as definitive evidence of
female virginity, though, to be sure, it is less explicit than the Scrolls.33
But, as is the case in PJ, the Mishnah’s treatment of female virginity and
its verification betrays anxiety about this wholly physical standard. Even
as it affirms its continuity with Deuteronomy 22 and earlier Jewish inter-
preters, the Mishnah not only allows for a dissenting view, but places this
disruption at the center of its discussion of sexual status.
The focus of my analysis here is the first half of the first chapter of Tractate
Ketubot of the Mishnah, specifically paragraphs 1–5.34 In order to engage in
close analysis of this unit, I include here a translation of the entire passage:
1:1 A betulah is wed on the fourth day, and a widow on the fifth day,35
because twice36 a week courts sit in the cities, on the second day and
on the fifth day, such that if he had a claim about virginity [betulim],
he would go early37 to the court.
1:2 (a)38 A betulah—her ketubah is 200 [zuz], and a widow—100.
A betulah [who is] widowed, divorced, or rejected from levirate mar-
riage [halutzah]39 from engagement [erusin]—their ketubah is 200,
and they have a claim about virginity. (b) A convert, a captive, and a
gentile slave, who were redeemed, or who converted, or who were
freed,40 at younger than three years and one day old—their ketubah
is 200, and they have a claim about virginity.
10
1:3 An adult male [gadol] who penetrated a minor female [ketanah],41

and a minor male who penetrated an adult female, and a mukat
‘etz—their ketubah is 200; the words of Rabbi Meir. But the Sages
say: a mukat ‘etz—her ketubah is 100.
1:4 (a) A betulah [who is] widowed, divorced, or rejected from levirate
marriage from marriage [nissu’in]—their ketubah is 100, and they
have no claim about virginity. (b) A convert, a captive, and a gentile
slave, who were redeemed, or who converted, or who were freed, at
older than three years and one day old—their ketubah is 100, and
they have no claim about virginity.
1:5 One who eats with his father-in-law in Judea without witnesses
cannot make a claim about virginity, because he is alone with her.42
Whether one is the widow of an Israelite [almanat yisra’el] or the
widow of a priest [Heb: almanat kohen], their ketubah is 100. The
priestly court [bet din shel kohanim] would collect for a betulah 400
zuz, and the Sages did not stop them.
These first five mishnayot discuss the amount of property to be set aside for
a bride’s ketubah, that is, the economic commitment a groom makes,43 to
be paid to a woman in the event of divorce or the husband’s death.44 This
value is determined by the bride’s status; a woman who is legally consid-
ered a betulah receives a ketubah of 200 zuz, while a woman who is not
legally a betulah receives only 100 zuz.
These mishnayot also address the question of whether a bride is sub-
ject to an accusation about her sexual status following the wedding night.
Women in some of these categories are subject to accusations from their
grooms (in the language of the Mishnah, “they have,” i.e., are subject to, “a
claim about virginity”), while women who fall into other categories do not
“have” such claims. In most of the cases, the value of the ketubah and the
applicability of virginity claims are explicitly linked—where the ketubah is
200 zuz, virginity claims are relevant, and where virginity claims are not
relevant, the ketubah is only 100 zuz.45
Several aspects of this text require attention at the outset. First of all,
unlike its ambiguous analogue in the Hebrew Bible, the word “betulah”
here clearly refers to a woman’s previous sexual experience. Thus, the
author(s) can use a phrase such as “a betulah [who is] widowed” in para-
graphs 1:2 and 1:4. Although generally in Rabbinic literature, the terms
betulah and almanah (literally a widowed woman, but often referring to
any previously married woman) are juxtaposed as opposite categories (as
10
is the case in the first line of 1:2), the applicability of both of these terms to
a single (imagined) woman makes clear that in this case, betulah is a tech-
nical term for sexual status (i.e., has she engaged in sexual intercourse?),
while almanah is a term of social status (i.e., has she been previously mar-
ried?). What is more, the fascinating use of betulah in 1:4 to refer to a
woman who has been previously married (as opposed to simply engaged)
suggests a willingness to consider the possibility that a marriage occurred
without sexual consummation of that marriage.
It is also clear from (though not explicit in) this passage that these
Rabbinic authors maintain the biblical model of verifying female virgin-
ity through bleeding. First of all, no other means of testing the bride’s
virginity is mentioned or alluded to. Since any reader of the Mishnah
would be familiar with the Hebrew Bible as a whole and certainly with
the Pentateuch, a “claim about virginity” necessarily signals Deut. 22:13–
21. This argument is similar to the one I made in chapter 4 regarding
Josephus’s paraphrase of Deuteronomy 22, but here the use of the word
betulim (as opposed to Josephus’s vague “whatever evidence he has as
proof”), which plays so prominent a role in the biblical pericope referring
to the concrete “evidence” of virginity, bolsters the argument from silence.
Even more powerfully, paragraph 1:6—which, though moving on to a new
topic is directly related to the material that I am considering here—begins
with the phrase “A man who marries a woman and does not find in her bet-
ulim,” an even more striking allusion to Deuteronomy 22. Finally, though
this is surely speculative, Aharon Shemesh has suggested that the empha-
sis on the groom’s “go[ing] early to the court” may echo the postnuptial
vaginal examinations of 4Q159 2–4 and reflect an interest in physically
examining a bride when physical evidence of trauma is most likely to be
found.46 For all of these reasons, it is clear that mKet 1:1–5 fundamentally
maintains the biblical model of female virginity as something marked by
postcoital bleeding.47
Rabbi Meir: A Rupture in the Paradigm

At the same time that this mishnaic pericope perpetuates the biblical
standard of female virginity, it contains in its core an idea with the power
to unsettle the Deuteronomic paradigm. The editor of this unit of mish-
nayot has provided readers with a very clear and unifying structure, which
not only defines the borders of this pericope, but also makes clear the
central anxiety motivating it. I refer here to the opinion of Rabbi Meir in
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paragraph 1:3; but to understand fully Rabbi Meir’s opinion, we must first
highlight the literary structure of the unit.48
The unit is bounded on either end by the prominent appearance of
the rabbinic court (bet din).49 This focus on bet din creates an inclusio that
marks off these paragraphs, forming a self-contained, circumscribed unit
of discourse.50 Within this inclusio, the Mishnah is tightly structured, tak-
ing the form A-B-C-D-A*-B*-C*, with the second set of mishnayot inverting
the first set. I re-present the material here, this time in a way designed to
highlight this ordering:
1:1 A betulah is wed on the fourth day, and a widow on the fifth day, because
twice a week courts sit in the cities, on the second day and on the fifth day,
such that if he had a claim about virginity, he would go early to the court.
1:2 A betulah—her ketubah is 200 [zuz], and a widow—100.
1:2a A betulah [who is] wid- 1:4a A betulah [who
owed, divorced, or rejected is] widowed, divorced,
from levirate marriage from or rejected from lev-
engagement—their ketubah irate marriage from
is 200, and they have a marriage—their ketubah
claim about virginity. is 100, and they have no
claim about virginity.
1.2b A convert, a captive, 1:3b . . . the words 1.4b A convert, a captive,
and a gentile slave, who of Rabbi Meir. But and a gentile slave, who
were redeemed, or who con- the Sages say: a were redeemed, or who
verted, or who were freed, mukat ‘etz—her converted, or who were
at younger than three years ketubah is 100. freed, at older than three
and one day old—their years and one day old—
ketubah is 200, and they their ketubah is 100, and
have a claim about virginity. they have no claim about
virginity.
1:3a An adult male who 1:5a One who eats with
penetrated a minor female, his father-in-law in
and a minor male who pen- Judea without witnesses
etrated an adult female, and cannot make a claim
a mukat ‘etz—their ketubah about virginity, because
is 200. he is alone with her.
1:5b Whether one is the widow of an Israelite or the widow of a priest, their
ketubah is 100. The priestly court would collect for a betulah 400 zuz, and the
Sages did not stop them.
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Women whose sexual status has not been called into question as the result
of having lived in a husband’s home (paragraph 1:2a: “widowed . . . from
engagement” [A]‌) is inverted by a woman who has lived in a husband’s
home (paragraph 1:4a: “widowed . . . from marriage” [A*]). A woman whose
sexual status was continuously monitored and controlled by the Jewish
community from the age of three and up (paragraph 1:2b [B]) is paralleled
and inverted by a woman who, at some point after reaching the age of
three, was living outside of the domain of the Jewish community (para-
graph 1:4b [B*]). The case of sexual intercourse where one partner was not
sexually mature (paragraph 1:3a [C]) is not as tidy a parallel to the case of an
engaged couple that has been alone together prior to their marriage (para-
graph 1:5a [C*]), but the first two cases have already established so strongly
the literary structure of the unit for the reader that this bit of imprecision
does not undermine the fundamental organization of the unit.51
At the center of this literary structure [D]‌is the debate between Rabbi
Meir and the Sages regarding the woman who is mukat ‘etz, literally, a
woman wounded by wood, but which is generally understood to mean
any woman whose genitalia have been previously ruptured through non-
sexual contact, and who the authors of these texts thus deem likely not
to produce “evidence” of virginity through bleeding or lacerations. This
is the only debated case in this unit, with Rabbi Meir ruling the woman
who is mukat ‘etz entitled to a ketubah of 200 zuz and the Sages limiting
it to 100 zuz.
That this case of mukat ‘etz should engender debate is unsurprising,
precisely because it challenges the very meaning of postcoital bleeding
as a marker—and potentially as a definition—of female virginity. In all
of the other cases in this pericope, the Rabbinic author/editors are trying
to assess the likelihood that a bride has previously engaged in penetrative
intercourse.52 But in the case of a woman who is mukat ‘etz, both Rabbi
Meir and the Sages agree that the prospective bride presumably is a “vir-
gin” in this sense; all agree that the woman who is mukat ‘etz has not pre-
viously engaged in penetrative sexual intercourse. Rather, the question is
whether what these Rabbinic authors perceive as her physical similarity to
a nonvirgin renders her a nonvirgin for purposes of her ketubah.
Rabbi Meir thus does not believe that the physical “integrity” of the
woman’s genitalia is either definitional of “virginity” or required for the
ketubah-price of a betulah, since he rules that a woman with previously
ruptured genitalia is entitled to the ketubah-price of virgins.53 This woman
has not engaged in previous penetrative intercourse, and thus she is a
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betulah. To be sure, she is lacking these rabbis’ preferred mode of verify-

ing that virginity, that is, the likelihood that she will bleed on her wedding
night.54 But this does not make her a nonvirgin. For Rabbi Meir, postcoital
bleeding is correlated with female virginity, but it does not define it.
The Sages, however, do not assign the status of betulah to a woman
who they believe will not produce “evidence” of virginity. This opinion
admits of at least two interpretations. Perhaps they, like Rabbi Meir, define
(female) virginity in terms of previous sexual experience, but since the ver-
ification of virginity is important for them (as, to be clear, it surely is for
Rabbi Meir as well), and since they can think of no “better” way to verify
this virginity than through the “evidence” of the bride’s body, they will not
assign the status of betulah to this woman who they believe will not pro-
duce “evidence” of “virginity,” simply as a consequence of their desire for
juridical consistency.
A second interpretive possibility exists, however. It may be that the
Sages in fact disagree with Rabbi Meir precisely because they actually
believe that the physical “state” of virginity is an important component
of that idea of virginity and not merely a marker of that status. In other
words, it is possible to read the Sages as saying that a woman who will not
produce what the dominant male culture views as evidence of her virginity
is, in fact, not a virgin as constructed by that dominant male culture.
In truth, there is not so much difference between these two inter-
pretations. The Sages’ view perpetuates a male culture with its roots in
Deuteronomy 22 in which female virginity is not merely correlated with,
but innately tied to, the rupture of the bride’s genitalia. Where there is no
virginity claim, there is no virginity. Moreover, over time, a culture that
remains committed to the verification of female virginity through ana-
tomical “evidence” will come to conflate, at least implicitly, the verifica-
tion of virginity with its definition. And indeed, as I showed in c hapter 3,
the Rabbinic authors who produced the Palestinian Talmud’s discussion
of this mishnah made precisely such a move to define female virginity in
anatomical terms.
The Sages, then, are consistent with the implications of this unit as
a whole, maintaining an essential continuity with both Deuteronomy 22
and the relevant texts from Qumran. The means to verify a woman’s vir-
ginity, these texts all suggest, are the physical remainders of the act of
vaginal penetration, whether in the form of bloodied sheets or lacerations
on a woman’s body. Rabbi Meir, by contrast, represents at least a partial
departure from this model; in general he accepts genital bleeding as the
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“best” evidence for a bride’s virginity, but he allows for at least one excep-
tional case in which the absence of this “evidence” should not be linked to
a denial of the bride’s chaste state.
Yet even as Rabbi Meir’s dissenting voice appears at the center of this
unit about establishing “virginity,” the view that a woman cannot be a “vir-
gin” without the perceived likelihood that she will bleed on her wedding
night receives, by virtue of its being presented anonymously, implicit major-
ity status. This preferencing of the Sages’ view is by no means obvious; the
parallel passage in the Tosefta in fact provides only Rabbi Meir’s view—that
is, that a woman who is mukat ‘etz is entitled to the 200-zuz ketubah of a
betulah.55 What is more, in the Tosefta, this view is not attributed to Rabbi
Meir, but rather is anonymized and offered as the only opinion on the ques-
tion: “An adult male who penetrated a minor female, and a minor male who
penetrated an adult female, and a mukat ‘etz—their ketubah from another
is 200.”56 This parallel raises a tantalizing, and ultimately unanswerable,
set of questions: did the editors of the Mishnah actively wish to subvert the
preexisting paradigm for testing female virginity by placing Rabbi Meir’s
view at the center of their literary construction? Or did they seek to under-
mine his view by presenting it as the view of one individual in the face of a
more powerful—precisely because it is nameless—majority? In support of
the former possibility is the careful literary construction of the unit, which
makes Rabbi Meir’s opinion stand out so strikingly. Yet the choice to pres-
ent a debate here, when the Tosefta instead presents only the view attributed
in the Mishnah to Rabbi Meir, serves precisely to undermine the opinion
that severs, if only in part, virginity from anatomy.57 Trying to discern the
editorial moves (and thus the motivations behind such moves) that led to
the texts as we find them in the Mishnah and the Tosefta is difficult, but
appreciating the effects of the finished product before us in the Mishnah
is not: the Mishnah at one and the same time affirms the Deuteronomic
model even as it highlights dissent from it.
PJ and the Mishnah: Two Expressions

of One Anxiety
The debate of Rabbi Meir and the Sages, preserved in the early third-
century Palestinian Mishnah, is thus profitably read as an expression of
Rabbinic anxiety about the relevance of anatomical virginity to the notion
of virginity generally. The voice of the implied majority—“the Sages”—
affirms the centrality of anatomy to female virginity, at the very least as a
106
legal requirement, if not as an actual cultural definition. At the center of the

pericope, Rabbi Meir disagrees and clearly separates a woman’s physiologi-
cal state from her sexual status, thus threatening the Deuteronomic model.
Reading PJ and Mishnah Ketubot alongside each other produces some
striking similarities. Just as the angel’s support of Mary, the successful
drinking of the bitter waters, and Salome’s burning hand (rather than her
testifying to having found physical evidence of Mary’s virginity) introduce
other modes of verifying female virginity and thus undermine the pre-
viously unquestioned use of anatomical standards in Jewish sources, so
too does Rabbi Meir’s objection in the case of the woman who is mukat
‘etz reveal Rabbinic doubts about Deuteronomy’s famous virginity test.
PJ’s ambivalent embrace of physical virginity, which itself builds on the
absence of physiological tests of virginity in Matthew 1, therefore finds a
cognate in this contemporaneous, unambiguously Jewish text.
At the same time, the Sages’ affirmation in mKet 1:3 of standards for
female virginity that rely entirely on a woman’s anatomy, irrespective of
her actual sexual history, is strikingly similar to the assumptions of the
contemporaneous Syrian works Odes of Solomon and the Ascension of
Isaiah. What is more, the subtle undermining of physical virginity that
Meltzer and Seidman both point to in Salome’s burning hand does not do
away with the placement of a vaginal examination at the narrative peak of
PJ’s story, but rather reflects ambivalence about anatomical definitions of
virginity. Both the Sages in mKet 1:3 and these Christian texts give pride of
place to anatomy in defining a woman’s status as virgin or not.
The unambiguously Jewish authors of Mishnah Tractate Ketubot and
the ethnically ambiguous, Syrian Christ-following authors of PJ, Odes of
Solomon, and Ascension of Isaiah, all follow Deuteronomy in expressing a
notion of virginity rooted in the anatomical, whether for purposes of estab-
lishing the economic rights of brides or for declaring the virginity of Mary,
even as they (at least in the case of the Mishnah and PJ) betray anxiety about
that notion. In light of their relative proximity to each other and recent
research about the Jewish influences or identity of PJ (and, to some extent,
Syrian Christianity generally), this finding likely affirms the rising sense
that the communities that produced these works—which in retrospect are
so easily marked as “Jewish” and “Christian” respectively—overlapped and
had only blurry boundaries between them. In this particular case, works
now viewed as distinctively Jewish or Christian are gainfully read as part
of a shared interpretive history of Deut. 22:13–21. Like the interpreters
discussed in c hapter 3, these works remain fundamentally faithful to the
107
model laid out in Deuteronomy. At the same time, PJ and Mishnah both
introduce doubt about this physiological model of virginity, the former
building on Matthew and providing actual alternatives to Deuteronomy’s
bloody sheets, while the latter more obliquely directs the reader away from
anatomy as Rabbi Meir divorces it in part from virginity.
Syriac Poetry of Late Antiquity

PJ and the Mishnah thus reveal a second-/third-century culture in which
anatomical definitions of virginity reign, even as a subterranean voice of
doubt about this model remains clearly discernible. The use of Matt. 1:18–
25 in PJ suggests the possibility that Christological interests played a role
in this development; PJ’s cognate in the Mishnah reminds us not to make
too much of this connection. Later Christian works, however, indeed play
up faith-based models of virginity—at least in their rhetoric. I will consider
some examples of this phenomenon—and the risks of taking this rhetoric
too seriously—in Western patristic authors in c hapter 8. Here I consider
another useful site for appreciating this development: two Syriac poems,
likely of the fifth or sixth centuries, which provide evidence of a growing
emphasis on spiritual tests. However, even in these works that develop
and expand on the implications of Matthew and PJ, Mary’s physical virgin-
ity continues to be an important element of her depiction.
The Legacy of the Protevangelium of James

PJ quickly spread through the eastern Christian world and influenced a
variety of authors, especially those who lived in the borderlands of the
eastern Roman Empire and the western Sasanian Empire.58 One of the
many ways in which we see the influence of PJ on late antique Syriac
Christianity is the continued importance of in partu virginity in the texts
of the latter. The theme is so prominent in Syriac literature that I can-
not give a full accounting of its appearances, but some selected examples
ought to suffice. In his commentary on the Diatessaron, the fourth-century
author Ephrem writes that Jesus’s sealed tomb parallels the “seal of the
womb that had borne him. For it was when the virginity was sealed that
the Son emerged alive from within her.”59 Similarly, in his Hymns on Mary,
Ephrem writes that “her womb remained sealed.”60 Jacob of Serug, who
lived in the fifth and early sixth centuries, describes Mary as “a mother who
remained without change in her virginity [bivthuluthah dela shuhlefa]”;61 as
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possessing a body that “carries tokens of virginity [bethulei] and milk”;62

and as a letter that “was sealed first [tav‘uhah] and only then written” and
“although not opened [wekadh la sharia] . . . read clearly.”63
These examples all make clear that for late antique Syriac authors such
as Ephrem and Jacob of Serug, Mary’s virginity included prominently a
physical aspect, represented as her unchanging and impenetrable body. In
this, these authors reflect a continuity with the earlier Syrian works that
I discussed above, such as the Odes of Solomon, the Ascension of Isaiah, and
of course, most significantly, PJ.
At the same time, however, we can also see cracks in the monolithic
picture that I have presented until now. For example, in his Hymns on
the Nativity (21.21), Ephrem describes birth pangs occurring with Jesus’s
birth.64 Though birth pangs are not the same as physical changes to a
laboring woman’s body, they are related, as suggested by the appearance of
the themes of both painless delivery and physical integrity in the second-
century Syrian literature discussed above. Jennifer Glancy explains the
apparent inconsistency as resulting from Ephrem’s writing as a poet and
thus not being “bound to the logical argumentation and perspicuous defi-
nitions that so often characterize theological discourse.”65 In light of the
two poems that I will now analyze, however, perhaps this moment reflects
a subversion, an introduction of the alternative faith-based paradigm of
virginity testing, in which anatomy is the handmaiden of theology.
A Literal Reversal of PJ
The first of the two poems that I treat here is a verse homily. As is so often
the case with Syriac poetry, the details of this particular homily are blurry.
Edmund Beck attributed the poem to Ephrem, but Sebastian Brock writes
that this attribution is surely incorrect and that it dates from “at least a
century after his lifetime,”66 that is, the fifth century or later. Regardless of
the dating of this poem, its indebtedness to PJ is immediately evident.67
Details such as Mary’s having grown up in the Temple and Joseph’s depic-
tion as an older man with sons from a previous marriage show a clear
dependence on PJ. This strong connection to PJ makes its differences
from the earlier work all the more striking.
Like PJ, the homily includes a dramatic expansion of Matt. 1:18–25. It
also includes its own version of PJ’s scene depicting a priestly ordeal test-
ing Mary’s virginity through the drinking of some kind of magical waters.
Strikingly, the poem actually ends with this scene, and thus does not
109
include the story of Salome inspecting Mary’s physical person to deter-

mine her virginity.
The Syriac poem does, however, include a third proof of Mary’s
virginity—just as PJ has three tests/proofs. In the poem, this additional
test— essentially, the poem’s replacement for its excision of Salome’s
examination—appears prior to the drinking of waters rather than follow-
ing it. On her way to the Temple to be interrogated by the high priest, Mary
suffers the gossiping and rumor-mongering of a crowd around her. She
calls upon her son to defend her, and in response “that Power who resided
within her stirred and commanded that her raiment become fire: light-
ning struck out beneath her, her face gleamed out just as the sun when it
shines forth in the morning” (lines 260–264).68 The scene is startling—
the Virgin Mary on fire in front of the collected people—and I will argue
below that it in fact parallels the fiery hand of Salome in PJ. For now, it
is sufficient to note that, as in PJ, we see Mary’s virginity challenged and
proved three times: once by Joseph, answered by the angel; once by the
people, answered by Mary’s catching on fire; and finally by the priests,
answered by Mary’s successful drinking of the water of testing.
The poem also, through a number of turns of phrase, displays an
assumption of physical definitions and markers of virginity, which, as
I showed above, was common in late antique Syriac literature. The poem
uses concrete imagery throughout to discuss Mary’s continued virginity,
as, for example, through its use of the language of “sealed” to describe
Mary’s sexual status. Mary tells Joseph that she is “sealed and preserved
[hathima . . . wenatira]” (line 126); she defends herself similarly to the
priests: “I am preserved and still sealed [wenatira ana wehathiman]” (line
296). In the end of the poem, the people declare that Mary’s “womb is a
witness [wesahadha karsekhi]” to her virginity (line 454), which may be a
reference to the child residing therein, but may also be a usage similar to
that found in the Ascension of Isaiah mentioned above and its later Syriac
cognates, in which the sealed womb is the mark of Mary’s virtue/virgin-
ity. All of these expressions reveal a thinking about female virginity that
squares well with that found in PJ.
Also as in PJ, the trope of a vaginal examination appears in our poem.
This time, however, rather than appearing as the pinnacle event of the nar-
rative, the vaginal exam occurs only as a hypothetical, a rejected proposal.
In the course of trying to convince Joseph—her first virginity test—Mary
says, “Look, there are wise women in our locality who know the manner of
females: they can testify to my free state, that I am untouched by intercourse”
10
(lines 206–209). These lines come at the end of Mary’s attempt to convince
Joseph, and we as readers might be primed to think that, after so much back
and forth between them, this final offer from Mary will prove decisive. But
the invocation of midwives turns out to be highly anticlimactic. Not only is
Joseph unconvinced, but the poet provides the reader with no response at
all from Joseph to Mary’s offer. The very next line of the poem reads, “Mary
wept when she saw how Joseph, the upright and just, wept” (lines 210–211).
The examination of a woman’s genitalia, in this scene, carries absolutely no
power to convince Joseph of Mary’s virginity.
Indeed, the common appearance of this trope in both PJ and the verse
homily only serves to highlight the very different purposes towards which
it is used. Whereas in PJ the medical examination of a knowledgeable
woman is the most decisive proof of Mary’s virginity, in the Syriac verse
homily the reader will miss it if she blinks, so quickly and with so little
impact does it move in and out of our field of vision.
This shift from PJ’s prioritization of physical proof of virginity to the
Syriac poem’s dismissal of it also manifests itself in the larger structure
of the Syriac narrative. I argued above that in PJ, the increasing size of
the implied audience for each of the tests signals an increasing persua-
sive power for the three virginity tests, beginning with the privately deliv-
ered message of the angel to Joseph (the only one of these three proofs
with a basis in the Gospels), on to the ordeal that proves Mary’s virginity
to the priests, and culminating with the physical test of virginity related
to Salome, representing women and the nation of Israel as a whole. The
structure denotes physical markers of female virginity as the most trusted
for PJ’s community of readers.
In contrast, the Syriac poem, despite depicting three challenges and
proofs of Mary’s virginity, does not include an actual physical inspection—
the ultimate test in PJ—as one of them. Such an inspection makes an
appearance in the text only in such a way so as to highlight its own irrel-
evance. It appears only as a hypothetical, in the first of the three tests,
and it passes so quickly that by the time most readers will have reached
the Temple with Mary for her trial by ordeal, they will have forgotten it
entirely. If there is a dramatic buildup here—and it is not clear to me that
there is—it cannot be a buildup to a physical proof of virginity.
As I have already noted, the most significant difference between PJ’s
tests and those of the Syriac verse homily is PJ’s inclusion of the Salome
story and the verse homily’s including in its stead the narrative of Mary
catching fire in front of the people. But in some sense, these two episodes
1
are cognates for each other. Both feature skeptical women prominently: PJ
features the anonymous midwife and the doubting Salome, while the
author of the Syriac poem tells us that “the daughters of Israel and [Mary’s]
companions spat on her face in the streets” (lines 236–237). Both scenes
also have a very public quality. Salome’s test is explicitly linked to the
spreading of the story widely, and Mary’s catching fire is clearly public.
Most obviously, both feature fire, with Salome’s hand catching fire as pun-
ishment for her disbelief, and Mary’s entire body catching fire as proof of
her virtue.69 And finally, each scene evokes a different theme connected to
the biblical Moses and his early encounter with the divine: Salome through
the withering of her hand, recalling Moses’s scale-diseased hand in Exodus
4, and Mary in the Syriac poem as a sort of refiguring of the burning bush,
set alight but unconsumed. In light of these parallels as well as the clear
and consistent knowledge of PJ that the Syriac author displays, I maintain
that we are meant to read Mary’s nonincinerating immolation as a rework-
ing of the Salome story.
One might object that the absence of the Salome story from the Syriac
poem is not in fact significant but merely the result of the poem ending
the story earlier than does the author(s) of PJ; after all, the verse homily
also does not include details of Mary’s birth and upbringing, or describe
Jesus’s birth to us, as does PJ. The poet has made a decision to rewrite in
poetic form only a portion of PJ, not the entire work. But such an argu-
ment is flimsy for a number of reasons. First of all, it begs the question;
the author of the poem has chosen the parameters of the PJ story to
be reworked and retold, and thus the choice not to include the portion
depicting Salome’s inspection of Mary is itself significant. Furthermore,
the author has included a passage with no precedent in the PJ tradition.
Finally, that new scene clearly shares a number of traits with the Salome
tale, subtly but clearly hinting at its connection to the earlier text. Thus, the
Syriac poet has consciously removed Salome and her physical examina-
tion of Mary from his depiction of Mary’s thrice-tested virginity, replaced
it with a miraculous, entirely nonmedical proof, and shifted this fiery tale
into the penultimate place in the series of three tests. The effect of these
changes is to undermine PJ’s interest in and emphasis on anatomical
notions of female virginity.
What is more, even as the Syriac poem shifts the reader’s attention away
from anatomical proofs of virginity, it emphasizes Mary’s virginity gener-
ally as the central issue at stake, perhaps even more so than in PJ. In PJ,
when Joseph arrives home and finds Mary pregnant, he is primarily upset
12
about his own failure to maintain his promise to protect Mary. By contrast,
in the Syriac poem’s depiction of the exchange between Joseph and Mary,
Joseph forcefully decries Mary’s infidelity rather than his own failings in
safeguarding her (and/or her chastity). It is hard to imagine the Joseph of
PJ accusing Mary so singularly as he does in the Syriac poem: “I kept you
in chastity, I gazed upon you with honour, but I was not aware that there
are people who are laughing at your free choice. What foolish deed has
been at work so that you have introduced adultery into my bed?” (lines 146–
151). A similar development is manifest in the treatment of the drinking of
waters in the Temple. In PJ, the high priest accuses both Joseph and Mary
of consummating their marriage when she was “meant” to remain chaste,
and both are required to drink the water of testing.70 In the Syriac poem,
however, the water-drinking ordeal is ordered for Mary alone; Joseph plays
no part in it. These differences make clear that virginity has not ceased to
be a central concern in the Syriac author’s mind. The nature of that virgin-
ity, however, is decidedly not anatomical.
Thus, rather than simply the result of an editorial preference to end
the story, the decision to include the passage depicting Mary’s catching on
fire and to exclude Salome’s physical examination is a conscious choice
to rearrange, redefine, and refocus PJ’s message about Mary’s virginity.
The poem turns our attention to her virginity even more clearly than did
PJ, and at the same time erases physiological markers as the most signif-
icant identifiers of sexual purity. The crescendo to Salome’s examination
has been removed, and while Mary’s virginity and its verification remain
the focus of the author’s concern, female virginity as something primarily
rooted in the body of a woman—or at least of this particular woman—has
lost its pride of place.
Mary and Joseph: Faith and Anatomy

A very similar example of a late antique Syriac move away from physical vir-
ginity comes from a soghitha, a poetic expression of dialogue between two
characters, with each verse alternating between the speakers,71 also trans-
lated and published by Sebastian Brock.72 Although dating anonymous dia-
logue poems with absolute confidence is impossible, Brock suggests that
the presence of this poem in only the West Syriac tradition, coupled with
its lack of “the ‘learned’ features that characterize almost all Syriac writing
from the 7th century onwards” suggests a sixth-century dating, though this
is necessarily speculative.73 Unlike the verse homily, however, this poem is
13
almost certainly not a reworking of PJ, contradicting the narrative of the

earlier text, for example, when it describes Mary’s parents, whom PJ pre-
sented as wealthy leaders of Jewish society (PJ 1.1–2), as poor (v. 2).
The entire poem, like the scene of the first test in both PJ and the
Syriac verse homily, is a dramatic expansion of Matt. 1:18–25. But even as
it shortens the scope of its narrative, this poem—like the verse homily—
presents a variety of kinds of proof for Mary’s virginity. As in the verse
homily, the language of physical virginity appears throughout. We are at
the outset told that Mary’s “womb was sealed [wahtim ‘ubah] and her con-
ception glorious” (v. 1). Then again, in the third stanza, the author writes
that “her virginity was sealed [bethuleha hathimin], yet her womb was full.”
Similar examples appear throughout the poem (e.g., vv. 5, 10). Even as this
poem is independent of PJ, then, it reveals itself as part of a common dis-
course valuing anatomical markers of virginity. Glancy writes regarding
PJ, “Salome’s finger probes an orifice that is, if not sealed, then defensively
clenched.”74 The journey from the defensive clench of PJ to the sealed
womb of these Syriac poems is not a long one.
As was the case with the verse homily, however, even as it uses locu-
tions that emphasize virginity as an anatomical trait, the poem reveals
through its narrative progression a subtler move away from such phys-
ical notions of female virginity. The form of a dialogue poem alternates
stanzas between two characters, in this case, between Joseph’s accusations
and Mary’s defenses. Mary makes use of various kinds of evidence in her
attempt to defend herself. She retells the story of the angel giving her the
news of her pregnancy (v. 6);75 she argues from the evidence of her body
(“I remain sealed, as the seals of my virginity, which have not been loosed,
will testify [kadh sahdhin bethule daqnomi dela eshtriyu]” [v. 10]); she argues
based on her personal traits (“You ought to believe my words, for you have
never seen any falsehood in me: my chaste and truthful way bear me wit-
ness that I am a virgin and have not lied” [v. 12]); and she makes claims
based on spiritual and theological claims (vv. 14, 16, and 18).
Throughout this, Joseph remains consistent in his responses, all of
which focus on the physical impossibility of a virgin becoming pregnant.
The Christian texts of the Roman East and Persia from the time of PJ
and Ascension of Isaiah, as I showed above, show a consistent interest in
women’s physical virginity; this poet, then, presents Joseph as a consum-
mate Syrian Christian. As if in response to this obstinate understanding
of virginity, Mary finally returns to an argument based on physical proof,
this time more baldly than before: “I remain sealed, as silent nature which
14
does not speak testifies [dehathima ana kadh sahadhin kiyane hayshe dela
memalelin]” (v. 20).76 The parallel between this verse and verse 10, Mary’s
earlier defense based on her unchanged physical state, is striking. The
entire phrase “I remained sealed, as . . . testifies” appears in identical
form in both.77 The only difference is that “the seals of my virginity, which
have not been loosed” has been replaced with “silent nature which has no
voice.” Mary’s sealed body, then, is equated with “silent nature.” Mary is
at one and the same time going back to physical evidence in her defense
and subtly undermining its importance: her body is “silent”; it “does not
speak.” Joseph, she slyly implies, mistakenly would trust this mute “wit-
ness” more than he would his own faithful partner.78
After another remonstration from Joseph about the physical impos-
sibility of what she claims, Mary intensifies her claim from the physical,
returning to what is to us now a familiar trope: “For I am pure, and there
are witnesses: summon the local midwives and see how my seals of virgin-
ity have not been loosed.” These midwives, now, rather than the “silent”
physical “nature” of Mary’s body, will be her “witnesses.”79 A reader famil-
iar with PJ may well expect this to be the climax of the poem, followed by
the midwives’ coming and indeed “proving” Mary’s virginity, or perhaps
Joseph’s simply coming to believe based on the strong claim made by Mary
in her willingness to be examined physically. Instead, Joseph’s rejection is
thuddingly total: “Do you know of anyone else like you, who resembles
you, according to what you claim? To you alone has this happened—
because it simply is not true” (v. 23; emphasis added).
Joseph cannot be convinced. The poem continues for a few more verses
of back and forth, but with no evident weakening of Joseph’s doubt. And
yet, we as readers familiar with the Matthean Vorlage know that, eventually,
Joseph must come to believe Mary. How does the anonymous Syriac poet
get us there?
Joseph’s conversion in the poem occurs in two stages. The first takes
place in verse 33, which incorporates Matt. 1:19: “There is error in your
words, virgin, so that one is afraid for you after what you have said. Take
the bill of divorce peacefully, and be off: for my part, the secret will not be
revealed.” On the surface, Joseph continues in his disbelief; he believes
that Mary indeed has a shameful “secret,” and he agrees only not to publi-
cize it. In this, the poet simply is following the model of Matthew, in which
Joseph’s choice to divorce Mary quietly is the result of his not wanting to
shame her publicly. But in this moment, Joseph refers to Mary as “virgin.”
Is Joseph’s use of this title meant to be ironic? Or does it reflect Joseph’s
15
own doubt? It is not the first time he has done so in the poem; he did so
in his first statement to her, asking her to “reveal to me the secret of what
has happened” (v. 5), and later called her a “chaste girl” (v. 17). In any event,
the introduction of the appellation into this particular point of the dialogue
may attribute ambivalence to Joseph; it certainly generates ambiguity for
the reader.
What statement of Mary led to this first crack in Joseph’s sureness? The
previous verse is the first in which Mary admits of her own doubt: “The
cause of it is too hard for you or me to grasp.” Unlike the “objective” truth
of anatomical definitions for and tests of her virginity, Mary’s submission
to the mystery of her situation is the first “argument” to counter effectively
Joseph’s materialist confidence in his own suspicion. That her resort to
mystery has worked becomes even clearer when Joseph is next given a
chance to speak, in verse 35: “Listen to what I shall say to you, O wise
woman: though I will believe what you say, I do not dare approach your
pure womb, for it is filled with fire.”80
Finally, the poem, remaining true to its form as a retelling of Matt.
1:18–25, introduces the angel of Matt. 1:20 confirming to Joseph what his
previous statements make clear he already knew, even if had not yet fully
accepted it. In this poetic retelling of Matt. 1:18–25, then, the role of the
angel has been reduced, though it still functions as the conclusion of
the story. In Brock’s able summary: “The dialogue poem between Mary
and Joseph illustrates how it is only after the intellect has given way to
the improbable claims of faith that external verification [is] provided (in
Joseph’s case, in the dream), showing that this faith is indeed grounded in
reality.”81 PJ’s physical, “objective” verification of Mary’s virginity has been
displaced by faith—and, I would add and emphasize, doubt—as the great
defining proof of female virginity.
Syriac Poetry: A True Heir to Matthew?

Both the verse homily and the dialogue poem— the former clearly a
reworking of PJ, and the latter strikingly independent of it—thus sub-
vert PJ’s marking of female virginity as primarily located in the body. In
the soghitha, Joseph, with his consistent understanding of virginity as
physical, serves as a foil to be refuted by the wise and faithful Mary. In
the verse homily, the replacement of Salome’s vaginal examination with
the enflamed Virgin Mary, as well as the rearrangement of the tests and
proofs of her chastity, serve to undermine the dominant voice of PJ in
16
affirming—even as it betrayed doubts—a construction of female virgin-

ity as primarily anatomical. In this sense, we might be tempted to view
these Syriac poets as fuller expressions of the faith-based model of virgin-
ity and its verification that I first identified in Matthew. Perhaps we see
here a roughly linear process in which the first-century Christian work
(Matthew) introduced an alternative, less carnal notion of virginity; the
second-century Christian text with strikingly Jewish elements (PJ) reflects
a still-emerging process of differentiation in which the bodily, “Jewish,”
Deuteronomic model dominates but must coexist with the implications
of Matthew, and the more fully developed—and differentiated—Christian
works of the fifth and sixth centuries bring Matthew’s suggestions to their
fullest flowering.
Yet we must be careful not to ignore the powerful ways in which ana-
tomical markers of virginity continue to loom large in even these works.
As is the case in other late antique Syriac works, these poets continue to
use gynecological locutions for describing Mary’s virginity. Though the
balance has shifted, these works retain the mixed register of the second-
century texts; rather than simply undermining the dominant narrative
about virginity in PJ, they play out and build upon the ambivalence already
present in the second-century work. Anatomical and faith-based verifica-
tions of Mary’s virginity live, if somewhat uncomfortably, side by side in
these poems. In both, even as the narrative subverts anatomy as the seat of
virginity, expressions for describing Mary’s virginity maintain classically
Syrian ideas about female virginity.
In chapter 8, we will see that this cheek-by-jowl commitment to some
sort of more spiritualized standard for verifying virginity alongside ongo-
ing expression of Deuteronomy- like anatomical descriptions was not
unique to the Syriac-speaking Christian world, but to varying degrees
appears as well in the work of Latin-writing authors such as Cyprian and
Ambrose (and the Greek-writing Syrian author John Chrysostom). Late
antique Christian authors, across the globe—even as they worked to val-
orize nonphysical notions of female virginity, building and expanding on
the Matthean infancy narrative—remained firmly if uncomfortably in the
grasp of the Deuteronomic gynecology.
17
PART III
Subjecting Virginity
18
19
Open Doors and Accused Brides

Subjectivity and a New Standard for
Virginity Testing in Rabbinic Babylonia
In the preceding chapters, I have argued that, taking their cue from
Deuteronomy 22, early Jewish texts,1 through and including works of the
amoraic period in Palestine, depict female virginity as residing primarily
in the physical bodies of objectified women. Whether through the more
famous bloody sheets of the biblical pericope and the Temple Scroll, or
in the form of vaginal examinations in the Damascus Document and
the Protevangelium of James, the physical remainders resulting from the
violence of penile- vaginal intercourse— or their absence— determined
whether those with the power to judge would rule a bride a “virgin” or not.
Although some texts, such as the paraphrase of Josephus and the midrash
of Sifrei Devarim, replace these kinds of standards through evasion (as with
Josephus) or explicit rejection (Sifrei Devarim), I argued that these legal
changes likely reflect concerns about juridical propriety rather than shift-
ing conceptions about female virginity. Moreover, the midrashic maneu-
vers of Sifrei Devarim applied only to accusations of premarital adultery
and existed alongside the continued relevance of blood in verifying virgin-
ity. Only Philo and the author of the Gospel of Matthew perhaps hint at a
notion of virginity that is based on something other than rupture of the
female body. But although later Christian texts (as well as the non-Christian
Mishnah) proffer virginity discourses that, to varying degrees, express anx-
iety about it, none of these texts displaces the Deuteronomic model.
I now turn my attention to the Babylonian Talmud (commonly
referred to as “the Bavli”) and a treatment of virginity that turns our gaze
away from the violence of penile-vaginal intercourse. The Bavli continues
120
120 Subjecting Virginity
to locate female virginity in something anatomical, but it does so in a

way that discourages, rather than encourages, male sexual aggression.
No longer is sexual vigor the necessary mark of a man able to verify his
bride’s status; rather, for the Bavli, gentleness now defines the sexually
capable man.
The Bavli accomplishes this shift by introducing a new form of vir-
ginity test—the “open door” claim—which, even as it maintains the rel-
evance of female virginity and actually extends even further male power
in Rabbinic society, completely reverses the expectations of what consti-
tutes “successful” penetrative sexual intercourse for first-time partners. In
this chapter, I will first analyze the background to and introduction of this
new virginity test. I will note its potential for extending male power and
increasing female vulnerability to the whims of manipulative grooms, as
well as its significance for Rabbinic notions of male sexual prowess. I will
then consider the meaning of this development in Rabbinic law in light
of the stories that follow the relevant legal passage, making use of earlier
scholarly interpretations of these stories that argue that they reverse (at
least in part) the increased possibility of abuse that the “open door” claim
introduces. Unlike those earlier treatments, however, I will argue that the
stories that follow the legal pericope in fact support, rather than subvert,
the primary message of the legal innovation of the “open door” claim. Both
the legal passage and the stories work together to subvert contemporary
ideas about female virginity and its association with male sexual violence,
because both are in fact part of a larger project of discouraging violent
male sexual penetration.
“Open Doors” and Female Virginity

Accusations and Doubt
On folio pages 8b– 9a of Bavli Ketubot, a statement attributed to the
Palestinian sage Rabbi Eleazar introduces what comes to be a significant
new wrinkle into the Rabbinic assessment of virginity claims: “Rabbi
Eleazar said: A man who says I found an open door [petah patuah] is trusted
for [purposes of ] forbidding her to himself.”2 Taken alone, the statement is
somewhat obscure, but not particularly earth-shattering. Finding “an open
door” is simply a euphemism for this hypothetical groom claiming that he
came to believe on his wedding night that his bride was not a virgin. Rabbi
Eleazar rules that, even absent any evidence, a groom’s accusation of post-
betrothal, premarital infidelity is sufficient to require a divorce, though it
12
Open Doors and Accused Brides 121
does not result in any other legal consequences such as monetary retribu-
tion.3 In other words, the groom’s accusation is sufficient to engender the
legal consequences that affect him directly (i.e., the end of his marriage),
but not those that affect primarily the bride (most significantly, the loss of
her ketubah).4
The Bavli’s editors clearly understand the end of Rabbi Eleazar’s state-
ment thus, since they compare it to another case of a claim made without
evidence, in which the claim leads to consequences for the claimant but
not the one implicated by the claim:5
A. What does this teach us?6 We have already learned it in a mishnah!

“One who says to a woman ‘I have betrothed you,’ and she says ‘You
have not betrothed me,’ she is permitted with regard to his relatives,
but he is forbidden with regard to her relatives.”7
B. What might you have said [otherwise]? There he is sure of himself, but
here, he is not sure of himself.8 It comes to teach us [otherwise].9
This anonymous dialogue connects Rabbi Eleazar’s statement to mKid

3:10 (indeed, it claims initially that the mishnah makes Rabbi Eleazar’s
statement redundant and unnecessary) and thereby makes clear the
Babylonian understanding of Rabbi Eleazar. The mishnah from Tractate
Kiddushin discusses the case of a man who claims that he betrothed a
woman, while she denies the claim; apparently no particular evidence
exists to corroborate either her or his position. Following the biblical pro-
hibitions on incest, which forbid relations with many of the relatives of a
spouse, this mishnah states that this imagined man is now forbidden to
marry any of this imagined woman’s relatives. She, however, remains per-
mitted to marry any of his relatives, since there is no evidence to back up
his claim. Thus, just as the claim in Mishnah Kiddushin is taken seriously
only insofar as it affects the accuser, so too here the groom’s accusation is
taken seriously only with respect to himself; he may no longer remain in
a marriage to this woman.
Perhaps this ruling functions as a disincentive to false claims.
Alternatively, it reflects a sense that once a person alleges something to
have happened—whether or not it actually occurred—this person has gen-
erated a taboo for her-or himself, the violation of which now is experienced
as a transgression.10 But whether as a punishment for accusing recklessly,
or as a reflection of the psychological consequences on the groom of artic-
ulating such a claim, the groom must now bear the consequences of his
12
accusation, even as the court need not—and will not—render rulings that
affect others.11
The resolution offered by this anonymous editor— the man who
claims that he has betrothed a certain woman, assuming that he is speak-
ing in good faith, has no doubt about his claim, while a man who accuses
a woman of premarital unchastity, even if “well-intentioned,” cannot be
sure—is a powerful and explicit expression of the doubts that have dogged
the male quest for verification of female virginity in all of the texts that
I have considered in previous chapters. Whether through bloody sheets
or a midwife’s examination, how can virginity reliably be either “dem-
onstrated” or denied?12 Whatever caused the groom in Rabbi Eleazar’s
imagined case to accuse his bride, how can he be sure about something
that, by definition, occurred (if it occurred) when he was not present? The
anonymous voice of this pericope shuts down this line of questioning
by asserting that the point of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement is to teach that,
despite these doubts, the groom’s claim is taken seriously enough to effect
consequences on the groom himself. But, as is often the case when the
talmudic editors assert “it comes to teach us [otherwise],” it is unclear if
this resolution implies a rejection of the newly introduced concern (in our
case, that the groom cannot be sure of his accusation), or an assertion of
a legal holding despite that concern. In other words, the pericope leaves
open the possibility—and indeed, rhetorically, makes it quite likely—that
doubts about the groom’s accusation remain an ongoing source of anxiety
for men.
Blood and Open Doors

Following a discussion of an apparent contradiction between Rabbi
Eleazar’s statement and another ruling attributed to him,13 the Talmud
turns in a direction that has major consequences for our topic:
A. Abaye said: We have learned this also in a mishnah [af anan nami
tanina]: “A virgin is married on the fourth day [i.e., Tuesday night until
Wednesday night].” On the fourth day, but not on the fifth day.
B. What is the reason? Because of the cooling of his temper.
C. So what? If it is about giving her the ketubah, so let them give it to her!
D. Rather, it is for purposes of forbidding her to him.
E. And that which he claims:14 is he not making an open door claim?
F. No, [in the mishnah] he is making a claim about blood.15
123
In lines A–D, Abaye claims support for Rabbi Eleazar’s statement from
mKet 1:1.16 If that mishnah were concerned with the denial of a woman’s
ketubah, then there would be no great urgency for the groom to bring his
claim. From the Rabbis’ point of view, even if the groom were to weaken
in his resolve and not accuse his bride, and even if she were indeed guilty
of premarital adultery, the result would be only that a bride who should
not have received a ketubah would have (line C). Such a minimal corrup-
tion would not merit a decree demanding all first-time brides to marry
on Wednesday! It must therefore be, reasons Abaye, that the author of
mKet 1:1 was concerned with a couple remaining married even though,
due to the bride’s infidelity prior to the marriage, they were prohibited
from doing so (line D). Thus, the mishnah supports Rabbi Eleazar’s claim
that a groom’s mere accusation is sufficient to render these two people
sexually forbidden to each other. An anonymous voice then attempts to
defuse this claim of tannaitic support by suggesting that mKet 1:1 is talking
about ta‘anat damim, a claim about lack of postcoital bleeding, as opposed
to the “open door” claim that was the subject of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement
(line F).
One consequence of this discussion is the implication that Rabbi
Eleazar’s “open door” claim is something different from a blood claim.
According to the nearly universal understanding of this term among post-
talmudic commentators, an “open door” claim as something distinct from
a “blood” claim refers to a man who claims that the vaginal opening was
relatively wide, thus suggesting—to the groom, of course—evidence of the
bride’s previous sexual activity.17 The series of stories that follows this legal
discussion supports such an understanding of the term.18 I will discuss
the story cycle as a literary unit later in this chapter, and I will present the
stories in full there, but for now I want to consider only its contribution to
defining this use of “open door” to refer to something specifically different
from postcoital bleeding.
The story cycle features six legal narratives,19 each of which depicts a
man coming before a sage to accuse his bride of premarital infidelity. The
series of stories has a number of features that lend it a sense of literary
unity, most prominently the use of the identical introductory formula “A
certain man came before Rabbi So-and-So” (hahu de’ata kameih de-) at the
start of each story. Nonetheless, the collection can easily be divided into
two groups based on the language of the claim. In the first two stories, the
groom states that he “found an open door,” while in the final four stories
he states that “I penetrated [ba‘alti] and I did not find blood.” This suggests
124
that the editor of the unit of stories viewed these as two distinct kinds
of accusation. In other words, the story cycle replicates through its inter-
nal division the same distinction between blood claims and “open door”
claims that we find in the anonymous voice of the legal discussion. I will
return to this division later in my analysis of these stories.
Even more useful for our understanding of this use of the phrase “open
door” is a brief but instructive moment in the second story in the series.
In this story, which comes to us in two versions, a groom goes to Rabban
Gamliel b. Rabbi20 to accuse his bride of premarital infidelity. Rabban
Gamliel b. Rabbi rejects the groom’s claim, in the first version because
the groom, being inexperienced, may not have known how properly to
engage in sexual penetration and for that reason misunderstood what
he felt: “Perhaps you penetrated at an angle,” Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi
asks the groom. He compares this new groom to “a man walking in the
dark of night; when he entered at an angle, he found the door open, but
when he entered not at an angle, he found it locked.” In the second (and
likely later)21 version of the story, Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi dismisses the
claim because the groom may have been too forceful in his penetration,
“push[ing] aside the door and the bolt” all at once, as it were. For now
I simply want to note the apparent implication that the claim of an “open
door” is a claim about the groom’s highly subjective experience of his sex-
ual partner being insufficiently narrow, or “locked,” to be a “virgin.” That is
to say, Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi expresses a concern that the groom, pen-
etrating too forcefully, “push[ed] aside the door and the bolt” all at once,
and thus did not experience resistance or narrowness as he was expecting.
Thus, the edited series of stories as a whole shares with the legal discus-
sion that precedes it a distinction between blood claims on the one hand
and “open door” accusations on the other, and the second version of the
second story supports the common understanding of the latter as a claim
made by the groom that he experienced “insufficient” vaginal narrowness
on his wedding night.
Of course, if put into practice, such a model for “testing” female virgin-
ity would place greater power in the hands of men, leaving young brides
even more vulnerable to the whims of their grooms. The absence of blood
on the nuptial bed is a wildly unreliable means of establishing virginity,
to be sure, but at least the presence or absence of that blood would appear
to be an “objectively” verifiable datum: either there was blood on the gar-
ment or there was not, and we might expect that all of the viewers of that
garment would come to the same conclusion as to the “virginity” or lack
125
thereof of any particular bride.22 But the “open door” claim, by comparison,
is completely subjective, quite literally. Only the subject—the groom—will
experience the “evidence” that leads to his accusation, and there is no way
to support or falsify his claim.23
But in addition to noting the legal consequences of taking such a rul-
ing seriously, I am concerned here with the cultural and discursive effects
that the introduction of this alternative marker of female virginity would
have, especially on its presumed male audience. First, it is important to
note an important point of continuity with earlier Jewish discourses of
female virginity. As with the bloody sheets of Deuteronomy 22, here too
the marker of virginity is a physical change (or, more precisely, the absence
of a physical change) to the woman’s body that is believed to result from
penetrative intercourse. For Deuteronomy, that change was the wound-
ing resulting from penetrative intercourse; for the “open door” claim,
it is the widening of the vaginal canal. Female virginity in the Bavli, as
in Deuteronomy, the Qumran texts, and Palestinian Rabbinic literature,
remains decidedly physical. This is an important contrast with texts by the
late antique Christian authors whom I will discuss in chapter 8, who, even
as they increasingly emphasize the physical virginity of Mary the mother
of Jesus, dismiss with greater frequency and intensity the reliability (and
even advisability) of midwives’ examinations, explicitly couching virginity
in more and more spiritual terms.
The Bavli’s “open door” claim, by contrast, shares with earlier Jewish
texts a notion that female virginity is indeed located in the female body,
and that its verification can and should be sought there. In both earlier
Jewish literature and in the Bavli, the woman’s body is an object of inves-
tigation. It is important to note, though, that with the “open door” claim
the Bavli shifts the reader’s focus (in part) from the bride’s objectification
(and the “objective” proof of blood or lacerations) to the groom’s subjec-
tivity (and the extremely subjective nature of the evidence offered)—a rad-
ical subjectivity, since his claim of an “open door” cannot reasonably be
falsified by any outside arbiter—which is precisely what makes this such
a dangerous legal holding. To be sure, this is a shift only of focus—there
is no way in which a woman becomes a subject in this legal passage—but
one that will acquire greater significance in the stories that follow, to be
discussed below.
Even more important, the discursive effects of this legal standard on
male sexual culture and notions of masculinity reflect nothing less than a
revolution when compared to earlier Jewish texts. Whereas the markers of
126
Deuteronomy and its successors encourage vigorous male penetration, the

“open door” claim does not. Indeed, the Bavli’s “open door” claim discour-
ages vigorous penetration. If a groom’s perception of vaginal narrowness is
the marker of virginity, then a groom hoping to “prove” a bride’s virginity
must penetrate more gingerly, lest he “push aside the door and the bolt”
with it. The second version of Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s rejection of the
groom’s claim is based on the possibility that he was excessively aggressive
in his penetration.24 In other words, the first act of penile-vaginal inter-
course for a heterosexual couple, the second version of Rabban Gamliel
b. Rabbi makes clear, requires a deliberate, careful, and not-too-forceful
entry on the part of the groom, since too much force can lead to “inaccu-
rate,” and thus inadmissible, results. This late25 Babylonian discourage-
ment of grooms’ penetrating vigorously results—whether intentionally or
otherwise—in a new model of sexual prowess. Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s
response to an “open door” accusation reflects a model of encouraging a
culture of male sexual gentleness.
To appreciate the significance of this new model, consider for a moment
the contrast between the bloody-sheets pericope of Deuteronomy 22 and
the statement of the Babylonian Samuel that served as one of the open-
ing epigraphs of this book. In the biblical passage, blood found following
wedding-night relations is the sign that the nuptials were successful, and
its absence will lead to the dissolution of the marriage and the execution
of the bride. By contrast, Samuel boasted that “I can penetrate many vir-
gins without causing bleeding.”26 In the context of the biblical passage,
Samuel’s statement is mischievous, to put it mildly—he can avoid produc-
ing the evidence of virginity, and thus possibly engage in sexual deception.
It is hard to see, in the context of Deuteronomy 22 and its early Jewish
readers, how this “skill” is something to boast about. But in the context
of the Babylonian “open door” claim and its implications for male sexual-
ity, Samuel makes perfect sense: male sexual prowess in this Babylonian
world is the ability to engage in sexual relations without inflicting wounds
or bleeding, without changing the body of one’s sexual partner.27
It makes perfect sense, then, that the anonymous Babylonian editor
refers to this characteristic of Samuel as marking him as rav govreih—
a sage whose manliness (govreih) is truly great. There is an intentional
irony in this description. Literally, the phrase rav govreih could mean
that Samuel’s manliness, perhaps even literally his phallus, is particu-
larly large, and thus particularly likely to produce bleeding during sexual
intercourse.28 This ambiguous phrase describing Samuel thus draws our
127
attention to the cultural work that has been done in Rabbinic Babylonia.
True manhood derives not from the size of a male’s penis, but rather from
his gentleness (or, to be more precise in the case of Samuel’s boast, desire
to avoid causing bleeding) in the sex act. This notion that true manliness
manifests itself through sexual activity that leaves no mark, that does not
have as its goal the physical injury or transformation of a sexual partner—
of gentle masculinity—is appropriately tied to Samuel, the classic type of
the Babylonian Rabbinic community.
These two virginity tests—the blood claim and the “open door” claim—
thus cannot easily coexist in the same sexual culture. Blood claims encour-
age vigorous male penetration, while “open door” claims discourage such
activity. A man might try to penetrate aggressively so as to see the bleeding
that will “prove” his wife’s virginity, but in so doing, he will “push aside
the door and the bolt” all at once and find an “open door.” Alternatively,
he might try to penetrate gently in order to experience his partner’s vagi-
nal narrowness, but this will necessarily decrease the likelihood that their
initial penetrative intercourse will result in the bleeding so essential to the
Deuteronomic model. The “open door” claim is thus, despite its appear-
ance to the contrary, not an additional legal claim that the Rabbis intro-
duce into the conversation about female virginity. Rather, the Babylonian
“open door” claim actually displaces the blood claims of earlier Jewish texts,
essentially making them irrelevant.29
Open Doors: A Babylonian Invention

Although the Babylonian discussion of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement creates a
distinction between claims against a bride’s virginity based on the absence
of blood (ta‘anat damim) and those based on a groom’s perception of vag-
inal looseness (ta‘anat petah patuah), the third-century Palestinian sage
Rabbi Eleazar had no such distinction in mind (if and) when he made
the statements that would eventually become the well-edited legal dic-
tum attributed to him in the Bavli.30 Rather, it was only in the mid-fourth
century or later in Babylonia that the phrase “open door” came to mean
an accusation based on vaginal “looseness” rather than absent postcoi-
tal bleeding. Given the very different cultural attitudes toward male sex-
ual aggression that the “open door” claim represents and encourages, the
seemingly obscure matter of the history of this legal tradition turns out to
be extremely important. To ask what factors might lead to such a change
in thinking about male sexuality and violence, we must appreciate the
128
uniquely Babylonian context of the cultural shift that the move from blood
claims to “open door” claims both reflects and affirms. It is thus necessary
to lay out explicitly the history of how and when this term came to refer to
a specific kind of claim against a woman’s virginity.
A number of factors make the original, relatively undramatic mean-
ing of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement clear. First of all, it is important to note
that, though the meaning of vaginal looseness can be read back into the
phrase “open door,” the phrase and its component words do not demand
such a reading. The use of this identical phrase in the Palestinian Talmud
highlights this point; there, the phrase “open door” refers more gener-
ally to accusations brought by grooms—blood claims included—against a
bride’s virginity.31 Perhaps the most striking example of this general use of
the term “open door” in the Palestinian Talmud—and certainly the exam-
ple most salient for my purposes—is its appearance in a statement, also
attributed to Rabbi Eleazar, which is clearly parallel to his statement in
the Bavli. There, the statement reads, “[If ] one found the door open, it is
forbidden [ for him] to maintain her on account of the possibility of adul-
tery.” Joshua Kulp has usefully analyzed the differences between Rabbi
Eleazar’s statement in the Palestinian Talmud and its parallel in the Bavli,
and I here reproduce in brief his argument.32 As Kulp notes, one of the
most striking of these differences is the absence of “reliability” rhetoric in
the Palestinian recension. The Palestinian Talmud’s expression of Rabbi
Eleazar’s ruling makes no mention of whether the groom is “believed,” but
rather shifts the reader’s focus to the generation of a prohibition; simply
the act of accusing makes continued cohabitation of wife and husband for-
bidden.33 Stripped of this reliability language, the legal innovation attrib-
uted to Rabbi Eleazar is easier to discern: given the tannaitic ruling that
a woman who engages in adultery becomes “forbidden to her husband,”
and since the bride’s premarital sexual experience could have occurred
following her engagement to her groom, a groom who “discovers” that his
bride is not a virgin must immediately divorce her, because of the concern
of “the possibility of adultery.”34 Though this idea will, in later strata of the
Babylonian Talmud, come to be taken for granted, it was indeed a legal
innovation in earlier Rabbinic thought. Kulp’s analysis makes clear—
even though he continues to read the phrase “open door” according to
the traditional understanding—that Rabbi Eleazar’s comment as redacted
in the Palestinian Talmud makes a broader point, with no specific rele-
vance to particular modes of evidence of virginity.35 In other words, in the
Palestinian version of his statement, Rabbi Eleazar makes no reference to
129
the kind of claim that a groom makes against his bride; he simply comes
to teach that if a groom, for whatever reason, thought that his bride whom
he thought to be a virgin was not in fact so, he must divorce her.
The reworking that Rabbi Eleazar’s statement undergoes for inclu-
sion in the Bavli partially obscures its earlier meaning.36 The groom who
“found” in the Palestinian Talmud is now a groom who “states that [he]
found.” Furthermore, the generalized legal ruling “it is forbidden [ for
him] to maintain her because of the possibility of adultery” is transformed
into the far more specific—and subjectivized—“he is trusted for [purposes
of ] forbidding her to himself.” As he did for the Palestinian Talmud, Kulp
usefully points out the meaning of this statement in its Babylonian form.
Here, the statement attributed to Rabbi Eleazar means that an accusation
brought by a groom, even lacking sufficient evidence to generate other
legal consequences, must render the accuser subject to the consequences
that would have occurred were the accusation backed up by acceptable evi-
dence (whatever “acceptable” evidence might be).
Revealingly, though, nothing in either the Babylonian repackaging of
Rabbi Eleazar’s statement or the anonymous discussion that compares it
to mKid 3:10 (discussed earlier in this chapter) necessitates an interpreta-
tion of “open door” as referring to the groom’s perception and claim of vag-
inal looseness, as opposed to “lack” of blood. Rabbi Eleazar, as presented in
the Bavli, simply states that a claim against a woman’s virginity, even with
no legally accepted proof, nonetheless triggers prohibitions for the accuser.
Only the back and forth in the Bavli about Rabbi Eleazar’s statement
requires us to understand the term “open door” as referring to an alter-
native form of accusation, one based not on the absence of postcoital
bleeding, but rather, specifically on the groom’s claim of perceived vaginal
looseness. Indeed, only the last two lines in my formatting of the pericope
above reference a distinction between two kinds of virginity claims, one
based on blood and the other on the groom’s perception of vaginal nar-
rowness. What is more, unlike Abaye’s initial interpretation of the mish-
nah in support of Rabbi Eleazar (lines A–D), which is argued for and goes
unrejected, line E, in which it is claimed that the mishnah deals with one
kind of virginity claim rather than another, is simply asserted and, in line
F, rejected.37 These factors suggest that lines E–F are not in fact the work
of Abaye (or even some middle-generation amora for whom the name
Abaye would be a reasonable stand-in). Given that this anonymous back
and forth presupposes Abaye’s statement comparing Rabbi Eleazar’s state-
ment to mKet 1:1, this passage strongly implies that the notion of a virginity
130
test based on vaginal looseness postdates Abaye, a figure of the fourth

amoraic generation, that is, the mid-fourth century.38
The story of the groom who accused his bride before Rabban Gamliel
b. Rabbi, and whose claim was rejected, told that he may have penetrated too
forcefully, also bears out the relative lateness of vaginal looseness as a specific
(and increasingly as the dominant) marker of virginity. Recall that the story
appears in two versions. In the first, Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi rejects the
groom’s claim because “perhaps [he] penetrated at an angle,” like “a person
who walks in the dark of night.” In the second he rejects the claim saying,
“Perhaps you penetrated intentionally39 at an angle and pushed aside the door
and the bolt. I will provide you with a comparison; what is this like? Like a
person who walks in the dark of night. When he angles intentionally, he finds
[the door] open; when he does not angle intentionally, he finds it locked.”
As I argued above, the language of “pushing aside the door and the
bolt” all at once reflects a growing Babylonian interest in gentle sexual
penetration; too forceful an entry would remove the very “evidence” of vir-
ginity that the groom seeks. This metaphor, however, does not work well
with the language and imagery in the rest of the story. In both versions of
the story, Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi suggests that the groom’s failure was
perhaps entering at an angle, language that implies, if anything, excessive
gentleness (or perhaps more accurately, excessively deliberate entry). This
understanding of “angling” is borne out by the metaphor of the person
walking in the dark of night; the image conjures up someone walking
slowly and carefully, unable to see, and who, as a result, might enter the
door at an angle and thus find it “open.”40 This interpretation of “angling”
is also congruent with other appearances of sexual angling, most prom-
inently for my purposes, in bKet 6b, where it appears as a description
of those who are skilled at penetrating without causing bleeding.41 In
other words, in that context, “angling” carries a connotation of penetrat-
ing gently. In the first version of the story, it is precisely this possibility of
“angling” too gently that could have led to the groom’s misperception. The
groom failed to corroborate his bride’s virginity because he was too gentle.
Only the phrase about pushing aside the “door and the bolt” gives the
opposite impression, namely, that the groom erred in being too forceful.
Strikingly, this is the only phrase in either version of the story that appears
in Aramaic (the rest of the story, in both versions, appearing in Hebrew), a
common sign of later editorial interpolation in the Bavli.42 Thus, in light of
both the striking language shift, as well as the ill fit between the phrase and
the metaphors in the story generally,43 it is likely that it is a later addition to
13
the story, paralleling in narrative form the development of the “open door”
claim in the legal pericope that preceded it.
Indeed, absent this Aramaic phrase, it is simplest to read this story as
being about a blood claim. The groom states, “I found an open door,” which,
in accord with its original meaning in Palestinian and early Babylonian
sources, simply means “I found my bride not to be a virgin.” In response,
Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi suggests that the groom mistakenly engaged in
the well-known act of angling, an excessively gentle sexual act that produces
no bleeding. The second version of the story, constructed on the foundation
of the first,44 intends the later meaning of “open door,” and thus inserts the
Hebrew word bemezid, translated here as “intentionally,” but, unusually,
here clearly intended to convey a sense of “forcefully”.45 The awkwardness
of this common word in this context, as well as the ill fit of the metaphor
of pushing aside the door and bolt all at once, reflect the later shift in this
story from one originally about a groom complaining about not finding
blood, rebuffed because he may have been too gentle, to a tale of a groom
who failed to perceive vaginal narrowness on the wedding night, only to
have his claim rejected for his having been too aggressive in the sex act.
Both the legal pericope and the stories that follow it thus demon-
strate the same legal and cultural development. The notion of an “open
door” claim as something distinct from a blood claim appears nowhere
in Palestinian Rabbinic literature. Even in the Bavli, such a distinction
manifests only in passages clearly bearing the signs of later editorial activ-
ity, and almost surely postdating the mid-fourth-century sage Abaye.46
Furthermore, the Rabbinic disparaging of male sexual aggression in the
second version of the story about Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi also manifests
tell-tale signs of its being a later development. Consistently, then, later
Babylonian Rabbis express decidedly different attitudes toward the testing
of female virginity and the importance of male gentleness in sexual activ-
ity than do earlier Rabbinic sages of both Babylonia and Palestine.
The Babylonian Expansion of Grooms’ Power

The discussion of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement is followed immediately by a
nearly identical pericope:
G. Rav Judah said in the name of Samuel: A man who says I found an
open door is considered reliable enough to deprive a woman of her
ketubah.47
132
H. Rav Joseph said: What does this teach us? We have already learned it in
a mishnah! “One in Judea who eats with his father-in-law without wit-
nesses may not make a claim about virginity [ta‘anat betulim], because
he is alone with her.” In Judea he may not make a claim, but in the
Galilee, he therefore may.
I. And for what purpose? If it is only to forbid her to him, then why not
also in Judea?
J. Rather, it must be to deprive her of her ketubah.
K. And that which he is claiming, is he not making an “open door” claim?
L. No, [in the mishnah] he is making a claim about blood.48
This pericope perfectly matches the one that preceded it.49 In both peri-
copae, an amoraic statement invoking the phrase “open door” initiates
the back and forth, followed by a comparison to a mishnah that, on the
face of it, is not a particularly apt fit for the original statement. This
mishnah is then connected to the amoraic statement by arguing that,
like the opening statement, the mishnah must be about a specific conse-
quence (in the first case about the requirement to divorce, in the second
about the withholding of the ketubah). Finally, the mishnah is dismissed
as not being “identical” with the opening statement, because it is talk-
ing about a blood claim, while the postmishnaic authority to whom the
initial ruling is attributed (Rabbi Eleazar, Samuel) was discussing an
“open door” claim. All of the arguments that I have made above regard-
ing the lateness of the final two lines—in this case lines K–L—apply
here as well.
The only significant difference is that Samuel’s statement is an inten-
sification of Rabbi Eleazar’s ruling. Samuel makes the more radical
argument that a groom’s accusation of finding an “open door” is in fact
sufficient legally to deprive a bride of her ketubah. This is a deeply prob-
lematic shift, not least because it undercuts the already severely dimin-
ished safety of a woman in a Rabbinic marriage. Whether one reads “open
door” here in accord with its earlier meaning of any accusation against a
bride’s virginity, or in its later guise as a specific, unfalsifiable claim, the
groom’s accusation not only ends the marriage, but also denies the bride
her divorce settlement. The Bavli itself immediately draws our attention to
the ease with which this ruling could be abused:
M. It was stated: Rav Nahman said that Samuel said in the name of Rabbi
Simeon b. Eleazar:50 “The sages established [tikkenu] for Jewish women
13
200 [zuz] for a betulah and 100 for a widow [almanah], and they believed
him, that if he said ‘I found an open door,’ he is believed.”
N. If so, what did the sages accomplish through their decree?
O. Rava said: “It is a legal presumption that a person will not work hard to
make a meal and then let it go to waste.”51
In the context of the larger pericope, the statement attributed to the tan-
naitic sage Rabbi Simeon b. Eleazar attempts to justify the ruling that a
groom’s accusation of an open door is accepted as legally true by arguing
that since it was a Rabbinic innovation to provide security to women in
the form of the ketubah, those same Rabbinic legislators could introduce
this male power as part of the decree. Of course, the need to justify this
ruling implies anxiety about its justice, and the anonymous voice of the
Talmud makes that anxiety explicit in line N: if any man wishes to end his
marriage without a financial penalty, he simply can claim that he found
an “open door!” Such an outcome is presumably unjust, even according
to the assumptions of Rabbinic authors and editors, since it apparently
renders the Rabbinic institution of the ketubah—which is intended to pro-
tect brides from unjustified divorces—irrelevant. To this, Rava provides a
speculative response (line O): most people will not go through the work of
arranging and preparing a marriage simply to end it after the first night.52
This broad claim notwithstanding, the passage makes clear that, already
to the Babylonian editors of the passage, the legal power bequeathed by
Samuel’s statement (with either understanding of the phrase “open door”)
was even more susceptible to abuse than the already deeply problem-
atic bloody sheets of Deuteronomy 22 and their cognates in Palestinian
Rabbinic and other early Jewish literature.
Discouraging Claims in the Bavli

Perhaps because of Babylonian editors’ discomfort with the potentially
abusive consequences of Samuel’s ruling, the legal pericope is followed by
a series of six53 stories that, as already pointed out by a number of scholars,
appears intended to undercut the ability of men to make claims against
brides’ virginity.54 The first story features the late second-generation amora
Rav Nahman, who, in response to a claim of an “open door,” orders those
present to beat the accuser. Thereafter follows the story about Rabban
Gamliel b. Rabbi that I discussed above, in which the sage is presented with
an accusation and rejects the claim, suggesting that the lack of “evidence”
134
resulted from the groom in question penetrating with either excessive

gentleness (as in the first version) or through excessive force (the second
version of the story). In the third story, Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi responds
to a claim in which the groom states explicitly that his complaint derives
from his not having “found” blood. The sage launders the garment and,
lo and behold, discovers drops of blood on it.55 In story 4, Rabban Gamliel
b. Rabbi responds to yet another blood claim, this time with the bride
claiming that she is still a virgin. He engages in an experiment to estab-
lish a means for verifying a woman’s virginity, and thereby “proves” the
bride’s claim to be true. In story 5, Rabban Gamliel the Elder is presented
with a blood claim and a bride’s response that she is from the “Dorketi”
family, the female members of which are known not to bleed following
sexual relations. Finally, in story 6, Rabbi Judah the Prince (“Rabbi”) is
faced with another blood claim and the bride’s response that the marriage
took place during a famine. Rabbi provides the couple with food and a bath
and encourages them to engage in another act of penetrative vaginal inter-
course, which indeed produces postcoital bleeding.
I begin by analyzing each of these six stories individually, specifically
looking at the work that each one does in challenging reigning ideas
about virginity and its verification. Then I will consider the effects of
the stringing together of these six stories into one unified literary con-
struction on ideas about virginity, objectivity, and subjectivity. As previ-
ous scholars have argued, these stories indeed attack the very institution
of virginity accusations, but they do so in a way with even broader and
potentially more profound effects than has been appreciated. My argu-
ment is that these stories constitute a sustained attack on the idea of
objectivity, using the two kinds of virginity test developed in the preced-
ing legal pericope and the assumption that the “open door” test is more
“subjective” than blood claims to undermine the perceived objectivity of
all virginity testing.56
Beating the Accuser
A. A certain man came before Rav Nahman, saying to him: “I found an
open door.”
B. Rav Nahman said to him:57 beat him with palm spathes; has he struck
the ditch [i.e., engaged in sexual relations previously]?58
C. But was it not Rav Nahman who said that he is trusted?
135
. He is trusted, but they beat him with palm spathes.59

D
E. Rav Ahai resolved: in one case he was speaking of a young [i.e., unmar-
ried]60 man, in the other case a married man.
The first story in the series features the well-known Babylonian judge
Rav Nahman. Much in the story is unclear: the meaning of the word mev-
arkheta, Rav Nahman’s tone in the second half of line B, the meaning of
lines D and E and their relationship to each other.61 What is clear, how-
ever, is that the groom makes a claim that requires sexual experience and
expertise, making it almost certain that the meaning of “open door” here
is not a claim based on the absence of bleeding. If we take this attribu-
tion seriously, then this could be the earliest occurrence of such a usage,
predating Abaye, whom I argued for above as the terminus post quem
for such a usage.62 But doing so does not radically alter my argument;
the “open door” claim would remain a distinctly Babylonian invention,
dated to roughly the turn of the fourth century rather than the mid-fourth
century.
Still, this story is a case where it behooves us to be even more cautious
than usual regarding attributions. First of all, Rav Nahman’s response in
the story, as pointed out by the anonymous voice in line C, is at odds with
his transmission in the preceding legal pericope of Samuel’s statement
in the name of Rabbi Simeon b. Eleazar that a man is trusted even so far
as to deprive his bride of her ketubah. Thus, either we are missing some
nuance in understanding one of these statements (the approach taken in
lines D and E), or one or both of these statements represents, intentionally
or otherwise, an inaccurate representation of Rav Nahman’s views. The lat-
ter seems likely to me, with the story being a later construction attributed
to Rav Nahman, given the clear intent of the series of stories to critique,
subvert, and transform the legal material that precedes it (see below).
Furthermore, Kulp argues convincingly on text-critical grounds that the
Rav Nahman story was appended to an already-existing kernel of three
stories about a sage, likely Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi, an early amora.63
Though it could be that a story of a late second-generation amoraic sage
was appended to a kernel of tales about an even earlier amoraic sage,
imagining an even later construction than the second amoraic generation
for the Rav Nahman story allows for more time for this story to develop
and become integrated into the larger unit. Finally, the two lines of com-
mentary on the story are anonymous (line D) and attributed to Rav Ahai
136
(line E). Though commentators and scholars debate whether this Rav Ahai
is a very late amora or in fact the even later geonic figure, in either event
we have no evidence for earlier amoraic sages knowing the story. For these
reasons, the story strikes me as postdating Rav Nahman, who, as a classic
Babylonian jurist, and having transmitted Samuel’s statement about trust-
worthiness, was selected as the protagonist.64
More important for my purposes than the dating of this story, however,
is its effect on readers’ understandings of male power in making virginity
claims. In the story itself, Rav Nahman appears to reject the groom’s accu-
sation and to punish him even for making it, a powerful repression of vir-
ginity claims. The resolutions in line D and E, however, mitigate the force
of his ruling, stating that despite the apparent implication of the beating,
the groom is nonetheless believed, or that only previously married men
may lodge this sort of accusation. I will return to this point below, when
I treat the unit of stories as a whole.
Angling
F. A certain man came before Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi,65 saying: “I found
an open door.”
G. He said to him: Perhaps you penetrated at an angle? I will provide you
with a comparison; what is this like? Like a person who walks in the
dark of night. When he angles, he finds [the door] open; when he does
not angle, he finds it locked.
H. Some say he said to him thus: Perhaps you penetrated intentionally
at an angle and pushed aside the door and the bolt? I will provide you
with a comparison; what is this like? Like a person who walks in the
dark of night. When he angles intentionally, he finds [the door] open;
when he does not angle intentionally, he finds it locked.
I have already addressed in some detail above this second story of the ser-
ies; here I will synthesize and summarize those points and note one addi-
tional implication of the story. I argued above that the two versions of the
story reflect the changing Rabbinic attitude toward male sexual aggres-
sion. The first version, in which the phrase “open door” need not be read
as referring to a specific kind of accusation, accuses the groom of excessive
gentleness in the sexual act, such that the expected postcoital bleeding
simply did not occur. The second version, however, uses the term in its
later, technical sense of a groom’s failure to perceive vaginal narrowness;
137
Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi accuses the groom of penetrating so forcefully

that his experience of vaginal looseness reflects his own sexual malfunc-
tion rather than his bride’s sexual history. Thus, the story in its final form
discourages grooms from penetrating violently lest they miss the “signs
of virginity.”
The story also—in both versions—works to reflect and exacerbate male
doubt about the enterprise of testing virginity. Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s
legal-literary weapon here is the word “perhaps”: “Perhaps you [intention-
ally] penetrated at an angle?” To be sure, given the wild subjectivity of the
“open door” claim in particular, such doubt is unsurprising, but this story
gives voice to that doubt, turning the groom’s confident claim into a ques-
tionable observation. Medieval and early modern commentators apply this
consequence to their legal rulings, but even prior to making such a move,
the story clearly generates (or, better, articulates already-existing) male
doubt about virginity claims.66
Laundering
I. A certain man came before Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi, saying: Rabbi,
I penetrated but I found no blood.
J. She said to him: Rabbi, I was a virgin.
K. He said to him: Bring me the sheet.67
L. They brought him the sheet, and he soaked it in water and laundered it
and found on it several drops of blood.
M. He said to him: Go take possession of your acquisition.
N. Huna Mar b. Rava of Parizka said to Rav Ashi: Shall we also act thus?
O. He said to him: Our ironing is like their laundering. And if you say that
we should do ironing, the ironing stone will remove it.68
The third story bears strong similarities to the story in the Palestinian
Talmud, discussed in the previous chapter, in which Rabbi discovered a
drop of blood the size of a mustard seed and thus justified the continued
maintenance of a marriage.69 Regarding the Palestinian parallel, I argued
that the possibility of such a small amount of blood “verifying” a woman’s
virginity created doubt for readers about the reliability of virginity testing.
The same creation of doubt is at play here as well, but the late amoraic
Babylonian discussion of the story in lines N–O brings us from doubt to
a full-blown legal rejection. If, as Rav Ashi explains in line O, the qual-
ity of laundering in Babylonia is subpar, and more intensive forms of
138
laundering would remove any blood that might be there, then Babylonian
sages are incapable of determining that any particular sheet is indeed
blood-free.70 After all, the sheet brought before Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi
appeared to all viewers to be clean of stains. Only the ability of the sage
to make use of the high-quality Palestinian form of laundering made the
blood visible.
The effects of this story are both legal and discursive. In the realm of
law, earlier developments may have already made blood claims practically
irrelevant, but this particular story and the late Babylonian commentary
thereon utterly demolish the notion of blood claims as a meaningful test
of a woman’s virginity. Discursively as well, the story calls into question
the possibility of speaking of blood as an “objective” marker of virginity.
Blood claims may well appear “objective,” at least by comparison to “open
door” claims, but this story makes clear that, though blood may well be
a tangible form of evidence, not all viewers will read it in the same way.
Barrels
P. A certain man came before Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi, saying: Rabbi,
I penetrated but I found no blood.
Q. She said to him: Rabbi, I am still a virgin.
R. He said to them: Bring me two maidens, one a virgin and one who has
had intercourse; they brought [them] to him and he set them up on
a barrel of wine. The one who had had intercourse, the scent spread
forth, while with the virgin, the scent did not spread forth. This one too
he set up [on the barrel], and the scent did not rise up.
S. He said to him: Go take possession of your acquisition.
T. But why did he not simply inspect her to begin with?
U. He had heard of this tradition, but he had never seen it in practice, and
he thought, perhaps this method is not sufficiently reliable, and it is
not appropriate to embarrass Jewish women.
The fourth case is the best known and, relatedly, most disturbing of
the series. Responding to the groom’s claim of having not found blood,
Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi enacts a full-fledged experiment with the bar-
rels. This bizarre moment introduces a new virginity test into the Rabbinic
vocabulary—neither Deuteronomy’s bloody sheets nor a groom’s claim
of not having perceived vaginal narrowness—one that is, if even possi-
ble by comparison, particularly objectifying. Key to understanding this
139
story, I will argue here, is unlocking its message about objectivity and
subjectivity.
We need not—and should not—ignore the grotesque and degrading
image of setting a woman up on a barrel to test her virginity to see that
Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s action is meant to bear the trappings of an
objective process. The turn-of-the-second-century Greek medical author
Soranus attests to a similar sort of test (though for a different purpose) in
his work Gynecology (though he himself rejects it).71 Julius Preuss, in his
classic reference work on medical practices in biblical and Rabbinic litera-
ture, points to Soranus’s testimony (and other reports as well), implying a
shared cultural acceptance of such a test for proving virginity in Greek and
Roman authors and in the Talmud.72 If Babylonian Rabbinic authors were
indeed aware of such a test from elsewhere, then the valence of reliability
and objectivity would be even greater for a contemporaneous reader.
Even if we do not assume such cultural knowledge, however, the story,
on its surface, presents Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s test as a rigorous proce-
dure to determine virginity. Critical to understanding the story is reading it
in light of its parallel in Tractate Yevamot of the Bavli. There, the Babylonian
sage Rav Kahana suggests the barrel method for determining virginity. The
striking difference between the appearance of the barrel test at bYev 60b
and its appearance here is that the version in Yevamot lacks the use of two
maidservants to test out the method.73 There, Rav Kahana simply explains
what one should do. In our passage, this plot device highlights the “objec-
tivity” of what Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi is doing; the editor(s) of the story
depict Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi’s experiment as rigorous and/or objective.
In the language of the modern scientific method: he tests out a hypothesis
using controlled variables, and when that hypothesis is confirmed, he then
makes use of it to determine the answer to an unknown question.
But the implied meaning of the test is more complicated than simply
being a “reliable” and “objective” means of testing virginity. The fact that
the sage needed to verify the tradition he had received for testing virginity,
as in the preceding cases, introduces doubt to the reader’s mind. Rabban
Gamliel b. Rabbi had “heard” of this tradition, but he had never “seen” it
put into practice. If this tradition might not be reliable, what other received
practices for determining a woman’s virginity might not be reliable? Have
our own experiences verified, or called into question, the assumptions of
Deuteronomy 22? How could one even verify the Babylonian claim that
a groom’s perception of his bride’s body is reliable enough to deprive her
of her ketubah? And the anonymous editorial voice, again in Aramaic (as
140
opposed to the rest of the story), makes this doubt explicit: the reason
Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi added this step in the process, we are told, is
because “perhaps this method is not sufficiently reliable.” Thus, Rabban
Gamliel b. Rabbi’s barrel test is at one and the same time “objective” and
anxiety-inducing. Crucially, the same word as appeared in the second story
of this series (this time in Aramaic, dilma, rather than Hebrew, shema)—
perhaps—again threatens the whole enterprise of setting grooms’ minds at
ease regarding their brides’ sexual history.
Dorketi
V. A certain man came before Rabban Gamliel the Elder, saying: Rabbi,
I penetrated but I did not find blood.
W. She said to him: Rabbi, I am from the family of Dorketi, which has
neither menstrual blood nor hymenal blood.
X. Rabban Gamliel investigated her relatives and found her words to
be true; he said to him: Go take possession of your acquisition, you
should be happy to have merited the family of Dorketi.74
Y. What is Dorketi? A cut-off generation [dor katua‘].
Z. Rabbi Hanina said: Rabban Gamliel comforted that man with false
comforts, for it is taught: Just as yeast is good for the dough, so
bloods are good for a woman, and it was taught in the name of Rabbi
Meir: Any woman who has much blood, her children will be many.
AA. It was stated: Rabbi Jeremiah b. Abba said: He said to him: “Go enjoy
your acquisition.”75
BB. And Rabbi Yose b. Abin said: He said to him: “Go be burdened
[nithayyev] with your acquisition.”
CC. The one who said “go be burdened” makes sense in light of that
which Rabbi Hanina taught, but the one who said “Go enjoy”—what
enjoyment is there?
DD. That it/he will not come to a case of possible niddah.
The story of the bride who defends herself saying that she comes from
the Dorketi family also finds a partial parallel in the Palestinian Talmud
(pKet 1:1 [25a]). The passage there invokes mNid 9:11, in which women’s
virginity is compared to vines, saying that some produce more “wine”
than others, and that women who do not produce “wine” at all “are
Dorketi.” The mishnah is presented in the Palestinian Talmud as a chal-
lenge to the whole notion of virginity claims—if some women do not
14
produce the evidence of virginity, then how can a woman ever be accused
on the basis of its absence?—to which the anonymous voice responds
that the bride must bring evidence of her genealogical exemption from
such claims. In the Bavli, the sage proactively investigates her lineage
rather than demanding that she bring proof, but the basic outlines of the
notion remain the same.
More significant to my consideration of Rabbinic attitudes toward male
sexuality and blood is the discussion of the story in lines Y–DD. The mid-
rashic reading in line Y of the word “Dorketi” as signaling “a cut-off gen-
eration” appears also at bNid 64b, where it is marked as a tannaitic text
(though given the lack of a parallel in any earlier work, some skepticism
is called for). But it clearly is of a piece with lines Z and BB, both of which
present the absence of postcoital bleeding as something negative. The attri-
butions in both of those cases—Rabbi Hanina and Rabbi Yose b. Abin—
are to Palestinian sages.76 Line AA is in conflict with lines Y, Z, and BB, as
the Babylonian sage Rabbi Jeremiah b. Abba states that Rabban Gamliel
the Elder indeed meant to imply that this particular groom was fortunate.
Lines CC and DD then attempt to resolve Rabbi Jeremiah b. Abba’s view
with what is presented as the tannaitic view that lack of bleeding implies
decreased chances of procreation.
In light of my argument in this book, it is striking that the voice claim-
ing that brides who do not bleed on their wedding nights are desirable is
the lone Babylonian sage in the pericope. Additionally, the anonymous,
editorial—and thus Babylonian—voice of the passage works to explain why
this state is indeed desirable (line DD). Finally, the conclusion of Rabban
Gamliel the Elder’s statement in the story—“you should be happy to have
merited the family of Dorketi”—must be a later addition, both because
it disrupts the formulaic conclusion common to the third through sixth
stories of “Go take possession of your acquisition,” but more important
because it makes his meaning clear. Had this phrase been part of the story
prior to the amoraic sages who debate Rabban Gamliel the Elder’s mean-
ing, then there would be no way to justify the view of Rabbi Yose b. Abin.
Thus, that phrase must postdate Rabbi Yirmiyah b. Abba and Rabbi Yose
b. Abin, the latter of whom is a late fourth-century sage. The pericope as a
whole thus displays a divide between earlier voices, which view the Dorketi
family in a negative light, and later voices that perceive the absence of
bleeding as a desirable trait. This lines up well with my broader argument
in this chapter and in this book, namely, that later Babylonian sages dis-
couraged grooms from wanting to see blood on their wedding night, while
142
Palestinian and earlier Babylonian sages maintained the biblical model of

blood as a wedding-night desideratum.
In this case, however, we should not say that this reflects a stark
Palestinian-Babylonian divide, because a similar disagreement actually
appears in the Palestinian Talmud. In the pericope there about the woman
who produced only a mustard-seed-sized amount of postcoital bleeding,
Rabbi Ishmael b. Rabbi Yose, the officiating sage, states that “[t]‌here should
be more like you among Israel,” a clearly positive phrase. The ruling is fol-
lowed by a passage very similar to lines Y–DD above; in the Palestinian
version, two Palestinian sages disagree about whether Rabbi Ishmael
b. Rabbi Yose was indeed telling the bride that her near total lack of bleed-
ing was a positive physical trait. Thus, even in the Palestinian Talmud we
already find voices that extol this genetic lack of blood.
Even so, the clear division between Palestinian and Babylonian sages in
the Bavli’s version of this debate suggests that Babylonian editors under-
stood, or wanted their readers to understand, this disagreement as reflect-
ing differing attitudes toward postcoital blood in Palestine and Babylonia.77
The fact that the pericope ends with support for the view that being a mem-
ber of the Dorketi family is desirable foregrounds that opinion, as does the
addition to Rabban Gamliel the Elder’s response in the story itself. All of
this coalesces well with the general late Babylonian tendency to diminish
the importance of blood as a sign of virginity.
Famine
EE. A certain man came before Rabbi, saying: Rabbi, I penetrated but
I did not find blood.
FF. She said to him: Rabbi, I was still a virgin,78 but it was during years of
famine.
GG. He saw that their faces were black; he commanded that they be
brought to the bathhouse, and he had them fed and given drink, and
he brought them into a room. He penetrated and found blood. He
said to him: Go enjoy your acquisition.
Rabbi applied the following verse to them: “Their skin has shriveled
on their bones, it has become dry as wood” (Lam. 4:8).
In contrast to the earlier tales in the cycle, the final story in the series may
provide evidence of a preference for aggressive sexual activity, thus har-
kening back to the earlier model of Deuteronomy 22 and its successors,
143
though the meaning of the story is fairly opaque. The groom apparently
failed to produce postcoital bleeding because he was too weak to pene-
trate forcefully enough to produce blood, since following a good meal the
couple are able to have penetrative intercourse that indeed results in post-
coital bleeding. This concern for the groom’s inability to penetrate suf-
ficiently vigorously is particularly striking if we follow those manuscript
traditions in which the bride claims in her defense “I am still a virgin.”79
However, Kulp argues that the version “I was a virgin” is preferable,80 in
which case, it may be hard to pin Rabbi’s assessment of the situation as
reflecting suspicion that the absence of blood resulted from the groom’s
initial penetration lacking sufficient strength. Understanding the concern
as malnourishment more broadly and not only an interest in the groom’s
vigor also aligns well with the fact that Rabbi feeds both the bride and the
groom, perhaps implying that there is also some connection between post-
coital bleeding and the bride’s malnourishment.81
The Series as a Whole

In my consideration of all of these stories and their talmudic interpreta-
tion, I have highlighted aspects of each that shed light on Rabbinic atti-
tudes toward virginity testing, male sexual aggression and sexual activity
generally, and notions of objectivity and subjectivity. Here I consider the
effects of these stories as an edited unit.82 In her treatment of these stories
and their relationship to the legal material that precedes them, Shulamit
Valer already points out that in all of the stories, the man’s claim is dis-
missed, either through education, as in the case of the two “open door”
claims, or through outright “evidence” to the contrary, as in the blood-
claim cases. She thus concludes that the unit is edited to undermine the
“open door” pericope, conveying the message that, though in theory a man
is considered trustworthy regarding accusations about his new wife’s fidel-
ity, in practice, such rulings are never to be made.83 Tal Ilan and Kulp
understand the relationship between the stories and the preceding legal
material similarly.84 Here I build on the work of these scholars, arguing
that the series of stories undermines not only the “open door” claim, and
not even virginity claims in general, but the whole notion of virginity as
something objective that can be read by an external viewer on the body of
a woman.
A number of trends in the story cycle are readily apparent. The first of
these, as I alluded to earlier in this chapter, is the nature of the claim made
14
by the groom. In the opening two stories, the groom makes an “open door”
claim, whereas the final four feature a claim about blood. The latter imply,
as suggested by Ilan, a stronger case on the part of the groom;85 the bride
not only “failed” to meet the late, subjective standard of the “open door,”
but rather, the biblical, objective standard of blood. Readers might have
doubts about a groom who made an “open door” claim, but accusations
based on the absence of blood are, as I have shown in previous chapters,
much more deeply rooted in the early Jewish consciousness.
At the same point at which the accusations grow stronger, the stories
shift from portraying a silent, accused bride in the first two stories to
depicting brides who speak in their own defense in the final four.86 In addi-
tion, the claim that the bride makes grows stronger in each case as well. In
the third story—the first in which the bride speaks—she defends herself
saying that she was indeed a virgin on her wedding night, the implica-
tion being that she no longer is, such that there is no obvious way for her
now to prove her virginity. In the fourth story, she claims that she is still
a virgin, that is, that she and her groom never sexually consummated the
marriage.87 Narratively, her status as “virgin” is emphasized, and legally, it
should remain possible somehow to demonstrate her virginity. In the fifth
story, the bride ignores entirely her sexual history in her own defense, stat-
ing that, because of her inherited physical traits, her acts of sexual inter-
course will never result in bleeding. The bride’s claim in the final story is
unclear due to the divided manuscript traditions,88 but in any event, by this
point in the series the pattern has been established.89
The judicial results in these stories also move from equivocation to
greater clarity. In the first case, there is some ambiguity as to whether
the groom’s accusation is accepted, despite his being beaten, or whether
the beating also signals that the claim was rejected. Rav Ahai’s resolu-
tion leaves “open door” claims relevant for previously married grooms.
In the second story, Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi does not explicitly reject the
groom’s claim, telling him—in both versions—perhaps your perception
was inaccurate. Surely, as I argued above, the tenor of the story is consist-
ent with that of the story cycle generally, and that crucial perhaps serves to
undercut the groom’s (and the readers’) assumptions of reliability. But the
actual ruling remains far more ambiguous than the clear and dramatic
(and, it must be noted, degrading) response of “Go take possession of
your acquisition!” that punctuates each of the final four stories. Thus, it
is precisely in the four final stories—the blood claims stories—in which
the bride speaks, in which her defense generally becomes increasingly
145
forceful, and in which the groom’s concern is completely and unambig-

uously dismissed. These stories, then, while certainly undermining vir-
ginity claims in general, are actually most forceful in their rejection of
the classic, Deuteronomy-based blood claims, rather than the recently
invented “open door” claims.
But as important as the rejection of “open door” and, especially, blood
claims in the story cycle is the means by which these grooms’ accusations
are rejected. The trends here outlined, taken together, constitute a prefer-
ence for subjectivity over objectivity, and in particular, a rejection of the
latter in the realm of virginity. As the grooms move from more subjective
“open door” claims to more “objective” blood claims, the brides begin to
speak, thus becoming more of a subject. The nature of the sages’ rejections
also reflect this tension between subjectivity and objectivity, as Rabban
Gamliel b. Rabbi in the third story makes what had seemed objective—the
presence or absence of blood on the sheets—appear subjective, and then
moves into a full-blown scientific experiment—the barrel test of the fourth
story—that somehow manages to increase rather than decrease doubts
about its reliability.
This phenomenon is best understood in light of Charlotte Fonrobert’s
use of objectivity and subjectivity as a means of analyzing Rabbinic devel-
opments in law. In Fonrobert’s studies of Rabbinic menstrual laws, she
highlights the implication of subjectivity as not only something that is
more debatable, but also a mode of examining that makes of the charac-
ters involved subjects; when menstrual laws are left up to the subjective
experience of women, those women have more power, treated as subjects.
By contrast, objectivity by its nature turns to objects of study; thus, rulings
that make, to take Fonrobert’s example again, menstrual laws more “objec-
tive” inevitably apply to the women involved the status of object.90
In our stories, increasingly “objective” proofs are brought to show that
what the groom had thought was a clear, objective claim for his case is in
fact to be dismissed, and at the same time women increasingly act as sub-
jects (and thus, “subjectively”). In the “objective” stories of blood claims,
the woman speaks as a subject, whereas in the stories of the “open door”
claims, she may as well not be present as a character. Notions of objectivity
and subjectivity and their respective reliability are here inverted in order to
make a point. The introduction of the woman’s voice in the last four stories
is yet another way of emphasizing and even valorizing her subjectivity at
the expense of objectivity. Thus, the unit of stories is best understood as an
argument against viewing any claim brought by a husband as “objective.”
146
Appreciating this series of stories as a reflection on the value of sub-

jectivity may suggest a context for understanding the rise of the subjec-
tive “open door” claim as well. In a recent dissertation, Ayelet Libson
has argued that a rising interest in subjectivity—including, specifically,
the subjectivity of women—is typical of, and with respect to Rabbinic lit-
erature largely unique to, the Bavli.91 Libson shows that though earlier
Rabbinic texts indeed express an interest in the thoughts of individuals,
the use of a subjective self-knowledge—Did I feel a certain sensation? Is the
man in front of me sexually attractive?—as a legally significant criterion is
particular to Babylonian pericopes.92
The “open door” claim is another example of this Babylonian Rabbinic
willingness to rely on subjective experience; rejecting the objectified blood
on the sheets, the Bavli’s author/editors instead empower grooms to make
claims based on an experience that no one can verify.93 This particular
legal development, as I have noted above, reflects interest only in male
subjectivity. The stories that follow, however, are indicative of a parallel,
though surely not equal, interest in the subjectivity of women.94
Libson situates the Babylonian interest in subjectivity more generally
in the context of the late antique rise of the reflexive subject.95 The Bavli, as
I have noted already, reveals much engagement with ideas coming out of
the Roman world; its general interest in the experience of individuals thus
may well be indicative of the sway that ideas current in the Roman Empire
held for Babylonian Rabbis. If so, then the perplexing “open door” claim
might best be understood in this light—the result of changing attitudes
about the role of the self and experience in the broader late antique world.
I will return to this point in the next chapter, particularly in discussing a
challenging pericope about the pain experienced by brides on their wed-
ding nights.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have delineated a crucial shift in Rabbinic thinking
about female virginity and male sexual aggression. Unlike earlier Jewish
authors, all of whom framed female virginity in the terms of the bleeding
and wounding resulting from an initial act of penetrative vaginal inter-
course, late Babylonian sages and editors introduce and make use of a
standard of testing female virginity that relies on vaginal narrowness as
evidence of virginity. Significantly, this “open door” claim requires not vig-
orous, aggressive sexual penetration on the part of men for the verification
147
of female virginity, but rather gentle, careful, and deliberative penetration

so as not to forfeit the “evidence” of virginity that comes through a groom’s
experience of vaginal narrowness. This shift from blood to narrowness,
and consequently from sexual aggression to gentle penetration, manifests
in both the legal pericope about virginity claims and in the series of stories
that follows.
Relatedly, the cycle of six stories that comes on the heels of the “open
door” pericope turns the reader’s attention toward a nuanced reconsid-
eration of objectivity and subjectivity. By undermining the perceived
objectivity of blood claims, mocking objective standards in general, and
highlighting the subject-ness of the accused brides, these stories under-
mine what might have been a reader’s initial assumption, namely, that the
use of blood claims, for all of its many problems, is still a more objective
standard than the newly invented “open door” claim. In fact, as the editor
of this unit of stories makes clear, neither blood claims nor “open door”
claims can make any pretense whatsoever of objectivity. This thus serves
both to undermine virginity claims in general, but also to support the sta-
tus of “open door” claims relative to blood claims—neither is particularly
“objective”—and thus to support the implied sexual culture of valuing
male gentleness in the act of penetration.
148
Impure Nuptials and Sex as Work

The Bavli’s Attempted Divorce of
Virginity from Violence
Although this chapter is something of a departure from the remain-

der of this book, as it is the only one concerned with topics other than the
testing of female virginity, the topics explored here provide context for the
argument that I made in the previous chapter. These passages reveal a late
Babylonian change in Rabbinic thinking about female virginity and male
sexual aggression and can help us explore some possible paths for under-
standing what may have motivated such a shift in thinking.
I first explore a passage from a different tractate entirely—the tenth
chapter of Tractate Niddah—where our concerns are no longer the verifi-
cation of a bride’s virginity, but rather the purity status of blood resulting
from the physical trauma of penetrative intercourse. I argue that the devel-
opment in Rabbinic thinking from treating such blood as ritually pure
to ruling it impure is a sort of mirror image to that seen in the previous
chapter, and that this inverted parallel actually suggests a similar change
in Rabbinic thinking about postcoital bleeding. While this example might
gesture toward the influence of Zoroastrian purity laws or attitudes toward
blood generally on Rabbinic rulings about female virginity, I will argue
that this avenue is ultimately unsatisfying in explaining these changes.
The second case in this chapter brings us back to Tractate Ketubot,
though from a different angle: not the verification of a bride’s virginity,
but a question of Sabbath law regarding first-time sexual relations on the
Sabbath. This passage displays the exact same contours of thought as
found in the “open door” pericope, with Palestinian and earlier Babylonian
Rabbinic sources assuming blood to be an essential part of the wedding
149
Impure Nuptials and Sex as Work 149
night, while later Babylonian voices downplay its significance. Unlike

the passage from Tractate Niddah, this text about sexual relations on
the Sabbath encourages us to think about the violence of the sexual act
itself, rather than purity concerns, as the motivating factor in changes in
Rabbinic attitudes toward postcoital bleeding in late antique Babylonia.
Finally, I turn to a Babylonian pericope that addresses explicitly the
question of whether first- time penetrative intercourse is “supposed
to” be painful for women. Here too we will see a uniquely Babylonian
approach that suggests, contrary to claims in earlier Rabbinic texts, that
this moment is relatively unpainful for brides. I will argue that this move
reflects a Babylonian Rabbinic discomfort with the notion of causing pain
as part and parcel of male sexual gratification. Babylonian Rabbis thus co-
opt and/or create female voices to set their own minds at ease. In the proc-
ess, though, this passage suggests that it is precisely concerns about pain
and violence, rather than impurity beliefs or blood taboos, that lie behind
the Babylonian Rabbinic development of the “open door” claim.
The “Impurity” of Postcoital Bleeding

While early Rabbinic texts treat blood resulting from genital rupture on
the wedding night as irrelevant for purity legislation, by the close of the
Babylonian Talmud, this blood becomes equivalent to menstrual flow,
thus generating both ritual impurity and a prohibition on further sex-
ual relations. This legal development, which likely occurred in the mid-
fourth century—that is, at the same time as the rise of the “open door”
claim discussed in the previous chapter—represents another Babylonian
Rabbinic attempt to discourage men from engaging in aggressive sexual
penetration.
Postcoital Bleeding and Impurity in the Tannaitic Period

In a number of places, the Hebrew Bible makes clear that menstruation
generates ritual impurity.1 Leviticus 18:19 and 20:18 both state that sex-
ual relations are forbidden while a woman is menstruating.2 These two
rulings—that menstruation generates ritual impurity, and that it triggers a
prohibition on sexual relations—compose the basis of what are commonly
called the laws of niddah (following the language used, for example, in Lev.
15:19 and 18:19). Tannaitic literature, however, rules that postcoital bleed-
ing, though it might in some ways resemble menstrual blood, is distinct
150
from it and thus ritually pure.3 For example, mNid 1:7 refers to “a virgin
whose bloods are ritually pure,” implying that postcoital bleeding does not
generate ritual impurity. The Tosefta makes that point explicitly, ruling
that a bride bleeding following the wedding night need not inspect her-
self internally for signs of menstruation “because the blood of betulim is
ritually pure.”4 These tannaitic texts make clear that postcoital bleeding is
irrelevant for purposes of ritual impurity.5
Of course, the fact that postcoital blood is even discussed in the
frameworks of Mishnah and Tosefta Niddah is itself significant; these
tannaitic texts imply that genital bleeding, even though not menstrual,
may be confused with menstrual blood. Precisely this concern about
confusion presumably led to the ruling at mNid 10:1 (paralleled in
tNid 9:6):
A. A young girl6 whose [expected] time to see [menstrual blood] has not
yet arrived and who gets married: The House of Shammai say that
she is given four nights, and the House of Hillel say until the wound
[makah] heals.
B. If her time to see has arrived and she gets married: The House of
Shammai say that she is given the first night, and the House of Hillel
say until Saturday night, four nights.
C. If she saw while still in her father’s home: The House of Shammai say
that she is given the obligatory penetration [be‘ilat mitzvah], and the
House of Hillel say the whole night.
The legal substance of mNid 10:1 reflects the clear tannaitic consensus that
postcoital blood is distinct from menstrual blood and does not fundamen-
tally generate ritual impurity. Postcoital bleeding will sometimes lead to a
status of impurity, but in those cases it does so not because the blood is
itself impure, but because of a concern that the woman in question may
be menstruating and said menstrual blood is simply being confused with
Before moving on to later developments in Rabbinic thinking on this
topic, however, it is worth considering the discursive implications of the
phrase employed by the Hillelites in line A—“until the wound heals.”
Understanding postcoital bleeding as resulting from a wound is not obvi-
ous; as evidenced by Deut. 22:13–21 and its interpretation, it has often
been assumed that postcoital bleeding is something to be expected. In the
15
second half of this chapter, I will analyze a lengthy passage from Tractate
Ketubot that begins by asking whether postcoital bleeding is indeed the
result of a wound or if it is rather blood “deposited” for the purpose of
demonstrating virginity. The choice to speak of the rupture of a woman’s
genitalia on her wedding night and the subsequent bleeding as a wound
is thus not inevitable.7
This locution reinforces the significance of aggressive penetration
by drawing our attention to its violent consequences. But by marking
postcoital bleeding as the product of a wound, the phrase also sets the
stage for later Rabbinic authors to give greater attention to the potentially
traumatic aspects for brides of wedding-night relations. A similar aware-
ness of and attention to the wedding night as potentially violent appears
at tKet 3:6, in which tannaitic authorities take for granted that penetrative
intercourse is or can be painful for brides.8
Postcoital Bleeding in Amoraic Midrash

The Rabbinic assumption that postcoital bleeding is irrelevant for purposes
of menstrual laws also is clear in a passage in the amoraic Palestinian
work Vayikra Rabbah:
The Lord sets prisoners [asurim] free (Ps. 146:7). That which I have for-
bidden [asarti] to you I have permitted to you. I forbade to you the
suet of domesticated mammals, but I permitted to you the suet of
wild mammals. I forbade to you the sciatic nerve of wild mammals,
but I permitted to you the sciatic nerve of fowl. I forbade to you
the [lack of ] slaughter of fowl, but I permitted to you the [lack of ]
slaughter of fish. Rabbi Aha and Rabbi Bisna and Rabbi Jonathan
in the name of Rabbi Meir: More than that which I have forbidden
to you, I have permitted to you. I forbade to you menstrual blood, I
permitted to you the blood of betulim.9
The midrash plays on the different meanings of the root ’-s-r as both cap-
tivity and prohibition in order to present God as a permitting things that
resemble forbidden items. One such example is menstrual blood and post-
coital bleeding, which are depicted as similar enough to be compared to
each other, but distinct in that the former is forbidden “to you,” while the
latter is permitted. The midrash thus shows the same assumptions as the
152
tannaitic texts discussed above. However, a strikingly similar passage with

clearly different assumptions appears in the Babylonian Talmud:
Yalta said to Rav Nahman: All that God has forbidden us, God has
permitted us a parallel. God forbade to us blood; God permitted us
liver. Niddah; the blood of purity [dam tohar]. The suet of a domesti-
cated mammal; the suet of a wild mammal.10
As in the Palestinian midrash of Vayikra Rabbah, here we find pairs of

items similar enough that the author believes the reader will find one a
suitable replacement for the other, but distinct enough from each other
that we can understand that one is forbidden and the other permitted.
What is more, many of these examples are the same as those found in the
Vayikra Rabbah text.
But a number of differences mark the Babylonian version as well.
Here the amoraic Babylonian woman Yalta speaks these pairs in con-
versation with her husband Rav Nahman. Significantly, Yalta’s version
replaces postcoital bleeding with “the blood of purity,” a phrase refer-
ring to the thirty-three or sixty-six days following the birth of a boy or
a girl respectively during which any genital bleeding a woman sees is
considered irrelevant with regard to the laws of niddah.11 Thus, instead
of postcoital bleeding as her example of blood that resembles menstrual
blood but is nonetheless permitted, the Babylonian Yalta here turns to the
postpartum bleeding that Rabbinic law rendered irrelevant to the laws of
menstrual purity.
The difference appears to be geographical rather than chronological,
that is, between Palestinian and Babylonian Rabbinic authors as opposed
to earlier and later ones. The Palestinian work of midrash in which this
passage appears is amoraic. Additionally, the much later (seventh-century)
Palestinian poet Eleazar Kalir also contrasts menstrual discharge with
postcoital bleeding in a liturgical poem.12 The two versions of this pair
of permitted and forbidden result from a divide about whether postcoital
bleeding really is to be treated as pure, with the Babylonian version turn-
ing to “blood of purity” as its foil for menstrual blood because the culture
in which it was produced no longer followed the tannaitic precedent. This
development of postcoital bleeding into something that generates all of
the consequences of menstrual bleeding turns out, I will argue, to have
similar cultural implications to the rise of the “open door” claim in the
same time and place.
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Postcoital Bleeding and Niddah in the Talmuds

Despite the Palestinian-Babylonian divide I have adduced above, the
Yerushalmi reveals evidence of doubt about the earlier consensus, in
which postcoital bleeding was ritually pure, even in Palestine. Only in
the Babylonian Talmud, however, do these doubts burgeon into a domi-
nant refrain that equates postcoital bleeding with menstrual flow for pur-
poses of ritual purity. What is more, even in the Palestinian Talmud, the
well-known Babylonian sage Samuel figures prominently in the develop-
ment, a phenomenon paralleled in the Bavli. Perhaps the Yerushalmi’s
invocation of Samuel here, corroborating a similar presentation in the
Bavli, suggests that there was already in the first half of the amoraic per-
iod an association between Samuel and stringency regarding postcoital
bleeding.
Although we do not have any Palestinian Talmud on the final chapter
of Tractate Niddah,13 we find the following material relevant to our topic in
Tractate Berakhot of the Yerushalmi (2:6 [5b]):
A. Samuel said: All those laws of the opening of the last chapter of Niddah
are for theory and not for practice [lehalakhah aval lo’ lema‘aseh].
B. Rabbi Yannai ran away [‘arak] even from “A young girl whose

[expected] time to see [menstrual blood] has not yet arrived and who
gets married.”
C. They asked in front of Rabbi Yohanan: What is the law regarding attrib-
uting it as blood from a wound? And he did not render a decision
[regarding it] [velo’ horei].14
D. What is the law regarding penetrating for a second act of intercourse?
E. They said: He did not render a decision regarding whether one may
attribute it as blood from a wound; would he render a decision regard-
ing engaging in a second act of intercourse?
F. In what case is it needed [i.e., what are they actually asking]? When a
cessation, days of purity, came in between.
G. Rabbi Abahu said: I was a groomsman for Rabbi Simeon b. Abba.
I asked Rabbi Eleazar: “What is the law regarding engaging in a second
act of penetration?” And he permitted it, for he opined like Samuel,
as Samuel said: One may enter a tight passage on the Sabbath, even
[though] one removes pebbles.
H. Rabbi Haggai said: I was the groomsman for Rabbi Samuel the

Cappadocian. I asked Rabbi Josiah and he gave it up [i.e., refused to
154
answer]. I asked Rabbi Samuel b. Rav Isaac. He said to me: If so, which
is menstrual blood, and which is blood of betulim?
I. It was taught: A bride is forbidden vis-à-vis sexual relations all seven
[days], and it is forbidden to take the cup of blessing from her—so said
Rabbi Eliezer.
J. What is Rabbi Eliezer’s reasoning? It is impossible for there not to be
some amount of menstrual blood exiting with the blood of betulim.
Recall from above that mNid 10:1 allotted time windows following the wed-
ding night, during which any genital bleeding a bride found was assumed
to be the result of physical trauma, and thus irrelevant for purposes of
ritual impurity. In lines A–C, we find three amoraic statements about the
legal consequences of postcoital bleeding, each of which calls into question
the relative leniency of mNid 10:1. Samuel states that the laws delineated
in mNid 10:1 are applicable only in theory but not in practice. Although he
does not state what the actual, practical law is, he presumably is advocat-
ing something more stringent, since the language of “in theory” suggests
a technically correct, but ultimately rejected leniency.15 The statement of
Rabbi Yannai in line B appears to be of a similar point of view. Whether
the word translated as “ran away” (‘arak) in line B means that he refused to
issue a ruling even in the case most likely to engender a lenient ruling16 or
he would in practice “run away” from even a prepubescent girl,17 the effect
is the same: even in the case where leniency would be most expected,
these authorities advocate stringency. Finally, in line D, Rabbi Yohanan
refuses to rule on whether one may attribute the blood found following an
initial act of intercourse to the wound, or whether such blood triggers the
consequences of niddah.
The pericope thus presents three statements in a row exhibiting a lack
of clarity about the treatment of postcoital bleeding for ritual impurity
and other legal purposes. Clearly, some Palestinian amoraic sages (Rabbi
Yannai, Rabbi Yohanan) are moving away from the tannaitic model in
which postcoital blood had little or no relevance for the laws of niddah.
Importantly, however, even in Palestine, the Babylonian sage Samuel is
associated with this move.
Lines D–J are extremely obscure; it is not even clear if they are about
the implications of postcoital bleeding for the laws of niddah, or rather, the
topic that I will consider in the second half of this chapter, namely, the per-
missibility of first-time penetrative intercourse on the Sabbath.18 However,
the concluding line of this pericope is unambiguous, attributing to the
15
tannaitic sage Rabbi Eliezer a view that following wedding-night relations

the couple must refrain from intercourse for seven days.19 This is the only
ruling in the passage that unequivocally equates the legal significance of
postcoital bleeding with that of menstrual blood. Thus, the Palestinian
Talmud presents a number of views that reflect growing anxiety about the
rulings of mNid 10:1, advocating instead various degrees of stringency in
treating postcoital bleeding as generating some or all of the legal conse-
quences of menstrual bleeding.
When we turn to the Babylonian Talmud, we find that the stringency
attributed to Rabbi Eliezer in the Yerushalmi has been transformed into a
pithy, recurring trope:
A. Rav said: A bogeret [i.e., a young woman past the age of expected puberty]
is given the first night.
B. This20 applies where she has not yet seen [i.e., begun to menstruate],
but if she has seen, then she is given only the penetration of mitzvah,
and no more.
C. Binyamin Sakosna’ah21 was traveling to Samuel’s locale. He thought to
act in accordance with Rav’s view, and22 even [in a case where] she had
seen. He said: Rav did not distinguish between [a case where] she had
seen and [a case where] she had not seen. He died on the way before [he
had the chance].
D. [Samuel]23 said of Rav: No harm befalls the righteous (Prov. 12:21).
E. Rav and Samuel, both of them say: The law is that one penetrates the
obligatory penetration and separates.
F. Rav Hisda objected [ from a baraita]: It once happened that Rabbi gave
her four nights over twelve months.
G. Rava said to him: Why should you search for an objection? Object from
the mishnah!
H. But he thought that an actual event was [a]‌greater [contradiction].24
I. In any event, this is difficult for Rav and Samuel!
J. They acted in accord with our sages, as it was taught [in a baraita]: Our
sages subsequently voted that one penetrates the obligatory penetra-
tion and separates.
K. Ullah said: When Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish would study

Tinoket25 [i.e., the tenth chapter of Tractate Niddah] they were unable
to glean as much as a fox gleans from a plowed field.26 But they con-
cluded, regarding it, thus: One penetrates the obligatory penetration
and separates.
156
L. Rav27 said to Rav Ashi: But if so, a pious person should not complete his
sexual act!
M. He said to him: If so, his heart will injure him [i.e., he will be disgusted]
and he will separate.28
In lines E, J, and K, we find the identical phrase repeated: “one pen-

etrates the obligatory penetration and separates.” Though pithier than
Rabbi Eliezer’s more prosaic “forbidden all seven,”29 the phrase means
the same thing: postcoital blood generates a prohibition on further sexual
relations. However, unlike in the Palestinian Talmud, where the explicit
stringency appeared only once, at the conclusion of a pericope marked
by its general ambivalence and doubt, here the ruling is thrice-repeated,
ascribed to a tannaitic consensus (line J), the most significant pair of first-
generation Babylonian amoraic sages (line E), and the similarly placed
pair of Palestinian amoraic sages Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish (line
K). In other words, the Babylonian Talmud has created a discussion in
which the dominant voice asserts that the first act of penile-vaginal inter-
course produces an immediate prohibition on further acts of intercourse.
Did Rav and Samuel Agree Regarding

Postcoital Bleeding?
As in the Palestinian Talmud, the Babylonian pericope associates this
move toward stringency regarding postcoital bleeding with the figure of
Samuel, a third-century Babylonian sage. Unlike the Yerushalmi, how-
ever, the Bavli also attributes this view to Rav, a sage of the same time
and Samuel’s standard foil. This association, especially when paired with
the attribution to the similarly early Palestinian pair of Rabbi Yohanan
and Reish Lakish, makes it appear as if already in the first postmishnaic
generation a consensus was emerging that the wedding night must be
followed by a period of marital separation. However, more likely than
not, these attributions are the result of later editors’ efforts to grant
greater weight to what was in all likelihood a mid-fourth-century or later
development. Though the shift to viewing postcoital bleeding as ritually
impure may have been associated with the figure of Samuel relatively
early on, it did not achieve the prominence that this pericope lends it
until much later.
157
This strong editorial hand and its consequences for the cultural history
of postcoital bleeding are most evident in the development of Rav’s posi-
tion. Note that Rav’s statement in line A (“a bogeret is given the first night”)
stands in stark contrast to the thrice-repeated refrain of “one penetrates
the obligatory penetration and separates.”30 The former simply extends
the paradigm of mNid 10:1, adding a slight stringency in one very specific
case,31 while the latter collapses all of the careful categorizations of the
mishnah and asserts one law for all girls and women.32 Only one of these
statements, then, is likely to have had a genuine early association with the
figure of Rav.
A number of factors lead to the conclusion that the more restrained
ruling in line A is likelier than the radical ruling of line E to be connected
originally to the figure of Rav. First, Binyamin intends to act in accordance
with an interpretation of Rav’s ruling in line A, suggesting that at least
one student was unconcerned with or unaware of any greater stringency
coming from the mouth of Rav. What is more, in line F, another student
of Rav’s, Rav Hisda, objects to the stringent ruling of “one penetrates the
obligatory penetration and separates.”
Samuel, on the other hand, does appear strongly connected to greater
stringency, and thus perhaps to something like the ruling of line E. Like
Rav, he is one of the propagators of the extreme ruling of line E. But he also
appears in line D criticizing the leniency of Binyamin’s interpretation of
Rav. More important, as we saw above, Samuel appears in the Palestinian
Talmud as one of the figures casting doubt on the continued relevance
of the mishnah’s rulings. These data contribute to a general impression
that the figure of Samuel was connected early on to increasing stringency
vis-à-vis postcoital bleeding and the laws of niddah. Whether Samuel actu-
ally issued a ruling identical to or similar to that found in line E is of
course impossible—and unnecessary—to ascertain. What is significant is
the ongoing association between this name and a trend away from the
rulings of mNid 10:1 and toward increasing stringency, culminating in the
ruling of line E in which, for all practical purposes, postcoital and men-
strual blood become equivalent, generating both ritual impurity and a pro-
hibition on sexual relations. The original set of views attributed to Rav, by
contrast, largely represents continuity with the mishnaic paradigm, filling
in some interpretive-legal gaps, but not reflecting fundamental deviation
from its principles.
158
When Did Postcoital Blood Become

Unambiguously “Impure?”
A likely reconstruction of the views attributed to the early Babylonian
amoraic sages Rav and Samuel thus produces a believably messy pic-
ture, with one figure continuing to work with tannaitic assumptions and
claims about postcoital bleeding, while the other rejects the mishnaic
paradigm in favor of a simpler, more stringent model. The final redacted
pericope, by contrast, by repeating the phrase “penetrates the obligatory
penetration and separates” three times, presents that extreme and unam-
biguous view as dominant, and indeed, later legal deciders generally fol-
low that view.33 But this legal dominance is a production of the Bavli’s
later editors, surely postdating Samuel, and likely arising in the mid-
fourth century or later.
We can see this development by looking at which authorities in the
Babylonian Talmud comment on the mishnah, and which assume the
Babylonian ruling of “one penetrates the obligatory penetration and sepa-
rates.” Strikingly, nearly all of the comments in the Bavli that relate to the
legal framework of mNid 10:1 are attributed to sages of the early amoraic
period.34 In stark contrast, nearly all of the discussions that focus on the
statement attributed to Rav and Samuel in line E are attributed to sages
from the second half of the amoraic period, such as Rava (line G) and
Rav Ashi (lines L–M). The earliest sage to comment on that view is Rav
Hisda (line F), who, as I noted above, is a student of Rav and, in fact,
objects to it.
This preponderance of later amoraic activity engaging with the strin-
gent ruling in line E strongly implies that it only began to gain traction
in the third amoraic generation or later, and it only became dominant in
the generations following the mid-fourth century Rava. Later editing likely
inserted this more stringent idea into earlier mouths (a baraita in line J,
Reish Lakish and Rabbi Yohanan in line K,35 Rav and Samuel in line E),
thus turning the phrase into the dominant refrain of the pericope.36
We find, then, an essentially stable view in the tannaitic period, hold-
ing that postcoital bleeding is irrelevant for purposes of the laws of nid-
dah. During the early amoraic period, a trend toward stringency arose in
both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds. The figure of Samuel in
particular is connected with this shift and with a certain amount of strin-
gency (precisely how much is unclear) vis-à-vis postcoital bleeding and
the menstrual laws. Though it is impossible to know if the association
159
of Samuel with the black-and-white ruling of line E has its roots in early
amoraic Babylonia or is itself a retrojection of later Babylonian editors, we
can say that by some point around the middle of the amoraic period such
a view became well known; by the Bavli’s latest editorial stages, this view
was dominant.
The Cultural Significance of

“Impure” Postcoital Blood
On the face of it, the rise of the “open door” claim and the late Babylonian
ruling that postcoital blood renders a status of niddah are opposite devel-
opments; the former mitigates the significance of postcoital bleeding,
while the latter imbues it with new legal relevance. But as was the case
with the “open door” claim, the consequences of this latter innovation in
the realm of the laws of niddah are clearest when viewed in the shadow of
Deut. 22:13–21. Recall that the Deuteronomic passage results in a culture
of grooms actively penetrating with the intent to cause bleeding so as to
“know” that the women they had married were indeed virgins. The effects
on grooms of the Babylonian Talmud’s final verdict on the impurity status
of postcoital blood would be strikingly similar to those of the “open door”
claim as I described them in the previous chapter. No longer viewed as
the sign that all is in “legal order,” with its absence generating the need for
legal intervention of some sort, now the appearance of postcoital bleeding
generates legal consequences. What is more, at least from the perspective
of the groom, these legal consequences are negative, in the sense that they
introduce restrictions on his behavior—as a result of their seeing blood on
their nuptial sheets, the newly married couple is forbidden from engaging
in further sexual relations. The “open door” claim removed the incentive
to grooms to penetrate vigorously; the attachment of niddah language and
legal holdings to postcoital blood provides an incentive for them not to. To
what can we attribute this unprecedented development?
In light of recent work on comparative Rabbinic-Zoroastrian law, and
especially in the realm of the menstrual laws, it might be tempting to sug-
gest that the increasing stringency regarding dam betulim reflects outside
influence.37 In particular, Shai Secunda has pointed to the many ways in
which Rabbinic menstrual laws reflect an engagement with Zoroastrian
impurity culture.38 And indeed, there is some evidence that Zoroastrians
viewed the bleeding that occurred on the wedding night as generating rit-
ual impurity.39
160
Taking such cultural engagement seriously might have implications

for the argument of this book as a whole. Zoroastrian impurity laws and
treatment of postcoital blood could have influenced Babylonian Rabbis
to treat as impure what had, in their own legal framework, previously
been ritually pure. Given the broader context of Zoroastrian abhorrence
of blood, perhaps the larger phenomenon that I am addressing in this
book resulted from these trends as well. Babylonian Rabbis, under the
influence of Zoroastrian culture, would increasingly be repulsed by post-
coital blood and would therefore not only rule it impure, but would also
encourage Jewish grooms to act in a way that would make such bleeding
less likely. One might thus read the “open door” claim as a consequence
of Zoroastrian influence regarding laws of impurity and attitudes toward
female genital blood, an attempt to minimize blood out of some concern
for the impurity that such blood produces.
Such a reading of the evidence suffers from several problems, however.
Most importantly, although I am arguing here that the unambiguous treat-
ment of postcoital blood as impure is a late amoraic Babylonian develop-
ment, the passage from Tractate Berakhot of the Palestinian Talmud makes
clear that a more general, if still inchoate, anxiety about tannaitic laws
regarding postcoital blood occurs already in amoraic Palestine.
Additionally, as Secunda has shown, even taking Rabbinic engage-
ment with Zoraostrian culture extremely seriously does not always lead to
interpretations of Rabbinic law as adopting increasing stringency; some-
times, the Rabbinic response to Zoroastrian practices is to bolster earlier
Jewish norms.40 Thus, in this case, with so little evidence to work with and
with no clear indication of Zoroastrian influence, we have no reason to
assume that this particular stringency is simply a parroting of the domi-
nant Iranian culture.
Finally, and perhaps most important, the scope of discussions that
share the theme of implicitly discouraging vigorous male penetration is
so broad as to make pinning it solely on impurity concerns and taboos
unlikely. That the development of Rabbinic rulings about postcoital blood
in Babylonia is part and parcel of a larger phenomenon in Rabbinic think-
ing about postcoital blood—a phenomenon that elsewhere bears no signs
of concern with impurity—suggests that the roots for this development
lie elsewhere. In the second half of this chapter, I will describe another
legal development that reflects the same shift, taking an earlier prioritiz-
ing of postcoital bleeding as a core aspect of the wedding night and mar-
ginalizing it. This parallel development further broadens the scope of this
16
phenomenon, making the impurity laws of an external, if dominant cul-

ture, even less likely as an explanation for these changes in Rabbinic law.
Wedding-Night Relations on the Sabbath

I now return to Tractate Ketubot. Just a few pages prior to the “open door”
pericope, beginning on folio page 5b of Tractate Ketubot and continuing
until 7b, appears a disturbing but fascinating discussion about the per-
missibility of engaging in penetrative vaginal intercourse for the first time
on the Sabbath. The passage invokes a number of complex and impor-
tant legal categories of Rabbinic Sabbath-law, and in posttalmudic discus-
sions, it becomes one of the most important sources for thinking about
pesik reisheih, the idea that a person can be held accountable for violating
the Sabbath if the consequences of her or his action, despite being “unin-
tended,” were so clearly inextricable from the act itself that all would have
predicted it. Indeed, the discussion of Sabbath law here is so intricate that
in traditionalist Jewish centers of Talmud study, this passage is considered
a “Shabbes sugya,” a passage that, despite its location in Tractate Ketubot,
actually should be studied as part of curricula about Sabbath law, and that
is a digression in the context of Tractate Ketubot. I will argue, however,
that this passage indeed belongs in Tractate Ketubot, because it is first
and foremost about the groom’s mindset on the wedding night. What is
more, this pericope represents another parallel development to that of the
“open door” claim of the previous chapter. Just as the Babylonian treat-
ment of virginity testing de-emphasized the role of blood, so too does this
Babylonian discussion of sexual relations on the Sabbath actively work to
discourage men from viewing bleeding as a necessary and desired conse-
quence of initial penetrative intercourse.
This pericope shares another trait with the “open door” passage—a
need for a methodological caveat. Even as I discussed the discursive effects
of the introduction of the “open door” claim on notions of male sexuality
and aggression, I also tried to make clear that this same legal move, if given
practical application, would worsen, if anything, the lives of real women,
given its even greater concentration of power in the hands of grooms. The
same will be true of the pericope now under discussion; though the devel-
opment I describe here reflects a discourse that affirms and produces a
cultural ideal of masculinity as gentle, it may well have had (and continue
to have) negative effects on the lived experience of women in the circles for
which the text held authority. Even as I will suggest, in the epilogue, ways
162
in which this broader discourse might be useful in constructing a con-

temporary feminist ideal of masculinity, taking note of those deleterious
effects is an obligation on any contemporary reader of these texts.
Sexual Relations on the Sabbath: The Problem

The pericope opens with the question, “What is the law regarding pene-
trating initially on the Sabbath?” [mahu liv‘ol batehilah bashabbat]. Though
this framing is not surprising in light of the generally androcentric style
and substance of Rabbinic literature, it remains important to note that the
anonymous voice asking the question articulates it specifically as being
about the permissibility of an active male performing a sexual act on an
objectified female—what is the law regarding penetrating initially on the
Sabbath? It also is clear that the word “initially” refers primarily to this
being the bride’s first act of penetrative intercourse; the groom’s sexual
history is irrelevant.
Even if we take for granted the various assumptions about gender, sex,
and Sabbath law that this passage makes, the question itself is somewhat
surprising. In tKet 1:1, we find a statement that bride and groom must
be kept separate from each other on Friday nights, because “he causes
a wound [haburah].” While the syntax is elliptical, the passage nonethe-
less clearly forbids sexual relations on the Sabbath between a groom and
a bride. In other words, this toseftan passage answers unambiguously
the question posed at the opening of the Babylonian Talmud’s peric-
ope: initial penetrative sexual relations are forbidden on the Sabbath.
Furthermore, the reason for this prohibition is also clear; initial penetra-
tive intercourse involves the creation of a wound, which is forbidden on
the Sabbath.41
In addition to the Tosefta, the Babylonian Talmud cites another baraita
that forbids first-time coitus without any hint of leniency (bKet 4a); it also
cites a version of the toseftan passage at 3b. Though it is always impor-
tant to be cautious about texts claimed to be tannaitic in the Bavli because
of the Babylonian editors’ generally free hand in reworking their source
materials, in this case the baraita reinforces the impression we get from
the Tosefta. What is more, given that the earlier passages in the Babylonian
Talmud cut against the final conclusions of the Babylonian editors, as we
will see, there is good reason to take them as genuinely recording an ear-
lier view. Thus, even asking whether this act is permitted is surprising,
since it seems to be assumed in earlier texts that first-time penetrative
163
vaginal intercourse is forbidden on the Sabbath, a fact already noted by

medieval commentators.42
Bruised Bodies and Broken Barrels

Two passages in the Palestinian Talmud, however, introduce an anony-
mous, permissive view. At pKet 1:1 (24d), the anonymous voice of the peric-
ope cites the view of “others, because others permit” [ke’aherim mipenei
she’aherim matirin] to resolve an apparent contradiction. Given that this
passage does not sound as if it actually cites a text, and the way in which
this hitherto unknown view works to solve a logical problem, we might
dismiss this view as a relatively late and legally insignificant invention of
the Palestinian editor(s). However, at pBer 2:6 (5b), the anonymous opin-
ion permitting first-time sexual relations on the Sabbath takes a more cen-
tral role. It is to this particularly disturbing and damaging text that we
must now turn our attention:
A. Mishnah: A groom is exempt from the recitation of the Shema the first

night until Saturday night if he has not yet done the deed. . . .
B. Rabbi Eleazar b. Antiginos in the name of Rabbi Eliezer b. Rabbi
Yannai: This suggests that it is permitted to have sexual relations ini-
tially on the Sabbath?
C. Rabbi Haggai said in front of Rabbi Yose: Interpret it as discussing a
widow, that she/it43 does not make a wound.
D. Rabbi Jacob b. Zavdi said: I raised the problem in the presence of Rabbi
Yose: How is this different from “One may break a barrel in order to eat
dates from it” (mShab 22:3)?
E. He said to him: Consider that which comes after it: “Provided that
he does not intend to make [the barrel] a vessel.” But here, where he
intends to make her penetrated [be‘ulah], he is like one who intends to
make [the barrel] a vessel. . . .44
F. It was taught: “One may not have sexual relations initially on the
Sabbath, because he causes a wound. But others permit.”
G. Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abun said: The reasoning of the others is that he
intends [only] to do his work, and the wound occurs incidentally.
H. Assi said: It is forbidden.
I. Binyamin Genizkaya went out and said in the name of Rav: “Permitted.”
J. Samuel heard and became upset over it, and [Binyamin Genizkaya]
died as a result, and [Samuel] pronounced: “Blessed is the one who
164
struck him.” And to Rav he applied the verse “No mishap will befall the
righteous” (Prov. 12:21).
The passage begins with amoraic sages discussing a mishnah from

Tractate Berakhot that asserts that a groom who has not yet consum-
mated his marriage—again, the text speaks only from the perspective of
the groom—is exempt from reciting the Shema for the first four days of
his marriage (line A). Assuming a Wednesday wedding, this period of
exemption would extend through and including Saturday night. Rabbi
Eliezer b. Rabbi Yannai notes the implication that sexual relations would
be permitted on Friday night, since otherwise, he should be obligated to
recite the Shema at least that night (line B). Rabbi Haggai’s response—that
the mishnah should be read as discussing only the wedding night of a
previously-married woman (line C)—makes clear that, at least in the eyes
of these Palestinian interpreters, the relevant concern is the violation of
wounding and/or drawing blood on the Sabbath.
This initial consideration of the mishnah is then followed by a question
particularly disturbing to read, but precisely for that reason, particularly
important in understanding the relationship of these authorities to penile-
vaginal intercourse and violence. Rabbi Jacob b. Zavdi compares this inter-
course to the case of “break[ing] a barrel in order to eat dates from it” (line
D), an activity that Mishnah Shabbat explicitly permits. The comparison
likens the woman’s body to the barrel. If the barrel may be broken on the
Sabbath in order to reach its contents, Rabbi Jacob b. Zavdi argues, then so
too the damage done to a woman’s body in a first act of penetrative inter-
course should be permitted on the Sabbath as well.
This is of course not the first time that we have seen Rabbinic sages
connect women’s bodies to barrels in the context of discussing virgin-
ity. Recall that in the Palestinian Talmud, Rabbi Kerispa describes the
bogeret as an “open barrel.”45 We have also seen Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi
use barrels to test “objectively” the virginity of an accused bride in the
Bavli. But here the barrel is not merely “opened,” nor is there some
general metaphoric association between women’s bodies and barrels.
Rather, the woman’s body in the act of penetrative intercourse is com-
pared directly to the barrel “broken” into as the male actor seeks out that
which he wants.
The response of his teacher, Rabbi Yose, is instructive—and upset-
ting: the cases are different, because the destruction of the barrel is
unintended. All the actor wanted in that case was to eat dates, a perfectly
165
permissible Sabbath activity, with the destruction of the barrel a mere

unintended consequence. By contrast, Rabbi Yose makes explicit, the
groom on his wedding night intends to make the bride be‘ulah, which
I have translated as “penetrated” (line E). The comparison of women’s
bodies to barrels of food and Rabbi Yose’s response imply that while the
destruction of a container in the process of obtaining the food inside is
incidental, the damage done to a woman’s body in the act of penetrative
intercourse is part and parcel of the act. Rabbi Yose’s resolution thus ech-
oes Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin’s interpretation of mKet 1:3, discussed in
chapter 3, which suggested that bleeding following sexual relations was
not merely a sign of the bride’s virginity, but rather its very definition. It
also is disturbingly reminiscent of Rav’s statement, discussed in the intro-
duction, about the act of initial penetrative intercourse transforming a
bride from “unformed material” into a “vessel,”46 a figure and a statement
I will return to below.
At this point,47 the Palestinian Talmud presents a baraita that appears
to be an alternative and/or reworked version of the toseftan passage dis-
cussed above (line F). Like the toseftan passage, it includes the distinc-
tive phrase “because he causes a wound.” There are some changes; the
toseftan requirement to “separate” the bride from groom on Friday night
has been replaced with a more explicit “One may not have sexual rela-
tions initially on the Sabbath,” but that almost certainly amounts to the
same thing. The truly significant difference comes at the end of this par-
allel: “But others permit.” This is immediately followed by an explana-
tion, offered by Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abun—the same sage who regarding
mKet 1:3 emphasized blood as the definition of female virginity—that
those espousing the lenient view in this baraita do so because they under-
stand the male actor’s motivations as unrelated to violence and wound-
ing (line G).48
This explanation is in direct contradiction to Rabbi Yose’s claim in line
E, which made clear that the bleeding and/or wounding is indeed central
to the groom’s intent on his wedding night. It also stands in stark contrast
to the implication of Rabbi Yose b. Abin’s own interpretation of mKet 1:3.
But the two statements of Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin actually cohere quite
well, because by explaining the permissive view in this baraita as based on
a decoupling of bleeding from the groom’s intentions, Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi
Abin implies that the majority view, which forbids these relations on the
Sabbath, reflects an understanding that grooms indeed intend to produce
bleeding on their wedding nights.
16
In any event, a clear and unambiguous ruling attributed to the sage

Assi that wedding-night relations on the Sabbath are forbidden immedi-
ately follows Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abun’s explanation of the lenient view
(line H). Finally, the Palestinian pericope concludes with a strange and
ambiguous story, but one which is probably still about our topic:49 an
obscure character teaches publicly in the name of Rav that initial sexual
relations on the Sabbath are permitted (line I). Samuel, a Babylonian con-
temporary of Rav, hears this story and, upset at this misrepresentation of
Rav’s view, curses the obscure character, who then dies (line J).
Regardless of the original meaning of this story (if there even is such
a thing), in its context in the Palestinian Talmud it makes clear that the
Palestinian author/editors assumed that both Rav and Samuel would
forbid wedding-night relations on a Friday night. The obscure student
apparently distorted, consciously or otherwise, Rav’s view, and Samuel
successfully defends his colleague’s honor. Thus, though there is a small
voice of permission in this pericope, explicitly linked to a notion that men
are not interested (or at least, not primarily interested) in wounding as part
of their sexual encounter, the dominant position in the Palestinian Talmud
is that wedding-night relations on the Sabbath are forbidden, and they are
forbidden precisely because the wounding to and changing of the bride’s
body are part and parcel of what the groom intends to do when he engages
in penile-vaginal intercourse.
Door-Building, Violence, or “Just Sex?”

With this Palestinian Rabbinic context in hand, we can now turn back to the
pericope in the Babylonian Talmud, which, even in asking whether wedding-
night relations are permitted on the Sabbath, has already undermined the
rulings and implications of the earlier Tosefta and Palestinian Talmud. The
passage is quite lengthy, so I present only those parts that are most directly
relevant to my larger argument and in more manageable units of discourse:
A. It was asked of them: What is the law regarding penetrating initially on

the Sabbath?
B. Is the blood deposited, or is it connected/wound-blood?
C. And if you say that the blood is deposited: Does he need the blood and
it is permitted, or perhaps he needs the opening, and it is forbidden?
D. And if you say he needs the blood, and the opening occurs inciden-
tally: Does the law follow Rabbi Simeon, who said that an unintended
167
action is permitted, or does the law follow Rabbi Judah, who said that
an unintended action is forbidden?
E. And if you say that the law follows Rabbi Judah: Does he view the open-
ing as negative, or does he view the opening as positive?
F. Some say it thus:
G. And if you say that the blood is connected/wound-blood: Does he need
the blood and it is forbidden, or perhaps he needs his own pleasure and
it is permitted.
H. And if you say that he needs his own pleasure and the blood comes
incidentally: Does the law follow Rabbi Judah or does the law follow
Rabbi Simeon?
I. And if you say that the law follows Rabbi Judah: Does he view the
wounding as negative, or does he view the wounding as positive?
J. And if you say that he views the wounding as negative: Does the law
follow Rabbi Judah, or does the law follow Rabbi Simeon?
The editors create a sort of decision tree to answer this question, begin-
ning with asking whether the bleeding that may result from penetrative
intercourse is “deposited” or the result of a wound. The suggestion that
this blood is “deposited” implies not only a notion of a hymen, but spe-
cifically a conception of the hymen as a membrane with the sole purpose
of marking virginity. As Giulia Sissa has shown, such a construal of “the
hymen” is not an inevitable “scientific” conclusion, but rather a culturally
specific construction.50 Nonetheless, this construction reflects a common
attitude in which bleeding on the wedding night becomes disconnected
from wounds and violence and understood as “deposited” there for the
benefit of the groom. At the same time, it clearly stands in direct con-
trast to the phrasing of tKet 1:1 (and its parallels) that the groom “causes a
wound.”51
The suggestion that blood seen following intercourse is “deposited”
is effectively an attempt to construct that blood as something other than
the result of violence. This bleeding does not result from a “wound,” but
rather, serves its intended purpose, the blood having been “deposited” in
(or perhaps better, on) the body of the woman for the purpose of signaling
her virginity to her groom.52 Therefore, if the groom’s intent is only for
this nonviolently produced blood, then the act of first-time vaginal inter-
course is permissible on the Sabbath. However, if his intent is to create
an “opening”—to change physically the body of his partner—then such
an act is forbidden (line C). It is precisely male desire to change the body
168
of his female partner—to “make her a vessel,” in Rabbi Yose’s repugnant

phrase—that is prohibited.
On the other hand, constructing postcoital bleeding as the result of
a wound sets it squarely in the context of male sexual violence. In this
case, if the groom’s intent is only to satisfy himself—a deeply disturbing
phrase—but not actively to produce wounds and their resultant bleeding,
then the couple’s act of penetrative intercourse on the Sabbath is permit-
ted, not because the act is not violent, but because the violence is unin-
tended. If, however, he is interested in the blood itself, then such an act is
forbidden. In this branch of the decision tree, it is precisely male desire for
violently produced blood which is forbidden (line G).
In both cases, however, the groom’s interest in changing the body of his
partner through aggressive penetration generates a Sabbath prohibition. If
the blood is depicted as an anatomical feature of women’s bodies designed
to demonstrate virginity, then his interest in the blood is presented as not
fundamentally violent, but his desire to change her body would render the
act forbidden. If the blood is constructed as the result of violent wounding,
then the groom’s desire to draw blood receives the implied opprobrium.
In both cases, the author/editor(s) suggest the possibility that the prob-
lematic act—changing the body of a sexual partner, or wounding a sexual
partner—is unintended (lines D and H), and then enter into a discussion
of Sabbath law more generally: is a person held accountable for such unin-
tended consequences of one’s actions? This discussion becomes the dom-
inant frame for discussing wedding-night relations and bleeding in the
remainder of the pericope, an already instructive fact that highlights the
real interest of its editors: the decoupling of sexual penetration in men’s
minds from the violence that may go along with it.
Babylonian Leniency
Immediately on the heels of the decision tree, the passage introduces
unambiguous rulings—albeit in two different versions—that either Rav
or Samuel permits these relations on a Friday night:
K. It was stated:53 In Rav’s academy they say that Rav permits and Samuel
forbids; in Nehardea they say that Rav forbids and Samuel permits.
L. Rav Nahman b. Isaac said: Your mnemonic is: These permit to them-
selves, and these permit to themselves.
169
This information is in striking contrast to the story that we saw in the

Palestinian Talmud, which clearly implied that both Rav and Samuel
would have forbidden these relations. And indeed, the general tenor of
this passage, contrary to the legal tendency of the Palestinian sources on
this topic, is one of permissiveness, as evidenced not only by the views
attributed to Rav and Samuel here, but also by the conclusion of the
pericope, which features three sages explicitly permitting wedding-night
relations on the Sabbath and a final, anonymous, unambiguous endorse-
ment of this ruling. Only one authority—the perhaps-not-coincidentally
Palestinian Rabbi Yohanan—forbids, but his voice is easily drowned out
by the force of so many sages in opposition.54 Thus, the weight of opin-
ion in this Babylonian passage is the exact opposite of what we saw in the
Palestinian Talmud.
The implication of this pericope for the late Babylonian Rabbinic con-
struction of female virginity and male sexual aggression is as radical a
departure from earlier sources as the introduction of the “open door”
claim—and strikingly cognate with that development. To appreciate the
similarity between Babylonian leniency regarding first-time penetrative
intercourse on the Sabbath and the “open door” claim of the previous
chapter, we must turn to the discursive effects of the Babylonian discus-
sion that follows the rulings of Rav and Samuel in this pericope.
Intended Penetration, Unintended Rupture

The information that essentially all in Babylonia rule leniently on this
issue—since the students of Rav attribute the lenient view to their master,
while the Nehardeans, the students of Samuel, attribute the lenient view
to their master—takes on even more significant cultural meaning when
read in light of the preceding decision tree, in which the question of unin-
tended consequences was central. This lenient ruling, understood in this
particular legal framing, implies that the editors of this pericope viewed
the potential violence done to a woman’s body in the act of initial inter-
course as “incidental,” a stark contrast with the view of Rabbi Yose in the
parallel Yerushalmi passage. This implication will be made explicit in the
ensuing discussion. However, the continuation of the pericope also reveals
ongoing tension between the earlier notion that wounding was an integral
component of the nuptials, and the later Babylonian ideal that divorces
this wounding from wedding-night relations.
170
The question of unintended consequences is the lynchpin of this pas-

sage, making possible its radical departure from the Palestinian Rabbinic
materials:
M. But does Rav permit? Did not Rav Shimi son of Hezekiah say in the
name of Rav Hai: “It is forbidden to stopper up the stopper of a barrel
on a festival” [which would result, unintentionally, in a violation of the
prohibition on wringing on the Sabbath—MR].
N. Regarding that, even Rabbi Simeon would concede, for Abaye and Rava
both say: “Rabbi Simeon concedes in [a case of ] ‘if one cut off its head
will it not die?’ [pesik reisheih]”
In line M, the anonymous editorial voice expresses surprise that Rav could
be lenient in this case. We might well express surprise as well, in light of
his implied position regarding first-time sexual relations on the Sabbath in
the Palestinian Talmud, not to mention his statement in Bavli Sanhedrin
asserting that physical transformation of a woman’s body is an essential
part of a marital covenant.
But the surprise of this anonymous voice comes from a very differ-
ent angle—not from questioning whether Rav indeed views the violence
of the wedding night as unintended. Shockingly in light of those other
sources, that Rav views wounding or bleeding as unintended by the
groom is taken for granted. Rather, the anonymous voice points out that
Rav elsewhere supports the stringent view prohibiting actions with unin-
tended forbidden consequences on the Sabbath generally. The groom
does not intend to cause his bride physical pain on her wedding night,
the editors’ construction of Rav maintains; the only problem of legal con-
sistency is that Rav generally holds actors accountable for unintended
consequences.
In line N, this challenge is resolved by differentiating between the
case in which Rav ruled stringently and our case, where he is claimed to
rule leniently. The other case was a situation where a consequence was so
inextricable from an action that even the generally lenient Rabbi Simeon
would be stringent, and that is why Rav was stringent there. I will return
to this point below, but for now I note simply that this resolution makes
clear that penetrative intercourse and bleeding are separable in the minds
of Babylonian Rabbinic author/editors. Rav can permit first-time sexual
relations on the Sabbath precisely because they are not inextricably tied up
with wounding and bleeding.
17
At this point in the pericope, we find a lengthy passage involving three

complex attacks on the idea that first-time penetrative intercourse on the
Sabbath is forbidden, all lodged by relatively early amoraic sages—Rav
Hisda, Rav Joseph, and Rabbi Ami.55 In the midst of the second of these
attacks, the editor(s)56 introduce a baraita, which leads to its own scholastic
exchange, and which demands our attention here:
O. It was taught: One who brings in a betulah may not penetrate initially

on the Sabbath. But the Sages permit.
P. Who are “the Sages?”
Q. Rabbah57 said: It is Rabbi Simeon, who said that an unintended action
is permitted.
R. Abaye said to him:58 But does not Rabbi Simeon concede in [a case of ]
“pesik reisheih?!”
S. He said to him: Not like these Babylonians, who are not expert in
angling; rather, there are those who are expert in angling.59
As in pBer 2:6, the Bavli’s version of the baraita cited in line O includes a dis-
senting, lenient voice, here described as the more authoritative-sounding
“the Sages” rather than the more nondescript “others.” The Babylonian
sage Rabbah attributes this lenient view to Rabbi Simeon, whose pos-
ition on unintended consequences the editors of the broader pericope
have already introduced and made pivotal. By invoking Rabbi Simeon and
unintended consequences, Rabbah makes essentially the same move that
Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin made in the parallel Yerushalmi, asserting that
the permissive voice is lenient because it assumes that any wounding on
the wedding night is unintended. The only significant difference results
from context; in the Yerushalmi, the broader discussion made this view
appear quite marginal, whereas the preceding conversation in the Bavli
sets up the lenient position as the legally correct one.60 Consequently, the
Babylonian pericope conveys the impression that, in general, men do not
associate their wedding night with intentional acts of violence.
The resultant destabilization of preexisting notions of female virginity
and what constitutes “successful” wedding-night relations, however, gives
rise to a contradiction between lines N and R about whether this bleeding
is indeed unintended. In line R, Rabbah’s student, Abaye, objects: surely
even Rabbi Simeon would not permit wedding-night relations, given the
inseparable relationship between that intercourse and the wounding
that it may cause! But Abaye’s objection is itself fairly startling, because
172
its assumption that the wounding caused by first-time penetrative inter-

course is indeed a case of pesik reisheih cuts directly against the resolution
offered in line N. There, the anonymous editorial voice, in order to fit Rav’s
alleged leniency in this specific case with his stringent ruling regarding
the unintended wringing of liquid from a stopper, asserted that unlike the
case of the stopper, the production of postcoital bleeding is not an insepa-
rable consequence of this sort.61 The anonymous voice in line N assumes
that wounding is separable from wedding-night relations; Abaye in line R
assumes that it is as closely tied to first-time penetrative intercourse as is a
chicken’s decapitation with its death.
Rabbah responds to Abaye’s objection, saying that unlike “these
Babylonians,” some men are capable of penetrating in a way that does
not produce postcoital bleeding, thus moving us toward the view already
implied earlier in the pericope, that wounding not be constructed as
part and parcel of a bride’s first act of penetrative intercourse. Rabbah’s
resolution makes clear that, for this middle-generation amoraic sage,
the bleeding that may result following penile-vaginal intercourse is not
an essential or inherent aspect of that intercourse. In this, it is wholly
of a piece with the anonymous decision tree that stands at the head of
this pericope and the anonymous resolution in line N. Abaye’s chal-
lenge, by contrast, is a different manifestation of the dominant voice in
the Palestinian Talmud, which asserts that bleeding is a central com-
ponent of the wedding night. Indeed, if we take these attributions seri-
ously as indicators of middle-generation amoraic activity (regardless of
the precise identity of the figures mentioned), then we should look to
the mid-fourth century in Rabbinic Babylonia as the setting in which
anxiety over the role of blood in signaling virginity was coming to the
fore—precisely the same cultural moment in which I located similar
shifts regarding the “open door” claim and the treatment of postcoital
bleeding as ritually impure.
The pericope as a whole, then, works to undo the notion, found in
earlier Jewish sources, that bleeding and/or physical transformation of a
woman’s body is a central part of the wedding night. Repeatedly, this peric-
ope asserts that any violence or wounding that may occur on the wedding
night is incidental, not intended by the groom (who is of course presented
as the only active participant in this affair). But as in the case of the “open
door” claim, we should not confuse the discursive effects of this pericope,
which work to undo conceptions of a male sexuality that is focused on
violence to and transformation of a woman’s body, with legal effects that
173
made the lives of real women in the past better. This work, perhaps iron-
ically, may have even worsened the lived situation of real women in com-
munities where this text was taken seriously by men, since the conclusion
is not a prohibition on or minimizing of physical injury to women, but
rather, an assertion that men should not be mindful of the violence that
they are doing.62 But, as with the “open door” pericope, the Babylonian
Talmud’s overturning of earlier Rabbinic laws regarding female virginity
in this passage at the same time participates in a devaluing of aggression
as a central aspect of male sexual activity.
How Is Getting Married (for a Woman)

Like Getting Circumcised?
How can we understand the motivations behind the shift toward view-
ing bleeding as fundamentally detachable—at least in the minds of the
Rabbis’ imagined grooms—from the act of penetrative intercourse on the
wedding night? Reading the pericope about wedding-night relations on
the Sabbath in light of Babylonian Rabbinic thinking about circumcision
offers one route in thinking about this question. In both cases, we will see
a sensitivity to the pain of the object of violence—in the case of the wed-
ding night, the bride—that appears to be uniquely Babylonian.
The juxtaposition of the wedding night and the circumcision of an
eight-day-old baby boy is suggested by the unusual phrases in line B con-
trasting deposited blood [dam mifkad pakid] with blood resulting from
wounding [haburei mihbar]. These phrases occur together in one other
place in the Babylonian Talmud (and, for that matter, Rabbinic literature),
namely, bShab 133b.63 There, the following pericope about the violation of
the Sabbath in order to perform the biblically mandated circumcision on
the baby’s eighth day of life appears:
A. Rav Papa said: The skilled [circumciser] who does not draw out [the
blood]—it is a danger, and we remove him [ from the position].
B. This is obvious! From the fact that we desecrate the Sabbath in order to
do it, it is a danger [not to do it].
C. What would you have thought? This blood is deposited. It comes to
teach us that it is connected/wound-blood.
Rav Papa states that a community must depose a professional circum-

ciser who, as part of his duties, does not suction off the blood following
174
circumcision. In line B, the anonymous voice of the pericope objects

that such failure to remove blood from the site of circumcision is obvi-
ously dangerous, since, were it not, this act—normally a violation of
Sabbath law, since it involves drawing blood—would not be permitted
at all on the Sabbath. Thus, Rav Papa’s point is superfluous, since the
community would of course be obligated to depose a circumciser who
put the lives of local baby boys at risk. To this, the response in line C
reports that one might have thought that the blood of the circumci-
sion site is deposited—just like the possibility raised in our pericope
about postcoital bleeding—such that the general permission to suction
off this blood on the Sabbath would be a consequence of the fundamen-
tal permissibility of this particular action, rather than any risk to the
child. However, this resolution concludes, Rav Papa teaches us other-
wise; the blood that flows at a circumcision is indeed vascular bleeding
that results from a wound, and the permission to suction off that blood
derives solely from the principle that saving human life trumps observ-
ance of the Sabbath.
The similarity between line C in this pericope and line B in the
passage from Ketubot about sexual relations on the Sabbath is indeed
striking, and the relationship between the two appearances of the jux-
taposition of deposited and wound-blood is difficult if not impossible
to determine.64 But the effect on a reader of the Babylonian Talmud is
surely to create a sort of equivalence between circumcision and wedding-
night bleeding.
The appearance of circumcision in another pericope (bKet 8a) in the
first chapter of Bavli Ketubot, quite close to the pericope under consider-
ation, reinforces this effect of linking the wedding night and circumci-
sion. In the midst of a discussion of the blessings recited at weddings, the
Babylonian Talmud relates that Rav Haviva recited a special, joyous pas-
sage introducing the grace after meals in a household celebrating a ritual
circumcision, and a late, anonymous voice responds that the law does not
accord with Rav Haviva’s practice, because “they are distracted, because
there is pain for the baby.” This relatively unusual statement of concern
for the pain circumcision causes the infant is striking if only for its explic-
itness. But the placement of this idea here, in Tractate Ketubot, so soon
after the question about the anatomy of postcoital blood and the Sabbath,
phrased with language that appears so similarly in a pericope about cir-
cumcision and the Sabbath, suggests that Babylonian editors have delib-
erately joined these two events—the circumcision of the baby boy and the
175
wedding night of the virgin bride—and linked them both to an awareness

of the pain that each entails.
The emphasis on postcoital bleeding as resulting from a wound in the
lengthy pericope at bKet 5b–7b, using language shared with the discussion
of circumcision at bShab 133b, together with the explicit mention of the
pain of circumcision at 8a, all create an impression that part of what moti-
vates Rabbinic thinking about postcoital bleeding in the late amoraic per-
iod in Babylonia is an attunement to its possible violence, a sense that this
bleeding is indeed the result of a wound and that that, as with all wounds,
involves pain on the part of its victim.
Such a sensitivity to pain should not surprise us, or at least not entirely.
After all, as I noted above, tannaitic traditions regarding both the impurity
implications of postcoital blood (mNid 10:1) and the permissibility of first-
time sexual relations on the Sabbath (tKet 1:1 and its parallels) make use of
wound-language to describe the physical rupture that results in postcoital
bleeding (makah in the case of mNid 10:1, and haburah in the case of tKet
1:1). But only in the late amoraic period in Babylonia do we find a broader
Rabbinic concern for female pain resulting from first-time penetrative
intercourse. Indeed, before concluding this chapter, it is worth consider-
ing the most direct Rabbinic discussion of this pain.
Is First-Time Penetrative Intercourse

Supposed to Hurt?
Mishnah Ketubot 3:4 states that while a man convicted of having seduced
an unmarried woman must pay for shame caused, loss of value on the
marriage market [pegam], and a fine [kenas], a man convicted of rape pays
an additional amount for the pain that he inflicted. The Bavli’s discussion
of this mishnah follows:
. Pain of what [tza‘ar demai]?

A
B. Said the Father of Samuel: The pain of his having thrown her down on
the ground.
C. Rabbi Zeira objected: Based on this, if he threw her down on silk, he
would also be exempt!
D. And if you say, “indeed,” did we not learn in a baraita:
E. Rabbi Simeon b. Judah says in the name of Rabbi Simeon:65 the rapist
does not pay for pain, because her end was to experience pain under
her husband.
176
F. They said to him: She who was penetrated via rape is not like she who
was penetrated consensually.
G. Rather, Rav Nahman said that Rabbah b. Avuha said: The pain of the
separating of the legs [pisuk haraglayim], and so too it says: [you] spread
your legs to every passerby (Ezek. 16:25).
H. If so, then the seducer also!
I. Rav Nahman said that Rabbah b. Avuha said: A parable for the
seducer—what is it like? Like a person who says to one’s friend: “Tear
my silks and be exempt.”
J. “My?” They are her father’s!
K. Rather, Rav Nahman said that Rabbah b. Avuha said: The wise women
[pikhot] among them say that a seduced woman does not experience pain.
L. But we see that she has!
M. Abaye said: “Mother” told me: Like hot water on a bald head.
N. Rava said: The daughter of Rav Hisda told me: Like the scab of the
bloodletter [rivda dekosilta].66
O. Rav Papa said: The daughter of Abba Sura’ah told me: Like hard bread
on the gums.67
This fascinating passage wrestles directly with the question of first-time

penetrative intercourse and pain experienced by a bride. Despite some
complicated back and forth, the overall impression that the pericope pro-
duces is that women do not in fact suffer very much pain during their first
experience of penetrative vaginal intercourse. Some significant voices in
this text actually take for granted that first-time vaginal intercourse is pain-
ful for women, but this implication is buried; the pericope opens and closes
with the implication that first-time sex is not (very) painful for women.
The pericope begins with a surprising question: what pain is the rapist
required to compensate his victim for? The question is absurd not only to
modern hearers, but to many medieval commentators as well, who assert
that it is common cultural knowledge that even consensual initial penetra-
tive intercourse causes pain to brides.68 Indeed, later in the pericope, the
anonymous editorial voice—presumably the same editor who asks this
opening question—states explicitly that “we see” that “she” has pain. The
effect of this question, followed by an answer that focuses on pain result-
ing from more generalized physical injury (“his having thrown her down
on the ground”) rather than the sexual assault, is to diminish the reader’s
sense that a wedding-night experience (or even, horrifyingly, a rape) might
be painful for a woman.
17
This de-emphasizing of pain resulting from sex finds a mirror image

in the conclusion of the sugya. Lines J–O all serve the effect of minimizing
males’ sense that women suffer in first-time intercourse. Line J objects to
Rabbah b. Avuha’s comparison, arguing that a woman does not have the
right to exempt a man from payments for the pain she will experience dur-
ing sex, since “they” belong to her father. The argument is legible in the
context of the metaphor used in the preceding line—allowing someone to
tear someone else’s silks. However, it is incomprehensible when applied
to the object of metaphorization here, that is, the young woman’s pain.
What does it mean to suggest that the pain suffered in the assault belongs
to the father? It therefore must be understood as applying to the payment
for her pain, which would be awarded to the father.69 This discursive move,
in which pain has been replaced by payment-for-pain, and its consequent
displacing of a woman as the wronged party in favor of her father, has the
effect of divorcing the subject experiencing pain from the pain itself—an
effect that the remainder of the pericope develops.
The remaining steps in the dialectic are nearly all attributed to women—
to some extent, they must be, since they all serve to describe women’s sub-
jective experience of pain. In response to the objection of line J, Rabbah
b. Avuha’s statement is rewritten; rather than saying that women do expe-
rience pain, but that they give their sexual partners permission to inflict
it, he now says that women themselves relate that seduced women, that
is, women engaging in consensual sex, do not experience pain. This contra-
dicts the experience of the male editors of the Bavli (line L: “But we see that
she has [pain]!”). A number of amoraic sages are presented as responding,
again based on reports from women, that this pain is not so great. The
pain of first-time intercourse is likened to burning water on sensitive skin,
the scabbing of a wound produced by a bloodletter, and, finally and most
benignly, hard bread on gums. Strikingly, the pain inflicted decreases as
we move from the earlier to the later authorities: a burn, to a painful but
common act of medical treatment, to a merely annoying act of rough food
on one’s gums. Do not worry, these male authors dressed up in women’s
voices tell their male readers: the pain that you see on the faces of your
sexual partners is not as bad as it seems.
The male author/editors appropriate women’s voices precisely in order
to contradict their own male perception of women’s experience.70 The
passage thus creates an impression that the pain women might experi-
ence during their first act of penetrative intercourse is not so severe, by
beginning and ending with questions and statements that suggest such an
178
understanding. In the middle, however, we find a number of significant

voices drawing our attention to exactly this pain. Most significant here
are the views of the tannaitic sages Rabbi Simeon and his interlocutors in
lines E and F.71 Although they disagree about a rapist’s legal accountabil-
ity, with Rabbi Simeon offering the atrocious opinion that rape is no more
painful than consensual intercourse, they agree about the subject at the
core of this pericope: both Rabbi Simeon and the Sages are of the opinion
that first-time intercourse is painful for a woman.
Similarly, the mid-third-century amoraic sage Rabbah b. Avuha states
that first-time sex is indeed painful for women (line G), and that the reason
why a seducer (and, perhaps by implication, even a lawfully wedded hus-
band) is not culpable to compensate his sexual partner for her pain is that
she has preemptively exempted him from having to pay this by consenting
to the act of sex (line I). Like the tannaitic sages in this pericope, Rabbah
b. Avuha (before the passage’s editors rewrite him) takes for granted that
initial penetrative vaginal intercourse will be painful for a woman.
The sugya thus contextualizes—and covers over—earlier views that
draw the reader’s attention to pain as a typical aspect of wedding-night
relations with later views (the anonymous editorial voice, the mid-fourth
century sages Abaye, Rava, and Rav Papa) that try to minimize the read-
er’s concern for this pain.72 Here, the work of John Winkler regarding
Greek romance novels, and Simon Goldhill’s criticism of his claims, is
particularly apposite. Winkler argued that the violent description of a
woman’s loss of virginity in these novels functioned as a subversive move
to alert men in the culture that their sexual desire was “inter alia, a desire
to hurt” their partners.73 Goldhill, though he agreed that virginity and its
loss were portrayed violently, instead maintained that these violent depic-
tions were so typical in the Second Sophistic that they were ho-hum, that
sex and virginity were indeed constructed as violent, but that men in that
culture took that violence for granted, rather than being shocked when
confronted with it.
The picture painted by the tannaitic and early amoraic Rabbis in this
sugya (Rabbi Simeon and his interlocutors, Rabbah b. Avuha) fits well
Goldhill’s description of men in the Roman world of roughly the time per-
iod of the Mishnah. These men take for granted the “taking” of virginity as
violent, and they are not particular shocked or offended by it. The Sages,
to be sure, view rape as a greater outrage than does Rabbi Simeon, but all
agree that initial penetrative intercourse causes pain for a women, and no
one seems particularly interested in easing that pain.
179
The later figures, however—Abaye, Rava, Rav Papa, as well as the ver-
sion of Rabbah b. Avuha rewritten in response to the earlier objection—all
cite women to say that the pain of first-time sex is not so serious. We might
reasonably read these statements as the response of men who, like the men
Winkler imagined, were indeed shocked by the idea that their sexual desires
were in some way violent, that in the process of seeking out their own pleas-
ure, they were causing pain to their partners. The women’s voices that they
claim to transmit work to undermine this unsettling notion.
This Winklerian moment is decidedly Babylonian—nothing like it
appears in the Tosefta or the Palestinian Talmud—as is it relatively late,
tied to mid-fourth-century sages. Indeed, the named figures associated
with this development are precisely of the generations that we have seen
connected to the related developments of the “open door” claim, the attri-
bution of impurity to postcoital bleeding, and leniency regarding first-time
relations on the Sabbath.
What is more, the statements attributed to these later Babylonian
sages, like the legal and narrative passages about the “open door” claim,
reflect a particular attention to individual subjectivities. The women cited
by Abaye, Rava, and Rav Papa testify presumably to their own experience.
As I noted above, such must be the case, since pain is by its very nature
something that can only truly be appreciated by a self-knowing subject.74
As with the rise of the “open door” claim, then, this late Babylonian sen-
sitivity to the pain of an other—in this case, of a bride—is of a piece
with the broader development of growing Rabbinic valuing of subjective
experience in late amoraic and postamoraic Babylonia as described by
Ayelet Libson.75
It is important to note a particular (and particularly instructive) affinity
that this passage has with the discussion of initial penetrative intercourse
on the Sabbath. Regarding that passage, it is important to distinguish
between the legal conclusion, which, if taken seriously, could negatively
affect brides, and the discursive moves, which nonetheless help to con-
struct gentler males and thus may be useful in producing a contemporary
feminist masculinity. The permission to engage in first-time relations on
the Sabbath was legally and discursively the result of a deliberate divorc-
ing of bleeding from the wedding night in the mindset of Rabbinic males.
Precisely because grooms do not have any intent or desire to produce bleed-
ing or otherwise physically transform their sexual partners, the Babylonian
passage claims, such a sex act is permissible on the Sabbath. This unlink-
ing of virginity and violence subverts the Deuteronomic imbricating of
180
violence into the sexual ideals of men. But this very divorcing, by leading
men to be less aware of the physical trauma that they could be causing on
their wedding nights, could (ironically?) lead to more violent sex.
Similarly, the passage at bKet 39a–b does its work by encouraging men
to ignore the pain that they think they see their sexual partners experienc-
ing. There is something gravely disturbing in this implicit instruction to
men to ignore or downplay their perception of pain that they themselves
are causing to another. At the same time, we can read the passage as an
attempt to construct good men as those who are not interested in causing
pain to their sexual partners. This understanding is more effective when
we read this passage alongside the development of the “open door” claim
and the attribution of impurity to postcoital bleeding. These Babylonian
discourses work together not only to deny violence and physical domi-
nance as a sexual desideratum for men, as in the latter two cases in this
chapter, but also, in the cases of the “open door” claim and the passage
from Tractate Niddah, actively to encourage gentleness as the ideal form
of male sexual activity.
Conclusion
The development of the “open door” claim in late amoraic Babylonia,
which reverses the cultural valorization of sexually aggressive males that
we find from Deuteronomy on, is not a unique phenomenon in the Bavli.
We find discouragement of aggressive sexual penetration on the wedding
night also in the Babylonian Talmud’s innovative decision to treat all post-
coital bleeding as if it were menstrual blood, rendering a woman follow-
ing her first act of sexual intercourse likely ritually impure and forbidden
sexually to her husband. Postcoital bleeding thus transforms in the minds
of male readers of the Bavli from something irrelevant to something to be
avoided.
We should resist the temptation to understand this Babylonian phe-
nomenon as reflecting impurity concerns generally or the blood taboos of,
for example, the dominant Zoroastrian culture in which the Bavli was pro-
duced. Such an explanation does not take into account the breadth of the
change that we see, nor does it reflect the varied ways in which religious
competition with Zoroastrians affected Rabbinic law. Rather, the discus-
sions of first-time penetrative intercourse on the Sabbath, as well as of
the pain involved in consensual and nonconsensual first-time relations,
18
suggest that these developments were somehow tied to an awareness of

pain as a component of initial intercourse.
These developments— the open door claim, the ruling of postcoi-
tal bleeding as impure, and the permission to engage in wedding-night
relations on the Sabbath—are not all equally and identically invested in
reducing a bride’s pain on her wedding night. The discursive moves of
the “open door” pericope and the newly stringent impurity implications
of postcoital bleeding would likely discourage grooms from penetrating
too vigorously. By contrast, though, the developments regarding Sabbath
law and the depiction of brides’ experiences of their wedding nights do not
necessarily result, in a direct way, in gentler grooms. Ignoring the violence
one does to another does not in reality minimize it. Attention to this dan-
gerous aspect of the Babylonian discussions of first-time penetrative inter-
course on the Sabbath and the pain of first-time intercourse highlights the
foolhardiness of trying to read into these Rabbinic sources a contemporary
feminist ethic. A feminist reconceptualization of healthy male sexuality
surely should not encourage men to become callous to the effects of their
actions on others.
At the same time, we err if we read the passages discussed in this chap-
ter and the one previous in isolation from each other. The Babylonian
discussions of first-time penetrative intercourse on the Sabbath and the
pain of initial intercourse work, in a broad sense, to undermine a cultural
ideal of a groom on his wedding night as actively involved in a violent act
of wounding. The attribution of impurity to postcoital bleeding and the
displacement of blood claims with the “open door” claim actively encour-
age male gentleness, at least on the wedding night. Taken together, these
discussions in Tractates Ketubot and Niddah produce a gestalt in which
male gentleness, particularly in the context of wedding-night relations, is
extolled, and earlier Jewish modes of male sexual aggression are shunted
to the side.
182
(De)Mythologizing the Hymen
Augustine, the Bavli, and the Rejection of Force
It would be difficult to imagine an author more removed from the world

of the Babylonian Talmud than Augustine of Hippo. Living and writing in
Roman North Africa, Augustine is an unlikely conversation partner for a
Rabbinic Jewish document composed an empire away.1 Nonetheless, in
this chapter I will argue that Augustine’s views on virginity testing are
best understood in dialogue with the Bavli. Indeed, though Augustine’s
views on virginity testing are sometimes compared to those of Cyprian and
Ambrose, two other Latin Christian authors, careful attention to the opin-
ions of these figures serves only to highlight the particular affinity between
the Bishop of Hippo and the Rabbinic authors of Babylonia.2 Specifically,
while Cyprian and Ambrose reveal themselves as taking part in the legacy
of Deuteronomy 22 and thus in a shared discursive universe with both
Jewish and Christian texts of the first four centuries of the Common Era,
Augustine deviates from Deuteronomy’s model in ways that seem to share
more with the Bavli than with his Christian forebears.3
I do not intend to suggest that some sort of influence or even shared
cultural context led to these similarities for these two authorships, given
the wildly disparate locations— both geographically and culturally— in
which Augustine and the authors of the Babylonian Talmud lived. And to
be sure, though both the Babylonian Talmud and Augustine radically sub-
vert the Deuteronomic conception of virginity and virginity testing, they
do so in quite different ways, as I will describe below. Nonetheless, noting
the similarities between these two sets of works provides us with a tool for
understanding each better; other shared motifs in thinking might help us
contextualize their radical undermining of physical conceptions of virginity.
183
(De)Mythologizing the Hymen 183
Augustine in His Latin Christian Setting

The Value of a Physical Exam for Cyprian
Cyprian’s letter to Pomponius4 is often cited as an example of patristic
resistance to the use of midwives’ examinations to “prove” virginity.5 In
this letter, Cyprian responds to a report of dedicated virgins living and
even sleeping in the same bed with men, while asserting their continued
chastity.6 Cyprian objects to the practice in Pomponius’s church, and in the
process of detailing how the local bishop should respond raises the pos-
sibility of midwives’ examining the accused female virgins to determine
whether they have remained chaste. Cyprian expresses concern about this
phenomenon, which explains the modern commentators who cite him
as an opponent of midwives’ examinations. We will see, however, that
Cyprian’s attitude toward physical virginity and the relevance or meaning
of midwives’ examinations is more complex than is often acknowledged
and that he in fact affirms, rather than undermines, notions of female vir-
ginity as primarily physical.
The passage that suggests to some readers a mistrust of physical mark-
ers of virginity reads as follows:
No-one should imagine that she can defend herself with the plea
that it can be proven by examination whether she is a virgin, since
the hand and the eye of midwives [obstetricum] may frequently be
mistaken, and, besides, even if she is found to be an unsullied vir-
gin in her private parts, she could have sinned all the same in some
other part of her person [ex alia corporis parte peccasse] which can be
corrupted and yet cannot be examined [quae corrumpi potest et tamen
inspici non potest].7
To be sure, Cyprian here calls into question the reliability of midwives’

examinations for determining a woman’s virginity. But his concern is not
primarily that the examination might falsely convict an innocent virgin,
nor is it a belief that virginity resides in something other than the physi-
cal. Rather, Cyprian is bothered, on the one hand, by the possibility of an
insufficiently expert assessment (“the hand and the eye of the midwives
may frequently be mistaken”), and, on the other, by the fear that a vaginal
examination interrogates only one kind of “virginity,” but that “she could
have sinned in some other part of her person which can be corrupted and
yet cannot be examined.”
184
The former concern is clear enough: these examinations are frequently

inaccurate. Cyprian here is not saying that virginity is not primarily a phys-
ical condition, only that it is often misperceived on the person, no different
from someone pointing out that contemporary physicians may often mis-
diagnose this or that physical condition. But awareness that contemporary
physicians occasionally misdiagnose cancer, for example, does not mean
that we view it as primarily a problem of the soul. So too, Cyprian’s criti-
cism of midwives here in no way need imply that he thinks virginity to be
anything other than a physical condition.
More challenging is what Cyprian means by the virgin’s possibly having
transgressed “in some other part of her person,” but one reasonable inter-
pretation is a concrete one: not all sexual acts involve vaginal penetration,
and these too, despite their leaving no physical mark on a woman, would,
in Cyprian’s mind, render her no longer a virgin.8 Anatomical virginity for
Cyprian, then—in the sense of “unruptured” genitalia—is not the whole of
female virginity; it is, however, still one component of it. A vaginal exami-
nation is not sufficient to establish virginity, since it cannot assess whether
a woman has engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy, such as heavy pet-
ting or anal intercourse. But this concern does not mean that Cyprian nec-
essarily thinks a vaginal examination unnecessary or unhelpful. Indeed,
as Cyprian will write shortly after, were a woman to fail a midwife’s test,
she would surely no longer be allowed by the bishop the title of virgin.
Virginity for Cyprian remains a question of the body and its history; the
trouble with virginity tests of the sort performed by midwives is that they
do not reveal all of the body’s secrets. But for one kind of violation of vir-
ginity, a gynecological exam indeed serves a purpose.
What is more, Cyprian’s skepticism about these inspections occurs in
response to an imagined claim from hypothetical accused virgins (“No-
one should imagine that she can defend herself with the plea that it can
be proven by examination whether she is a virgin”). This context provides
two important insights into assumptions and concerns about virginity
testing. First, it makes clear that whatever Cyprian’s approach, there were
some—perhaps many—third-century Christians who thought that vaginal
examinations were indeed a valid way to establish a woman’s virginity. The
context also demands that we remember that Cyprian’s attitude in this
paragraph—which, as I will show below, contradicts what he writes later
in the same letter—is part of a polemic against a particular practice that
he views as utterly beyond the bounds of proper Christian behavior.9 If it
were true that physical inspection could prove virginity decisively, then the
185
accused virgins in Pomponius’s church would have a strong case indeed;

let them live with their male partners and submit to regular visits to the
local midwife. Cyprian attacks the examinations here because he wants to
eradicate whatever practice is occurring in Pomponius’s locale.
Rather than seek out Cyprian’s approach to the anatomy of virginity
and its verification in his rhetoric, then, we should turn to his practical
ruling later in the same letter:
If these virgins have done penance for their unlawful intimacy and
have broken off their relationships, they should be, first of all, sub-
mitted to a careful examination by midwives, and if they are found
virgin, they should be received into the Church and admitted to
communion. . . . If, on the other hand, it is discovered that any of
them has been corrupted, she should do full penance. . . . [S]‌he has
committed adultery against Christ.10
Cyprian may have called into question the usefulness of physical examina-
tion of women to determine their virginity, but in the end he actively advo-
cates for this mode of establishing virginity. Significantly, he relies on this
examination both to exonerate and to condemn. A woman who “passes”
this exam is immediately “received into the Church,” despite the fact that
he has noted earlier that the physical inspection cannot discern corrup-
tions other than vaginal intercourse. Nothing here suggests that Cyprian
thinks that her status as a consecrated virgin should be in any way compro-
mised. And though he claimed that the hands and eyes of midwives “may
frequently be deceived,” a woman whose examination implies “adultery”
is sentenced to “do full penance.” His rhetorical response to an imagined
defense of female consecrated virgins living with men may have implied
that the physical integrity of a woman’s genitalia was necessary but not
sufficient to establish her virginity, but his actual ruling makes clear that
he believes this physiological marker to be both necessary and sufficient.11
Cyprian’s thoroughly anatomical approach to female virginity also
comes through in another of his letters, this one in regard to Christians
taken captive:
But what must cause us all the most painful of harrowing grief is
to think of the perils of the virgins who are being held there. We
have to lament not only over the loss of their liberty but over the
loss of their honour [pudoris] as well; we have to grieve not so much
186
because they are enchained by those barbarians as because they

may be debauched [stupra] in brothels and abused by procurers,
in dread lest those members which have been dedicated to Christ
and vowed in modesty to the honour of perpetual chastity may have
been violated and defiled by lustful outrages.12
These virgins are assumed to have lost “their honour” as a result of their
having “been violated and defiled by lustful outrages.” Cyprian’s com-
ments here are most striking when contrasted with the views of Augustine.
Below, I will discuss a well-known passage from book 1 of Augustine’s
City of God, which like this letter deals with horrors of consecrated virgins
raped by barbarians. While Augustine will focus on the act of refusal and
thus affirm their continued status as virgins, Cyprian mourns specifically
the loss of these women’s virginity as causing “the most painful of har-
rowing grief.” Such an attitude fits well with and affirms my reading of
Ep. 4, namely, that, though his rhetoric suggests ambivalence, for Cyprian
female virginity remains primarily a physiological affair. Even his protes-
tation that midwives’ examinations are problematic results in part from
concern about physical corruptions other than vaginal penetration, rather
than an elevation of spiritual virginity over its anatomical counterpart.
Cyprian may explicitly raise doubts about the anatomy of female virginity,
but at the end of the day he remains fully in its thrall.
Ambrose’s Conflicted Stance
I now turn my attention to a famous letter written by Ambrose, a figure
closely connected to the veneration of female virginity in the Catholic
Church.13 In this letter, Ambrose responds to a controversial case in
Verona in which a virgin named Indicia was accused by her brother-in-
law, Maximus, of unchastity.14 The local bishop, Syagrius, intended to sub-
ject Indicia to a midwife’s examination, apparently to avoid more formal
proceedings.
Ambrose’s response to Syagrius’s actions is devastating.15 The decision
of the local bishop is indefensible: “Will it then become permissible to
accuse all persons, and, when the accusations are without proof, will it be
allowable to demand an inspection of the private parts [genitalium secre-
torum], and will holy virgins always be handed over to sport of this sort,
which is horribly shocking to the eye and ear?”16 The invitation to mid-
wives to judge a woman’s virginity is problematic because of the insult and
187
disgrace it brings to the accused virgin. After all, midwives generally are
associated with pregnancy and birth, not with chastity, and thus the intro-
duction of the midwife to the virgin’s abode sends exactly the wrong mes-
sage to those who see her arrive at the home of the consecrated virgin.17
Ambrose is bothered also by the inability of such a physical examina-
tion to determine virginity accurately:
What of the fact that medical experts say that the trustworthiness
of an inspection is not clearly understood and this has been the
opinion of older doctors of medicine? We know from former expe-
rience that between midwives a difference arises and a question is
raised with the result that there is more doubt regarding the one
who has given herself over to an inspection than of one who has
not. In fact, we found this to be so in a recent case when a slave
girl from Altinum, having been inspected and charged with wrong,
later at Milan—not by my command but by that of Nicensis, a trib-
une and a notary—at the wish of her master and patron, was visited
by one of the most skillful and wealthy women of this profession.
And although these qualifications were found in her, so that neither
the midwife’s poverty made her trustworthiness suspect nor lack of
training made her ignorant, a question still remains.18
Physical examinations, Ambrose maintains, rather than determining con-

clusively a woman’s sexual status, leave her perpetually in a state of sus-
picion. In this, Ambrose sounds rather like Cyprian. But Ambrose goes
further than Cyprian, both rhetorically and in his practical conclusion.
Rather than rely on unreliable physical markers, Ambrose urges his reader
to look to the spiritual/ethical traits that in truth mark virginity: “The vir-
gin of the Lord is weighed on her own scales in giving proof of herself
and needs no borrowed dowry to prove herself a virgin. And no inspection
of hidden and secret parts, but modesty, evident to all, gives proof of her
integrity.”19 True virginity is marked by modesty, not the state of a woman’s
genitalia. As Ambrose cuttingly puts it, “I prefer virginity made manifest
by works of character rather than in the body’s enclosure [corporus claus-
tro].”20 More so than Cyprian, Ambrose rejects physical markers as mean-
ingful evidence of a woman’s virginity.
Of course, there is an element of self-contradiction in Ambrose’s letter.
His claim that midwives are associated with childbirth rather than virgin-
ity testing runs contrary to his implication that, though Ambrose opposes
18
them, vaginal examinations to “determine” virginity do indeed occur, at

least occasionally, and that they may even be well known among the local
Christian population—much as Cyprian’s letter revealed that at least some
of the local population thought these tests to be meaningful.21 On the one
hand, Ambrose argues that midwives are so closely associated with preg-
nancy and childbirth that the very act of summoning one to the home of a
consecrated virgin will sully her reputation;22 but he also takes note of “a
recent case when a slave girl” was inspected “by one of the most skillful
and wealthy women of this profession.”23 Ambrose is quick to point out
that the inspection occurred “not by [his] command but by that of Nicensis,
a tribune and a notary,” but the case reveals that at least the slave girl’s
master and this Nicensis were of the opinion that such inspections were
reasonable.24
In any event, the case makes clear that, at least in this particular
circumstance, Ambrose was unambiguously opposed to a midwife’s
examination—whatever his reasons—with a clarity that we simply cannot
ascribe to Cyprian. As I will describe below, Ambrose is perhaps the most
historically significant and passionate advocate for Mary’s virginitas in
partu in the Christian West. Yet when it came to defining and determining
the virginity of contemporary women (or at least this particular woman),
he rejected entirely, in principle and in practice, physical exams as evi-
dence of virginity. Unlike Cyprian, who accepted such examinations as a
reliable way of determining whether penetrative vaginal intercourse had
occurred, Ambrose assails the ability of these tests even to do that much
work. The relevant markers of a woman’s virginity are not to be found in
her body, but rather, in the way she interacts with the world.
Augustine: A Radical Departure
This increasing rejection of the body as the seat of female virginity reaches
a high point in the fifth century with the powerful rhetoric of Augustine.
Augustine refers to a (hypothetical)25 midwife who “while examining
with her hand the maidenhead [integritatem] of some young woman, has,
through malice [siue maleuolentia] or clumsiness [siue inscitia] or accident
[siue casu], destroyed it [perdidit] while handling it.”26 But unlike Cyprian
and Ambrose before him, Augustine is not actually weighing in on the
question of a midwife’s exam (though we can easily discern what his opin-
ion on that matter would be). Augustine rather is discussing the status
of consecrated female virgins who have been raped by invading hordes
189
during the Gothic sack of Rome in 410, arguing for their unchanged sta-
tus as virgins in the Church. He introduces this hypothetical midwife to
make a point: “I do not suppose that anyone is so foolish as to deem that
the young woman has lost any part of her body’s holiness merely because
the integrity of this part is now lost.”27
Augustine’s invocation of the vaginal inspection to debunk any idea
that rape would make a woman no longer a “virgin” reveals how far he
has traveled from the attitude of Cyprian (not to mention earlier Jewish
and Christian authors). After all, Augustine’s use of the midwife motif
constructs a reader who will surely agree with him—he cannot even “sup-
pose that anyone is so foolish” to think otherwise. The assumptions that
Augustine ascribes to his reader—whether reflective of the population of
his likely readers or only of Augustine’s hopes for them—are completely
opposed to those popular opinions that Cyprian and Ambrose, seemingly
unintentionally and certainly at odds with their own larger arguments,
allowed to sneak into their letters. Unlike the hypothetical virgins and the
slave owners populating Cyprian’s and Ambrose’s letters, who imagine
gynecological exams as meaningful tests of female virginity, Augustine’s
imagined reader cannot even hazard the thought.
Our understanding of Augustine’s attitude toward the anatomy of
female virginity also benefits from juxtaposition with the Sages of Mishnah
Ketubot 1:3, discussed in c hapter 5. Recall that the Sages there argue that
a woman who has experienced genital rupture through some nonsexual
contact [mukat ‘etz] is no longer a “virgin” for purposes of her marital sta-
tus. Like the unenlightened women and men lurking in Cyprian’s and
Ambrose’s epistles, the mishnaic Sages represent the precise opposite of
Augustine’s view: for these second-century sages, nonsexual activity can
render a woman a “nonvirgin” if it affects her genitalia; for the fifth-cen-
tury Augustine, sexual activity cannot so long as it does not affect her will.28
Indeed, the reference to a midwife appears in the midst of an extended
stemwinder on the exclusively spiritual nature of virginity, a speech
intended to provide consolation to Christian virgin women who had suf-
fered rape during the sack of Rome.29 As with Ambrose’s letter to Syagrius,
the context is surely important here. Not only is Augustine engaged in
the pastoral work of supporting the consecrated virgins who suffered rape
at the hands of the invading hordes, but he is also participating in two
polemics, one directed toward those invading hordes and the other to the
very women he is trying to support. Augustine makes clear that the attack-
ing Visigoths used rape as both a military and a theological weapon: “our
190
adversaries imagine themselves to be charging Christians with a great

crime when . . . they add also the violations committed . . . upon cer-
tain consecrated virgins [in quasdam sanctimoniales].”30 Augustine himself
states that he is “not here so much concerned to return an answer to out-
siders as to bring comfort to [his] own people,” but that comfort too comes
with a theological directive, namely, a tirade against suicide as a means of
avoiding rape or, in the misguided language of some (though decidedly
not Augustine), atoning for having been its victim.
Both of these concerns—discouraging military enemies from using
rape as a tool of martial and theological terrorism, and discouraging
Christian women from committing suicide in the face of this terrorism—
surely could encourage a Christian author to frame virginity in faith-based
rather than anatomical terms. But Augustine is not simply any author.
Augustine’s extensive and impassioned argument for spiritual virginity,
and more important, the perfect congruence of a thoroughly spiritualized
virginity with his larger psychological theology of sexuality, make clear
that his attitude is more than a response to the horrors of war.31 When
Augustine wonders how anyone could imagine that a woman on her way
to meet her lover, though she has not yet engaged in any sexual activ-
ity with him, “is still holy in body even though her sanctity of mind by
which the body is made holy is already lost and destroyed,”32 he is quite
clearly applying his own revolutionary theory of sexuality and the will to
the topic of virginity. Since, for Augustine, abstinence itself was not pri-
marily a rejection of the body, but rather a refusal to allow one’s will to
give in to the uncontrollable movements of the flesh, the significance of
the actual body, ironically, was less.33 As Joyce Salisbury writes, “Love, not
abstinence, marked the Christian ascetic for Augustine. Here he began his
departure from Fathers like Jerome, who had stressed physical renuncia-
tion.”34 Augustine’s complete rejection not only of physical markers for a
woman’s virginity, but of the very notion that this trait was in any way ana-
tomical, indeed marks a departure not only from Cyprian, but also from
Jerome’s contemporary, Ambrose.
The Body and the Spirit of Female

Virginity in the Latin West
The Conundrum of In Partu Virginity
Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine— the first and third both towering
figures of North African Christianity, and Augustine himself personally
19
baptized by Ambrose—thus form a useful heuristic chain of sorts, in

which midwives’ examinations to assert a woman’s virginity go from being
by and large effective (as in Cyprian), to being offensive but nonetheless
legible (as in Ambrose), and finally, to being utterly irrelevant to the entire
enterprise of valuing and maintaining virginity (Augustine). But this
development is perplexing, because at the very time that Christian authors
in the West are most deriding the value of physical examinations to deter-
mine virginity, the dogma of Mary’s physical virginity as an essential aspect
of her perpetual virginity first comes to the fore.
I have already discussed, in chapter 5, the early allusions to Mary’s in
partu virginity in Syrian works of the second century, as well as the signif-
icance of the Protevangelium in late antique Syriac authors of the Roman-
Persian borderlands. Mary’s in partu virginity in the West, by contrast,
did not have such firm and early roots. In the third century, Tertullian of
Carthage explicitly and vociferously denied Mary’s in partu virginity.35 And
even in the late fourth century, a number of controversies over the question
of the nature and extent of Mary’s virginity erupted. The most important
of these for my purposes centered around the views of a Christian author
named Jovinian, whose teachings on a number of subjects prompted
vigorous responses from authors such as Jerome, Siricius, and, notably,
Ambrose.36 Apparently, Jovinian held that though Mary conceived as a vir-
gin, she no longer remained physically a “virgin” following the birth of
Jesus (“Virgo concepit, sed non virgo generavit”).37 Although Jovinian’s works
have not been preserved independently, we know of this view from the
decisive response issued by Ambrose, who cast this rejection of in partu
virginity as heresy.38 From the vantage point of the twenty-first century,
however, more striking than Ambrose’s derision of Jovinian’s view is the
silence of Jerome and Siricius in their condemnations of Jovinian regard-
ing this particular position, thus leading David Hunter to conclude that,
even at the end of the fourth century, consensus regarding Mary’s physical
virginity was still in formation in Western Christian communities, rather
than its being a well-worn and accepted dogma.39 Indeed, as Hunter points
out, Jovinian’s opinion on this matter was the same as that of Tertullian,
as well as some authors now considered “orthodox.”40 Not until Ambrose
argued vociferously for virginitas in partu as an essential dogma did it
come to be included consistently in Christian thinking in the West about
Mary’s perpetual virginity.
Ambrose’s contemporaries and earlier Christian authors thus may
have been ambivalent about or even explicitly opposed to the idea that
192
Mary’s virginity necessarily included her continuous physical “integrity,”

but his polemics, at least in retrospect, represent a watershed in Mariology.
What is more, it was Ambrose who baptized Augustine while the latter
was studying in Milan. Thus, from our vantage point in the twenty-first
century, it is unsurprising that Augustine too took in partu virginity as
an essential ingredient of “orthodox” Marian belief. Although it does not
play nearly as prominent a role in Augustine’s work as it does in that of
Ambrose, the bishop of Hippo unambiguously takes Mary’s in partu vir-
ginity for granted.41
We are left, it would seem, with a conundrum: on the one hand,
Ambrose, but especially Augustine, de-emphasize anatomical standards
for female virginity, casting aspersions on those who would call midwives
to make assessments regarding the sexual status of consecrated virgins. At
the same time, these two, teacher and student, are particularly prominent
advocates in the West of physical virginity as a theologically essential com-
ponent of Mary’s portrayal. Ambrose in particular is the figure most asso-
ciated with this turning point in the history of Christian dogma.42 Were
Ambrose and Augustine exponents of a newly spiritualized virginity, as
their brief writings about midwives’ examinations suggests? Or were they
rather not only inheritors of traditions that rooted a woman’s sexual sta-
tus in her body, but authorities who took that anatomical focus to a new
extreme, as their beliefs about Mary’s in partu virginity imply?
Between Ambrose and Augustine

Answering these questions first demands a recognition that while both
Ambrose and Augustine reject physical inspections for a woman’s virgin-
ity, and both argue in favor of Mary’s physical intactness as an element of
her sexual “purity,” we err in reading them as identical on these matters.
A number of differences in approach separate Ambrose’s presentation of
female virginity from that of Augustine and thus require us to answer
these questions differently for these two authors.
Here we see how distinct was Augustine’s rejection of midwives’
examinations from Ambrose’s superficially identical rejection. Despite
his powerful rhetoric preferencing faith-based aspects of virginity over the
physical, it may well be that Ambrose’s objections derive not from a rejec-
tion of anatomical virginity but rather from his sense that ascertaining
“accurately” a woman’s physical state with regard to this virginity is dif-
ficult. He writes that “medical experts say that the trustworthiness of an
193
inspection is not clearly understood,” that “between midwives a difference

arises and a question is raised with the result that there is more doubt,”
and that even in the case at Altinum with a respected midwife, “a question
still remains.” As Dyan Elliott so astutely puts it, Ambrose’s “line of argu-
ment runs counter to the author’s main purpose by implying that these
exams would be valuable if only they were definitive.”43 Ambrose derides
these tests as insufficiently accurate and as of less weight than spiritual
measures of virginity; he does not, however, dismiss them as inherently
irrelevant.44
That virginity has a physical component for Ambrose, however, does
not mean that there exist medical means by which reliably to assess
it.45 Moreover, because of the unreliability of midwives’ examinations,
Ambrose cannot stomach the idea of subjecting consecrated virgins
to such an ordeal; the entire enterprise degrades the reputation both of
individual virgins and of the class of consecrated virgins as a whole. But
Ambrose’s calculus—the insult to virginity outweighing any possible ben-
efit from these unreliable exams—does not mean that he thinks they pro-
vide no benefit. Indeed, despite his skepticism regarding the accuracy of
these inspections, he has no particular problem with the use of gynecolog-
ical testing in cases of accusations leveled at
those whom shame does not deter but fear of harm alone keeps
from evil, those in whom there is no regard for modesty, no charm
of chastity, but only fear of penalty. Let us leave this to slaves whose
fear is to be caught rather than to have sinned. Far be it that a holy
virgin should make the acquaintance of a midwife. . . . Let us leave
this to those who have recourse to it when they have been pursued
with insults, overwhelmed by witnesses, choked by arguments—let
them then present themselves for inspection when they are main-
taining custody of their body, provided this can be detected in those
in whom the charm of modesty and training in chastity is faltering.46
Ambrose’s concern for the reputation of virginity, then, and not some fun-
damentally faith-based definition of virginity, motivates his well-known
loathing for the midwife in this particular case. A physiological investiga-
tion may indeed provide some “insight,” but this is vastly outweighed by
the damage done when the object of investigation is a consecrated virgin.
In a situation where the reputation of the Church would not be at stake,
as in the testing of an enslaved young woman, however, Ambrose would
194
not object. In this sense, Ambrose may indeed be closer to Cyprian than
he first appeared; theirs is a difference of extent, not kind. Both allow,
in at least some circumstances, for the use of midwives’ examinations to
determine virginity; both speak in the mixed register that we have seen in
Christian works from the East, extolling behavioral traits as signs of vir-
ginity alongside the faith-based. They differ only with regard to whether
gynecological exams may be used for consecrated virgins, or only in cases
where the appearance of the midwife would not lead to a degradation to
the status of virgins and virginity.
By contrast, for Augustine, the very notion that virginity can be
proved—in whole or in part, in theory or in practice—by a gynecological
exam is ludicrous. That is not to say that Augustine disagrees with the late
antique Christian description of the hymen as a tangible marker of a phys-
ical state, or even as a meaningful storyteller of the body’s tales. Rather,
Augustine is uninterested in that physical state, and even in the history of
a particular woman’s body. As Giulia Sissa writes, “[A]‌lthough the church
fathers protested against a corporeal semiotics of virginity, they did not go
so far as to question empirically its legitimacy and foundations.”47 Both
Ambrose and Augustine assumed a woman’s genitalia could, in some
general sense, reveal whether a woman was physically unpenetrated,
and both argued that the use of such means was undignified for conse-
crated virgins. However, Ambrose still thought that that physical “reality,”
though best left uninspected, had some meaning for a woman’s sexual
status; Augustine viewed it as a total distraction from the truly serious
matter of purifying the spirit. Thus, though Augustine, for the time being,
remains perplexing, at one and the same time disparaging physiological
definitions of virginity for contemporary women even as he embraces the
dogma of Mary’s virginitas in partu, Ambrose is actually fairly consistent
in his appraisal. Like Cyprian before him, he views anatomy as a neces-
sary, even if not sufficient, aspect of female virginity. Ambrose could thus
believe that, in the case of Mary, where the question is not her debasing
examination at the hands of midwives but the theological truth of her vir-
ginity, her physical virginity is not only “true” but religiously significant.
More Evidence for Ambrose’s Commitment

to Physical Virginity
Several passages in Ambrose’s corpus support such an understanding of
him as committed to physical standards of female virginity. The first (and
195
least explicit) example comes from the very letter in which he degrades the
value of midwives’ examinations. In addition to his skepticism regarding
midwives’ skills as diagnosticians and his defense of the institution of con-
secrated virginity, both of which I have already discussed, one more concern
might motivate Ambrose’s initially surprising rejection of these examina-
tions. In her brief discussion of Ambrose, Sissa implies that the bishop
of Milan is worried about more than the damage done to the reputation of
virginity. Rather, Sissa writes, he also fears that this inspection could like-
wise do damage to virginity’s anatomy: “the manual contact might not only
lead to temptation but, horrible to say, provoke the very catastrophe whose
occurrence it pretended to ascertain.”48 In other words, perhaps Ambrose is
worried about the very phenomenon that Augustine ridicules, namely, that
in the process of “verifying” a woman’s virginity, the midwife would rup-
ture her genitalia and thus remove the all-important evidence of virginity.
Sissa claims that Ambrose, so obsessed with virginity’s anatomy, objects to
physiological tests of virginity precisely so as to protect its physiology.
Such a claim would support my attempt here to differentiate between
Ambrose and Augustine and provide more evidence for a consistent
approach to female virginity in Ambrose. Augustine’s purpose in invok-
ing a clumsy midwife is to mock the notion that physical injuries could
be meaningful vis-à-vis virginity; Ambrose’s possible fear of such injury
thus would make him Augustine’s polar opposite—indeed, the very straw
man whom Augustine mocks in making his point about spiritual virgin-
ity. However, if Ambrose in fact expresses such a concern in this particular
letter, he does so in language that is ambiguous at best. Two passages in
Ambrose’s letter might imply such a concern on his part:
Are those about to take the veil to be subjected to a handling of this

sort [hujusmodi attrectationi]? For they are not visited [visitantur] but
handled [sed attrectantur].49
She will, I say, be either bad-willed or unskilled [vel malevola vel
imperita], whom the barriers of modesty leave unpracticed and
through lack of skill she will put a mark on unblemished mod-
esty [per imperitiam integro notam affigat pudori]. You see into what
danger you bring a maiden’s profession when you decide to have
recourse to a midwife, so that now she is not only imperiled by the
loss of her sense of modesty but also by the uncertainty of the mid-
wife [obstetricis incerto].50
196
Perhaps his mention of “handling” alludes to the potentially violent and

thus problematic aspects of this examination, possibly injuring the physi-
cal signs of virginity. Similarly, the “mark” placed on “unblemished mod-
esty” could be read as referring to a genital rupture occurring as a result
of the inspection. However, the first of these is at best allusive to such a
possibility. And in the case of the latter passage, though the “mark” placed
on “unblemished modesty” might refer to rupture of genitalia, it could
just as easily be understood metaphorically. Thus, though Sissa’s implica-
tion about Ambrose’s fears may well be right in light of his general set of
attitudes toward female virginity, we cannot say definitively that this epis-
tle provides evidence for such a view.51
Other passages from Ambrose’s broader oeuvre, however, lend support
to the physical reading of this passage in Ambrose’s letter.52 In his work
Concerning Widows, Ambrose, while praising widows who make a commit-
ment to sexual continence, appears to accept the popular use of midwives
to validate a woman’s virginity:
How much more then does it beseem you to be intent on the pur-
suit of chastity, lest you leave any place for unfavourable opinion
who have the evidence of your modesty and your behaviour alone.
For a virgin, though in her also character rather than the body has
the first claim, puts away calumny by the integrity of her body
[calumniam tamen integritate carnis abjurat], a widow who has lost
the assistance of being able to prove her virginity undergoes the
inquiry as to her chastity not according to the word of a midwife,
but according to her own manner of life [vidua, quae probandae sub-
sidium virginitatis amiserit, non in voce obstetricis, sed in suis moribus
habet castitatis examen].53
Ambrose here explicitly recognizes genital inspection as a mode of

“put[ting] away calumny,” even though “character rather than the body has
the first claim.” In Concerning Widows, as in the epistle to Syagrius, virgin-
ity is also spiritual—indeed, it is primarily spiritual—but that prioritization
does not lead Ambrose to reject its physical component entirely.54 So too,
even in his letter to Syagrius, Ambrose does not reject physical definitions
of female virginity, but rather, only physical tests, and that only in particu-
lar contexts.55 If virginity is indeed physical for Ambrose, then he reason-
ably would be concerned with its physical destruction at the hands of the
midwife.
197
We can see Ambrose’s quite anatomical approach to female virginity as

well in this passage from Exhortatio virginitatis:
What is so true as inviolate [intemerata] virginity, whose little sign

of modesty guards the genital barrier of integrity [quae signaculum
pudoris et claustrum integritatis genitate custodit]? But when a young
girl is deflowered through conjugal use, when she mixes with an
alien body, she loses what is her own.56
That which the young girl loses here is ambiguous—her “maidenhead”?

her identity? her sexual purity?—but the relevance of the hymen, either
as a marker of or as a definitional aspect of her virginity, is nonetheless
evident.
These passages make clear that lumping together Ambrose and
Augustine as sharing one set of views on female virginity and its verifica-
tion obscures critical differences. Recognizing those differences helps us
to understand, at least with regard to Ambrose, the apparent paradox of
increased interest in in partu virginity side by side with increasing vitriol
aimed at the practice of inspecting virgins physically. Although Ambrose
appears to dismiss the importance of physical virginity in his letter to
Syagrius, he in fact remains quite committed to anatomical definitions of
virginity, both as regards the Virgin Mary and with regard to contemporary
women. It is his supreme concern for the reputation, not only of virgins,
but of Christian virginity (and the Church that it represents), and not some
rejection of physical standards of virginity, that motivates his vitriol in the
case of Indicia.
Suicide and the Threat of Rape: Once More

between Ambrose and Augustine
That Ambrose views genital intactness as a necessary, even if not suffi-
cient, component of female virginity, while Augustine thoroughly rejects
anatomical definitions, also explains a startling disagreement between
the two on the question of whether consecrated virgins may or should
commit suicide rather than become victims of rape. The passage in which
Augustine rails against foolish notions of virginity as a physical trait is
wrapped up with his interpretation of the classic Roman story of Lucretia
and her choice to commit suicide following her rape at the hands of
Sextus Tarquinius (City of God 1.19). Augustine, though he expresses some
198
sympathy for those women who commit suicide following a rape, exhorts
his readers to accept his claim that, since virginity is spiritual, a conse-
crated virgin who is raped remains in her virginal state, such that suicide
is an act of murder committed against a thoroughly innocent victim.
Contrast his view with that of Ambrose on the question of whether a
consecrated virgin may kill herself to avoid falling victim to rape: “And
indeed as regards virgins placed in the necessity of preserving their purity,
we have a plain answer, seeing that there exists an instance of martyr-
dom.”57 Ambrose then goes on describe the martyrdom of Pelagia of
Antioch, who committed suicide rather than be raped and was followed in
this act by her mother and sisters.58
The difference between Augustine and Ambrose on this point is stark
and disturbing. Both Augustine’s explicit linking of his commitment to
virginity as solely a spiritual trait with his interpretation of the Lucretia
story, as well as my analysis of Ambrose’s attitudes toward midwives’ test-
ing of female virgins, suggest that Ambrose’s laudatory description of con-
secrated virgins’ decisions to commit suicide stems, at least in part, from
his belief that a violation of the body indeed is a violation of a woman’s
virginity. Since for Ambrose anatomy is a portion of virginity (even if not
its whole measure), then the violent rupture of the virgin’s body automat-
ically constitutes an abrogation of virginity, and thus suicide may be a rea-
sonable or even praiseworthy route. Augustine, on the other hand, who
views virginity completely as a trait of the will, cannot fathom how suicide
could be justified in this or any other case.
Ambrose’s approach to a Christian woman’s decision to kill herself in
the face of threatened rape clearly had the weight of tradition behind it, as
well as the agreement of significant contemporaries. Jerome, for example,
expressed views like those of Ambrose.59 Michael Gaddis rightly describes
Ambrose’s views in De virginibus here as “in line with traditional Roman
morality as expressed, e.g. in the story of Lucretia.”60 It was Augustine who
radically overturned the traditional interpretation of the Lucretia story, and
it was his refusal to view suicide as a just alternative to the horrors of rape
that would have been the startling view in its fifth-century context.61
This description of their views on suicide in the face of attempted
rape—Ambrose as an inheritor of earlier views regarding suicide in such
horrific circumstances, and Augustine as an innovative voice—not coin-
cidentally describes their positions on the question of female virginity
and its anatomy as well. Ambrose, despite his superficial commonalities
with Augustine (i.e., his rejection of midwives’ exams and his advocacy
19
for Mary’s in partu virginity), in fact has more in common with Cyprian—
and, by extension, the traditions of Deuteronomy 22, the Qumran sectar-
ians, and the authors of the Protevangelium of James—in viewing female
virginity as being at least somewhat rooted in a woman’s body. The only
true innovation on this matter appears with Augustine, who, true to his
broader views on sexual desire, the body, and sin, rejects any significance
of the body in defining and verifying virginity.62 Once Augustine constructs
virginity as a trait of the will and not the body, a woman’s status as conse-
crated virgin cannot be affected by acts of violence committed against her
body, and suicide—which even for the “guilty” remains a sin—becomes a
murderous act committed against the fully innocent.63
Augustine’s In Partu Virginity

Recognizing the gap that separates Ambrose from Augustine helps make
sense of the former’s views on virginity, but it only exacerbates the question
for Augustine: how do we reconcile his revolutionary rejection of physical
virginity in City of God 1.16–19 with his general embrace of Mary’s virginitas
in partu? It may well be that these two aspects of Augustine’s thinking sim-
ply do not cohere neatly. Book 1 of City of God in particular is a response to
real-life events on the ground, and as such we are liable to misread him if
we look too much for perfect philosophical consistency. That said, the gap
between Augustine’s response to raped virgins in fifth-century Rome and
his “orthodox” Mariology is not so large as it first appears.
Although Augustine in several places explicitly endorses Mary’s in
partu virginity, it never plays as central a role in his writings as it does
for Ambrose. What is more, the meaning of the concept is actually quite
different in the two authors. For Ambrose, the physical sign of Mary’s
“sealed” genitalia is an essential symbol for the sealed, inviolate church.
Although this use of Mary’s virginitas in partu appears in Augustine as
well, Augustine’s primary concern in portraying her as perpetually virgin
is the sexual ethic that she represents. Consider, for example, chapter 4 of
Augustine’s work Holy Virginity, in which Augustine articulates the notion
of Mary’s perpetual virginity. He begins by noting that Mary’s virginity
“was itself more beautiful and more pleasing, because Christ, in His con-
ception, did not Himself take away that which He was preserving from vio-
lation by man.”64 Although the reference to “conception” (conceptus) rather
than birth is itself perplexing, it still seems that Augustine here is explor-
ing the miracle of Mary’s continued virginity—even physically—following
20
the birth of Jesus.65 But the remainder of the chapter is focused not on
Mary’s body, but rather on her words—specifically, on the vow of lifelong
virginity that Augustine imagines her having taken. In the words of Daniel
E. Doyle, “Augustine cannot be accused of strict biologism; he is more
concerned with the moral dimension of Mary’s virginity.”66 That is to say,
while Augustine accepts Ambrose’s use of Mary and her physical status
as a type for the Church, even a cursory reading of Augustine’s oeuvre
makes clear that sexual morality, rather than the body as symbol of the
unmolested Church, is the primary force behind his affirmation of Mary’s
in partu virginity.67 Where for Ambrose Mary’s perfect physical virginity is
a symbol, for Augustine it is an exemplar; where for Ambrose it models
the Church, for Augustine it is a reminder for individual Christians of a
woman’s perfect sexual self-control.
We can understand more fully Augustine’s deployment of Mary’s vir-
ginitas in partu by considering his use of another mythical hymen in a way
that similarly signals sexual control, though here that control is gendered
male. In City of God 14.26, Augustine describes not Mary’s virginal body,
but rather, prelapsarian sex between Adam and Eve:
Then, not needing to be aroused by the excitement of passion, the

man would have poured his seed into his wife’s womb in tranquil-
lity of mind and without any corruption of her body’s integrity. . . .
[T]‌he male seed could have been introduced into the womb with no
loss of the wife’s integrity, just as the flow of menstrual blood can
now come forth from the womb of a virgin without any such loss
of integrity.68
At first glance, these sentences, like his approach to the virginitas in partu,
should perplex us in light of Augustine’s discussion of virginity in City of
God 1.18: why does the author who there mocked those who imagined vir-
ginity residing in a woman’s body here present the maintenance of “the
wife’s integrity” even after sex as an example of the perfection of Eden?69
Virginia Burrus cuttingly writes of this passage, “This is sex so plainly
vanilla that one wonders why Adam and Eve would have bothered.”70
Burrus helpfully draws our attention precisely to that which Augustine has
banished from the scene: any sense of abandon, of recklessness—of lust.71
How can sex take place in paradise? By being so deliberate that it does no
damage to the “maidenhead,” so controlled that it causes no change—no
violence—to a human body.
201
Of course, though there may be some implication of control with regard

to Eve here—the unruptured hymen of sexual intercourse is likened to the
similarly undamaged genitalia of a menstruating woman—this is a use
of the hymen directed primarily at Augustine’s ideal men. Here again, as
with Mary’s in partu virginity, the hymen for Augustine is significant as
a symbol, but not of the Church’s impenetrability as it was for Ambrose.
Rather, in City of God 14.26, the unbroken exterior of a woman’s body
instead reflects Augustine’s conception of a (male) will so perfectly in con-
trol of a (male) body that it can sexually penetrate without rupturing. The
“integrity” of a woman’s body in this passage is a significant marker not
only of female virginity, but of the mastery of the will—and in particular of
the male will—over the desires of the body.
This additional valence of virginitas in partu for Augustine bridges in
part the gap between the antianatomical conception of virginity in City of
God 1.16–19 and Augustine’s repeated embrace of physical virginity in the
context of Mary. Augustine’s refusal to consider rape a sexual act relevant
to a woman’s virginity stems from his focus on the will’s control; so too,
at least at times, his presentation of Mary’s intact body. There is more to
say about the ways in which Augustine’s disdain for gynecological virgin-
ity testing and his praise of the virgin’s body as symbol gel, but doing so
requires us first to consider where, if at all, we find like-minded thinkers
for the bishop of Hippo.
Reading Augustine with the Babylonian Rabbis

Finding Friends for Augustine
I have already argued above that Augustine is an outlier in the Latin
West—Ambrose, who on the face of it expresses the same views and is so
often linked with Augustine on these matters, is far more of a traditionalist
than the revolutionary thinker from Hippo. But is Augustine truly singular
in this regard? Are there no other texts from late antiquity that reflect the
sweeping move away from Deuteronomy’s portrayal of female virginity in
the body so thoroughly as Augustine?
One set of texts reflects enough similarity to Augustine on this topic
to be worth considering the comparison: the Babylonian Talmud. At the
outset, let me state what I do not mean by this unusual juxtaposition. First
of all, I assume that it is obvious that I am not suggesting—and, as I have
tried to be clear throughout this book, I am not particularly interested in
describing and evaluating—some possible literary relationship between
20
Christian and Jewish texts on this topic generally, and so too for this spe-
cific example of comparison. I will reiterate here that, though the lines
between these two groups remained blurry for far longer than is often
thought, for a fifth-century Latin writer in North Africa such as Augustine,
the lines are certainly clear enough. Furthermore, even speculating about
the possible routes by which ideas could have circulated between the cir-
cles of the Catholic bishop of Hippo and the Rabbinic authors of west-
ern Mesopotamia is a gargantuan task that I have no desire to enter into
here. Rather, my interest in juxtaposing Augustine with the Babylonian
Rabbis is for the sake of using what we have learned about each to help
us speculate about the other. In particular, if my comparison of the simi-
larities between Augustine’s thinking about female virginity and that of
the Babylonian Talmud is convincing, then the wealth of scholarship and
thinking about Augustine’s work generally may aid us in theorizing about
the broader concerns at work in the Rabbinic text, while earlier theoriz-
ing about masculinity in the Babylonian Talmud may help us think about
Augustine—without needing to resort to claims of influence one on the
other. In other words: noting similarities in the approaches of Augustine
and the Babylonian Rabbis helps us to understand each on its own terms
more fully.
Resisting the Lust for Dominance—in Hippo

and in Babylonia
Of course, that all- important caveat— “if my comparison . . . is con-
vincing”—is essential, and in addition to the geographical and cultural
remoteness, another factor makes my juxtaposition of Augustine and
the Babylonian Talmud even more surprising. Augustine, as we have
seen, aims to perpetuate a total shift in thinking away from physical
definitions—and therefore physical verifications—of virginity, and toward
faith-based ones. By stark contrast, the central passage about virginity test-
ing in the Babylonian Talmud that I analyzed in chapter 6 merely replaced
one physical marker of virginity with another.72 This difference is impor-
tant and should not be minimized. In what way, then, am I arguing that
these two are similar?
The key to the comparison lies in remembering that Augustine’s take
on virginity is a part of his larger theology of sex. Augustine did not reject
or degrade the value of human bodies; rather, his battle was against lust
and desire.73 Let us return to the “vanilla” passage from City of God 14.26.
203
Augustine mentions “no loss of the wife’s integrity” as a component of this

Edenic ideal. But, as I asserted above, this physical “integrity” is not the
motivating concern of Augustine’s sexual theology, but rather its conse-
quence. Augustine is primarily interested in encouraging a sexuality—for
both men and women in theory, but especially for men—that is controlled
and deliberate, a sexuality in which women and men strive for the ideal of
a body fully subject to a will.
Although its concerns and consequences are not identical with those
of Augustine, the Babylonian Talmud’s treatment of female virginity none-
theless stands as an instructive cognate. For Augustine, paradisiacal sex
leaves no mark, because the mark both represents and results from a lack
of control, from lust. So too, the Babylonian Talmud’s introduction of the
“open door” claim, as I argued in chapters 6 and 7, represents a Rabbinic
ideal of intercourse that is actively divorced from desire to wound or other-
wise change a woman’s body.
The “vanilla” sex of City of God 14.26 is in many ways similar to the two
virginal grooms imagined by Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi in the two versions
of the story discussed in chapter 6. Recall that in the earlier version of
that story, the sage presented the bumbling, excessively gentle groom as a
failure, unable to find the door; the later Babylonian version, by contrast,
instead derided his opposite, the excessively forceful groom who “pushed
aside the door and the bolt” all at once. The Babylonian Rabbinic ideal is
the man who, like Samuel, can penetrate a virgin without causing bleed-
ing. The Babylonianized Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi would describe Samuel
as not removing the door and the bolt. But Augustine would compare
him to Adam in Eden, leaving the hymen intact. Augustine’s Adam, the
“Babylonian” Rabban Gamliel, and Samuel all share a concept of penetra-
tive intercourse as ideally deliberate, gentle, and decidedly nontransforma-
tive (at least on the physical plane).
At this point it is worth recalling as well the Augustinian passage that
appeared at the opening of this book:
Why fill the bedchamber with a swarm of deities. . . . For the god-
dess Virginensis is there, and the father-god Subigus, the mother-
goddess Prema, the goddess Pertunda, and Venus, and Priapus. . . .
Would not Venus alone have been equal to the task? For her name
is said to be derived from the fact that it is not without force [vi non
sine] that a woman ceases to be a virgin. . . . And certainly, if the
goddess Virginensis is present to unfasten the virgin’s girdle; and
204
if the god Subigus is present to ensure her husband will be able to

subdue [subigere] her successfully; and if the goddess Prema is there
to press her down [premere] once she has submitted, so that she will
not struggle—then what is the goddess Pertunda doing here? Let
her blush and go forth; let the husband himself have something to
do. It is surely dishonorable for any but him to do the act which is
her name.74
The passage drips with irony as Augustine ridicules pagan practice and
belief. But Augustine’s mocking of polytheism in this passage, it seems
to me, cannot be separated from his disdain for Roman sexual norms as
well.75 The description of Venus highlights Augustine’s appraisal of the
Roman conception of wedding-night relations: they are violent. “For her
name is said to be derived from the fact that it is not without force that
a woman ceases to be a virgin.” To be sure, Augustine here mocks the
Romans’ belief in this goddess and their sense that her name is a linguis-
tic inevitability. But it also affects our understanding of the idea that a
woman “ceases to be a virgin” through violence; this is what they say. The
presence of subjugation and pressing in the nuptial chamber transforms
a marital scene into a martial one, and this, like their polytheism, is a
mistaken belief of the Roman pagans. When Augustine is appalled by the
pilfering of groomly duties by the goddess Pertunda, he surely is sarcas-
tic: neither groom nor a false god should intend to pierce the bride in so
violent a way.
Augustine and the author/editors of the Babylonian Talmud thus share
an idealization of controlled, deliberate, nonviolent male sexuality. Seeing
this commonality potentially highlights another, related similarity— a
common disregard for a politics of domination. In the case of Augustine,
much has been written about his treatment of libido dominandi, the “lust
for mastery.” Augustine writes about this desire for control in numerous
places, but most prominently (though not exclusively) in City of God; it
represents for him the very cause of the downfall of Rome.76
Although the trope is less explicit, as is often in the case, in the relevant
Rabbinic passages, Daniel Boyarin has argued for a similar Rabbinic ethic
of passivity and evasion in the face of military oppression in his reading of
a lengthy story found in the Babylonian Talmud at Tractate Bava Metzi‘a
83b.77 Boyarin writes, “The appropriate form of resistance that the Talmud
recommends for Jews in this place is evasion. The arts of colonized peo-
ples of dissimulation and dodging are thematized here as actually running
205
away, the very opposite of such ‘masculine’ pursuits as ‘standing one’s

ground.’ ”78 Indeed, Boyarin continues,
The central Babylonian talmudic myth of the founding of rabbinic

Judaism involves such an act of evasion and trickery, the “grotesque”
escape in a coffin of Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai from besieged
Jerusalem, which the Rabbis portray as the very antithesis of the
military resistance of the Zealots who wanted to fight to the very last
man and preserve their honor.79
As these citations make clear (“the very opposite of such ‘masculine’ pur-
suits”), Boyarin argues that Rabbinic passivity is decisively tied to gender.80
Margaret R. Miles makes a similar point with regard to Augustine’s poli-
tics of submission:
Also, historically, the management of sexuality has always been

closely associated with personal and social power; only in the last
century has sexual lust and lust for power been considered sepa-
rable. . . . Augustine’s discussion of libido carnalis and libido domi-
nandi in Book XIV of De civitate Dei shows his linkage of the two. . . .
Bonner argues convincingly that Augustine’s teaching on sexual
concupiscence should not be studied in isolation from his doctrine
of the lust for power, that these are always presented in Augustine
as aspects of each other.81
Finally, it is apparent from Augustine’s treatment of libido domi-
nandi and libido carnalis in Book XIV 15, 16, and 17 of De civitate Dei,
that he did not assume or envision any division between them.82
Rather than tying it to gender, Miles connects Augustine’s political the-

ology to his view of sexual desire—a subtle but important difference.
Nonetheless, both Miles’s and Boyarin’s analyses share a sense that their
subjects’ presentation of dominance and military strength as a vice rather
than a virtue is related to those same subjects’ sexual theology. The inter-
relatedness of these ideas perhaps is clearest in Augustine’s discussion of
Nero Caesar in City of God 5.19:
He, however, who despises glory yet is avid for mastery [dominatio-
nis est auidus] surpasses even the beasts in the vices of cruelty and
luxury. Of such a kind, indeed, were certain of the Romans, who,
206
though having no desire for esteem, certainly did not lack for lust
of mastery [dominationis cupiditate]. History contains examples of
many such; but it was Nero Caesar who first achieved the summit
and, so to say, the citadel of these vices. So great was his love of
luxury that one might have thought that there was no need to fear
any manly act from him; yet so great was his cruelty that anyone
who did not know better would have believed that there was nothing
unmanly [molle] in him.83
This passage is typical of Augustine in its decrying of the Roman prizing

of military conquest. Significant for my broader point here, however, is the
paradoxical—and perhaps ironic—relationship between vigor and cruelty
on the one hand and masculinity on the other. It is precisely Nero Caesar’s
cruelty that makes him appear manly—or, more precisely, makes unman-
liness seem so unlikely in him.84 But this manliness is indeed only an
appearance of such; in fact, the earlier sentences make clear, a man of such
brutal “lust of mastery,” a man who excels in both “cruelty and luxury,” is
not manly, but beast-like. And indeed, Nero was often portrayed, nega-
tively, as a feminized male in Roman literature, thus making Augustine’s
description of him likely to be understood as ironic by his Latin readers.85
Thus, for Augustine as for the Babylonian Rabbis, ideal manhood
resists Roman norms of violence and physical strength, resists the lust
for domination.86 Both construct ideal male sexuality as actively working
to avoid injuring a female partner, a construction that is part of this larger
political theology. The man who views his wife as a conquest to be subdued
on the wedding night is of a piece with the soldier or Roman citizen who
associates glory with military success. Both Augustine and the author/edi-
tors of the Babylonian Talmud—the former writing in North Africa, in
Latin, from a position of particular privilege as a bishop in a Christianized
Roman Empire; the latter a group of relatively anonymous, diasporan
Jews living under the Zoroastrian rule of the Sasanian Empire in Western
Mesopotamia—seek to construct men in their community as actors who
will not view the rupture of their partners (and, at least for Augustine, the
lust that that rupture represents) as part and parcel of their sexual being.
Both are therefore particularly worth mining and interrogating for their
possible contributions to a feminist construction of male sexuality.
207
Epilogue
Surely if one were to nominate the most important authors of late antiq-
uity from the perspective of later Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism,
Augustine and the author/ editors of the Babylonian Talmud would
be quite safe choices. One might reasonably expect, then, that medi-
eval Rabbinic and Christian cultures would follow in the footsteps of
these two towering authorities and eschew notions of female virginity
that privilege rupture and bleeding as signs of previous sexual inter-
course. Instead, the history of virginity testing from the medieval period
down on until today looks primarily like a return to the Deuteronomic
model, with bloody sheets and gynecological examinations central to the
Western presentation of female virginity. Recognizing both how fleeting
these moments of resistance to dominant norms of female virginity and
male sexual aggression were, as well as how surprising it is that such sig-
nificant figures as Augustine and the Babylonian Talmud’s authorship
would fundamentally fail to move the needle on thinking about these
matters, highlights how entrenched these cultural notions have been
and remain.
The Medieval Fate of Virginity Testing

Medieval Christendom
We need not wait very long to see how quickly Augustine’s thoroughly
spiritual virginity is dismissed. Even in his own time, Augustine’s concep-
tion of virginity failed to move other Christian elites. Consider the follow-
ing letter by Pope Leo I, a younger, near-contemporary of Augustine (Leo
208
208 Epilogue
was roughly thirty when Augustine died; the letter has been dated to the
year 446, though there is some ambiguity about this):1
Those handmaids of God who have lost their chastity [integritatem

pudoris . . . perdiderunt] by the violence of barbarians, will be more
praiseworthy in their humility and shame-fastness, if they do not
venture to compare themselves to undefiled [incontaminatis] vir-
gins. For although every sin springs from the desire [voluntate],
and the will [mens] may have remained unconquered and unpol-
luted by the fall of the flesh, still this will be less to their detriment,
if they grieve over losing even in the body [corpore perdidisse] what
they did not lose in spirit [potuerunt animo non amittere].2
Now concerning those who, having made a holy vow of virgin-
ity . . . have suffered the violence of barbarians, and have lost their
spotless purity not in spirit but in body [et integritatem pudoris non
animo, sed corpore perdiderunt], we consider such moderation ought
to be observed that they should be neither degraded to the rank of
widows nor yet reckoned in the number of holy and undefiled vir-
gins: yet, if they persevere in the virgin life, and in heart and mind
guard the reality of chastity, participation in the sacraments is not to
be denied them, because it is unfair that they should be accused or
branded for what their wishes did not surrender, but was stolen by
the violence of foes.3
Leo’s letters read practically as a response to Augustine’s radical de-

anatomizing of virginity. He accepts Augustine’s formal distinction
between the body and the will; the will of these consecrated virgins
“remain[s]‌unconquered and unpolluted” even as their flesh is fallen,
they “have lost their spotless purity . . . in body” but not “in spirit.” But
unlike Augustine, for Leo, the fall of the flesh, the loss of bodily purity,
bears significance. A victim of rape, Leo makes quite explicit, should not
“venture to compare [herself ] to undefiled virgins.” She might not be sin-
ful, but she is also surely no longer “pure.”4 In all of this, Leo has much
more in common with Cyprian’s Ep. 62, discussed in chapter 8, than
with the chronologically more proximate Augustine. Leo’s take on female
virginity is a reversion both to classical Roman norms, as epitomized by
Lucretia’s voice in Livy’s telling of her tale, and to the model laid out by
209
Epilogue 209
Deuteronomy—if blood on the sheets and a midwife’s examination are

its proof, then surely a physical act of intercourse, willed or not, negates a
woman’s state of virginity.
This return to virginity as significantly, if not primarily, anatomical
continued throughout the medieval period. Like Jerome and Ambrose, the
seventh-century Aldhelm advocates suicide as a response to the threat of
rape; he even goes on to note that this permission for self-killing is particu-
lar to the case of sexual assault.5 And Dyan Elliott has described the way in
which “the case for the virginal nun’s physical perfection carried the day”
in the twelfth century, with continuing influence on a figure as signifi-
cant as Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century.6 The thirteenth-century
Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine depicts a legendary late antique fig-
ure, Margaret of Antioch, as claiming that following her death her body
will provide the proof of her virginal life.7 Pope Gregory IX adds to this
medieval canon of anatomical virginity, “order[ing] that women in divorce
proceedings had to submit to examination by a midwife.”8
The most enduring example of this medieval return to Deuteronomy-
based models for testing virginity is the testing of Joan of Arc in the fif-
teenth century. Central to Joan’s claims was her identity as a virgin.9 As
such, her virginity was tested; trial records discuss Joan’s examination by
various women.10 One can easily imagine the outrage Augustine would
have expressed at this horrific misunderstanding of virginity, but the
members of the queen’s retinue who sought Joan’s status in the physi-
cal appearance of her genitalia were nothing more—and nothing less—
than yet another link in the chain of physical virginity that stretches from
the bloody sheets of Deuteronomy, through the midwives’ examinations
of Qumran and the Protevangelium, found still in Cyprian, Syagrius, and,
even if grudgingly, Ambrose.
Medieval Jewish World
Leo represents the Latin Christian world but a mere moment after
Augustine’s reign; the Babylonian Geonim play a similar role vis-à-vis the
Babylonian Talmud. Posttalmudic Babylonian authorities such as Rabbi
Simeon Kayara, author of the eighth-century code Halakhot Gedolot, pro-
duced most of the first Rabbinic works in the aftermath of the more-or-less
closure of the Babylonian Talmud. Thus, the following blessing, unknown
in Rabbinic texts of talmudic times, which appears in Halakhot Gedolot, is
210
210 Epilogue
startling for its divergence from the Babylonian trends that I have outlined
in the preceding chapters:
And when he brings out the cloth we require him to bless. If there
is a cup [of wine] and a myrtle, he blesses regarding them “Who
brings forth the fruit of the vine” and “scented trees,” and he then
blesses “Who placed a nut in the Garden of Eden, a lily of the val-
leys, so that no stranger shall rule over a sealed spring. Therefore,
the loving gazelle kept her purity and did not reject the regulation.
Blessed is the One who chooses the seed of Abraham.”11
The blessing ritualizes and, apparently, makes public the groom’s find-
ing of postcoital bleeding: “when he brings out the cloth,” he recites this
blessing. The recitation of blessings over wine and spices is reminiscent of
public ceremonies such as the Friday night sanctification as well as, more
germanely, the Jewish wedding ceremony.12 In other words, this blessing
takes Deuteronomy’s bloody evidence of virginity and focuses our gaze on
it, elevating postcoital bleeding to an explicitly communal desideratum.
The Babylonian Talmud, then, may well have downplayed the importance
of postcoital bleeding, but posttalmudic Babylonian authorities made it a
central part of wedding-night ritual.13
The tendency expressed in the blessing found in Halakhot Gedolot
would, by and large, win the day. Many, perhaps most, medieval commen-
tators cite the blessing approvingly, and Rabbi Joseph Karo indeed codifies
the blessing (albeit with the opening modifier “some say that after he finds
the virginal blood he blesses”).14 And as Langer notes, the blessing spread
throughout the entire medieval Jewish world.15
We find a similar reversion to pre-Babylonian Talmud models when
we look at the medieval treatment of virginity testing itself. I argued in
chapter 6 that the “open door” claim functionally makes postcoital bleed-
ing irrelevant; most medieval commentators and codifiers, however, return
to and emphasize bleeding as the primary marker of a woman’s virginity.
Indeed, these commentators read the “open door” claim as simply one
more way that a man can deprive his bride of her ketubah value, effectively
endorsing the wild disempowerment that, as I noted in chapter 6, the
“open door” claim brings with it, while at the same time erasing its discur-
sive effects on the culture of masculinity being created.16
This reversion to earlier notions following the production of the
Babylonian Talmud was, to be sure, not total. The Palestinian work known
21
Epilogue 211
as Hahillukim ben anshe mizrah le’anshe ma‘arav, which describes differ-

ences between the Rabbinic communities of Palestine and Babylonia in
the geonic period, notes two divergences relevant here. The first touches
directly on the material discussed in c hapter 7: the Jews of Babylonia, we
are told, “forbid a bride to her husband all seven, because she becomes a
menstruant because of desire, but those of the Land of Israel say: since he
removes the virginal blood in a painful way [motzi’ et habetulim betza‘ar],
she is permitted to him immediately.”17 Though the passage is a bit
opaque, it seems to relate that Babylonian Jews of this time treated post-
coital bleeding as generating menstrual impurity, in accordance with the
ruling of the Babylonian Talmud, while the Jews of Palestine followed the
earlier, tannaitic position.18 In light of my argument in chapter 7 that the
attribution of ritual impurity to postcoital bleeding was part of the larger
Babylonian project of depriving this blood of some of its (male) cultural
allure, the ongoing split between Palestinian and Babylonian Rabbinic
Jews is striking.19
This difference between Palestinian and Babylonian custom is con-
nected in this text to another cultural practice: the “painful way,” appar-
ently unique to Palestine, in which grooms remove the betulim. This likely
is the same difference referred to elsewhere in the work: “The men of
the East [i.e., Babylonia] touch the pipe [i.e., female genitalia], during
[intial] penetration, with the penis, in the way that it was created, but the
men of the Land of Israel—with the finger.”20 Apparently, a Palestinian
Rabbinic custom existed, at least in the posttalmudic period, to deflower
brides manually;21 this may well be the uniquely “painful way” in which
Palestinian grooms “[remove] the virginal blood.” The meanings and con-
sequences of the various Palestinian and Babylonian practices in these
two brief and enigmatic passages about genital rupture and newly sexual
couples are exceedingly difficult to pin down. But at least by comparison
to the deliberate and manual genital rupture encouraged in Palestine, the
Babylonian custom seems downright uninterested in postcoital bleeding,
an impression reinforced by the realization that, following a “successful”
wedding night act of coitus, groom and bride will need to abstain from
relations for a week.
Relative to its Palestinian counterpart, then, posttalmudic Babylonian
Rabbinic culture does appear to discourage interest in postcoital bleeding.
But the rise of the blessing over this rupture already in Babylonia, and in
particular the medieval return to bleeding as “evidence” of virginity under-
mines the work done in the Babylonian Talmud. In this, the Rabbinic and
21
212 Epilogue
Christian trajectories are, sadly, parallel. Both are dominated by early voices
that fundamentally maintain the emphasis on physical wounds as evi-
dence; both have uniquely significant late antique/early medieval figures
challenge that paradigm; and both nonetheless return to the earlier model.
Toward a Feminist Reassessment of Virginity

and Male Sexual Ideals
The reversion of both the Rabbinic and the Christian narratives about
female virginity to the anatomical and violent vision of Deuteronomy
22 is a cautionary tale. Despite the work of two of the most influential
authorships in these traditions, male constructions of virginity and the
wedding night as tied up with bleeding and aggression remained so
deeply entrenched that little if any vestige of Augustine’s or the Babylonian
Talmud’s rethinking of female virginity can be found.
I hope that my fundamentally historical study can be useful to others
in dislodging those dominant narratives of male sexuality as aggressive.
As a student of mine painfully and necessarily expressed after a semes-
ter spent studying many of the texts under consideration in this book,
texts about female virginity express views still so commonly (and sub-
tly) accepted, even by people who are otherwise engaged in resistance to
patriarchal assumptions, that every time we read these texts, we run the
risk of reinforcing, rather than productively complicating and dislodging,
our preexisting notions. Or, as Kathleen Coyne Kelly articulates it, “In
late twentieth-century America, no one would think of trying to ascer-
tain if a woman has had intercourse by looking at which way her breasts
point. . . . Yet there are many today, from purveyors of pornography to
Christian fundamentalists, who still believe . . . that verifying virginity
is necessary, important—and possible.”22 Indeed, as Kelly’s own work
demonstrates so effectively, the residue of this belief exists not only at
what she presents as the extreme poles of “pornography” and “Christian
fundamentalism”; it appears in advertising, mainstream movies and tel-
evision shows, and throughout a culture that may in other ways appear
thoroughly “modern.”23
What is more, in a variety of cultural settings, the prizing of female
virginity and its verification reflects, participates in, and contributes to the
connection of penetrative heterosexual intercourse and violence. Thinking
about the ways in which female virginity is discussed in the male-authored
Rabbinic and Christian texts of late antiquity forces us to bring to the
213
Epilogue 213
surface our own often-problematic assumptions about virginity, sex, and

violence. But more than that, locating historical moments when the dom-
inant paradigm of aggressive male sexual activity was undermined by a
set of legal holdings that discouraged such aggression allows us to think
about the particular factors that produced (or allowed for) such a diversion,
which in turn helps us to think about what kinds of factors we can and
should work for if our goal is to effect a similar kind of paradigm shift in
our own contemporary cultures.
I have argued that Augustine of Hippo and the Babylonian Talmud each
offer a case study in resistance to virginity norms that encourage male sex-
ual violence. In the case of the Talmud, my claim, based on source-critical
analyses of texts, means that when thinking about how to build from this
Rabbinic preference for gentleness, we are most interested in the historical
setting of Rabbinic Judaism in Sasanian Persia rather than (or more pre-
cisely, in addition to) Roman-colonized Palestine.24 Appreciating that the
Rabbinic de-privileging of male sexual aggression is uniquely Babylonian
is essential to thinking about the factors that can best produce (or at least
allow for) a similar de-emphasis of bleeding and physical injury as mark-
ers of virginity in our own cultural moment.
Most important, a truly feminist reassessment will unsettle the very
question of virginity and its valorization in a culture; the imbalanced atten-
tion to male and female virginities gestures toward the ways in which the
assumption of its value may be inherently patriarchal. My study has con-
sidered only how Augustine and the Babylonian Talmud subvert the most
damaging aspects of patriarchal attempts to verify virginity. The discursive
work done by the Bavli or Augustine is not feminist, or even “protofemi-
nist.” As I noted in my analysis, in the case of the Rabbinic texts, the very
legal positions that undermine the earlier cultural valorization of bleeding
as part of the wedding night also radically weaken women’s hands in mar-
ital and divorce law. The same holds true for Augustine, who in the very
text in which he crushes the dominant fiction of female virginity, engages
in a deeply problematic act of accusing rape victims of complicity in their
own suffering. Nonetheless, their descriptions of virginity still have pow-
erful insight for contemporary feminists committed to more egalitarian
and loving models of sexual partnership.
Both the warnings and the hopes of Daniel Boyarin, whose descrip-
tion of a Rabbinic ideal of a gentle male has deeply informed my own
research, ably express my hopes for this study and how it may be used by
others: “[A]‌n envious mimesis of femaleness in order to appropriate for
214
214 Epilogue
men as well what are seen by men as the positive, desirable characteristics
and potentialities of femaleness . . . is counterphallic, which of course does
not yet make it feminist, but that evident fact does not empty it of political
significance, even for feminism.”25 I humbly hope that I have, in some
way, shined a feminist light on these authors, but at the same time, I rec-
ognize the ways in which my own work “does not yet make it feminist.”
I pray, however, that “that evident fact does not empty it of political signif-
icance”—especially for feminism.
215
Notes
P r e l im s
1. Longus, Daphnis and Chloe 3.19, trans. Winkler, Constraints of Desire, p. 121.
2. bSan 22b; citations of passages from the Babylonian Talmud throughout this
book are based on the Vilna printing, unless otherwise noted.
3. bNid 64b (Samuel’s statement is paralleled, without the anonymous commen-
tary, at bHag 15a as well). In printed additions of the Talmud, Samuel’s statement
has been emended to read I can penetrate many penetrations without causing bleed-
ing, but this is clearly a later emendation based on the perceived bawdiness of
Samuel’s statement. See Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 233, n. 225.
4. Jerome, Ep. 22.19 (“Ad Eustochium”), trans. in Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, p. 204.
5. Augustine, City of God 6.9, trans. Dyson, The City of God, pp. 258–259 (CSEL
40.1). The name Pertunda derives from the Latin pertundere—to perforate.
In t roduc t ion
1. Not that we should be misled, even for a moment, into thinking that the word
“virginity” has some clear, unambiguous meaning. The concept of virginity, var-
iously expressed within and between different languages, cultures, and histori-
cal moments, has been incredibly slippery and resistant to definition. See below
regarding the Hebrew betulah and the Greek parthenos.
2. On the problems involved in discussing “Jewish” and Christian” as distinct
groups in late antiquity, see chapter 5, n. 1. For the sake of felicity, I will refer to
“Jewish” and “Christian” authors in this introduction, but the caveats there inhere
in all of these cases.
3. Although it is more common in academic writing to write of rabbinic Judaism in the
lowercase, I capitalize the words Rabbi and Rabbinic to emphasize that I am refer-
ring to a specific group of Jews, namely, those cited in works such as the Mishnah,
Tosefta, various collections of midrash, and Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds.
In cases where I am referencing posttalmudic figures who, by dint of educational
degree or profession carry the title rabbi, I will use the word in the lowercase.
216
216 Notes to pages 1–7
4. For a general introduction to the common periodization of the time during

which works such as the Mishnah and the two Talmuds were composed, see
Strack and Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash, p. 7.
5. Though, at least in the case of Foucault, he thought he was writing a history
not of masculinity, but rather, as the title makes clear, of “sexuality,” it was
Foucault’s near-total inattention to the sexual interests of women that ren-
ders the work foundational for scholarly thinking specifically about mascu-
linity. See Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, pp. 4, 149, n. 9. See also
Boyarin and Castelli, “A Field Left Fallow,” p. 365, on the danger of misread-
ing what Foucault means by a “history of sexuality.” In any event, Dover at
least takes note explicitly of the limitations of the sources and thus states at
the outset that his book is nearly entirely about male sexuality; Dover, Greek
Homosexuality, p. 2.
6. This idea is a recurring theme throughout both works, but for some particularly
clear examples, see Dover, Greek Homosexuality, pp. 76, 101–106, 134; Foucault,
The Care of the Self, pp. 19–20, 23–25, 29–30, 34.
7. Note as well that Simon Goldhill’s critique of Winkler, noted in c hapter 1 at n. 41,
does not undermine the fundamental assumption that the Greek romances
assume power and domination as essential to “proper” male sexual perfor-
mance. For a useful application of these ideas to Rabbinic literature, see Satlow,
“They Abused Him Like a Woman,” esp. pp. 10–11.
8. Foucault, The Care of the Self, pp. 39–45.
9. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, p. 106.
10. Foucault, The Care of the Self, p. 34.
11. Of course, ruptures in Greek and Roman norms of masculinity were always
present; see, for example, Burrus’s citation and discussion of literature regard-
ing classical Greek and Roman literature at Begotten, Not Made, pp. 6, 18–20.
But these earlier occurrences of feminized ideals of manliness only highlight
the proverbial “watershed” of late antiquity, when passive, suffering males
become increasingly the dominant vision of ideal masculinity rather than star-
tling exceptions.
12. Perkins, The Suffering Self.
13. Shaw, “Passions of the Martyrs,” p. 279.
14. See Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride; as well as Burrus, “Reading Agnes,”
pp. 32–33.
15. Shaw, “Passions of the Martyrs,” p. 304. See also Boyarin, “The Talmud Meets
Church History,” pp. 76–77.
16. See Burrus, “Reading Agnes.”
17. Burrus, “Reading Agnes,” p. 30. See also Burrus, “ ‘Equipped for Victory,’ ”
p. 470; Burrus, Begotten, Not Made.
18. Burrus, “Reading Agnes,” p. 44. See also Boyarin’s eloquent expansion on this
point at “The Talmud Meets Church History,” pp. 76–77.
217
Notes to page 8 217
19. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, p. 8; see also pp. xx and 111. Boyarin may over-
state the “castration” of Christian masculinity generally. See Kuefler, The Manly
Eunuch, p. 161: “Still, as much as they discounted sex and marriage as inferior
to virginity and celibacy, orthodox Christin writers condemned as heretical those
Christians who forbade sex and marriage altogether, since the continuation of
sexuality and marital relations helped to preserve masculine authority.” See also
ibid., pp. 178–184, 187–188. See also, regarding the fervent opposition of “ortho-
dox” Christian writers to literal castration, ibid., pp. 245–282. Particularly rele-
vant here is Kuefler’s point that “the orthodox Church fathers of late antiquity
advocated that men undergo an interior and spiritual castration—but only an
interior and spiritual castration” (p. 264).
20. The implication that Samuel has had (or could have had) a large number of young
female sexual partners presents an image of Samuel as not only promiscuous, but
sexually predatory as well. Indeed, if I were to consider this dictum of Samuel in a
vacuum, I would likely consider it primarily a statement about his ability to circum-
vent established modes of policing female chastity for his own advantage—and
that meaning is certainly present and important to note. See n. 3 above regarding
the anxiety that the Talmud’s copyists clearly had regarding this aspect of Samuel’s
boast. But in the context of the discussions of female virginity addressed in this
book, and especially in light of Samuel’s significant role in those discussions, the
reference to “many virgins” here is best understood as a problematic exaggeration
intended to undermine the bloody culture of virginity received from Deuteronomy
22 and maintained by earlier Rabbinic (and non-Rabbinic) Jewish traditions, rather
than as (only) the mischievous taunts of an illicit rake.
21. For one example of Boyarin’s commitment to view this form of Rabbinic mascu-
linity as specifically not unique to Babylonia, see Unheroic Conduct, p. 94: “Even
though a case can be made that the Diaspora modes of ideal masculinity are
more pronounced in Babylonia than in Palestine of the talmudic period, this
distinction is only relative. In Palestine, as well, the Jews of this time were in
Diaspora. The tenacity that is valorized by these texts is the tenacity that enables
continued Jewish existence, not the tenacity of defending sovereignty unto
death.” That may well be, but the texts that depict this “Diaspora [mode] of ideal
masculinity” appear exclusively (or almost exclusively—see the passage from
pMK 2:3 [81b]=pSan 8:2 [26b] cited by Boyarin there) in Babylonian texts.
22. In truth, at many points Boyarin seems quite attuned to the strong correla-
tion between Babylonian Rabbinic texts and the kind of male he so lovingly
describes. In addition to the example in the previous note (“Even though a
case can be made . . . more pronounced in Babylonia”), see, for example,
Boyarin, “Are There Any Jews,” p. 335, in which he explicitly limits himself
to the “Babylonian variety” of Rabbinic Judaism, as well as Boyarin, Unheroic
Conduct, p. 12, where he cites Satlow’s work distinguishing between the
penetration-phobic male Rabbis of Palestine and the Rabbinic authors and
218
editors of Babylonia, who display no such anxiety around being penetrated.

Indeed, Boyarin explicitly draws our attention to the Palestinian-Babylonian
divide at times; for example: “If over and over again in our Babylonian rab-
binic text it is the weapon that is despised, here suddenly the weapon is valo-
rized over the shepherd’s stick, and this antithetical version is referred to as from
Palestine” (Unheroic Conduct, p. 99, n. 41; emphasis added); and “It is, how-
ever, striking that it is explicitly marked in the text as belonging to them, that
is, the rival Palestinians. There are other texts in the Babylonian Talmud as
well that mark the Palestinians as supermales, vis-à-vis ‘us,’ the Babylonians”
(Unheroic Conduct, p. 116, n. 83). See also Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, p. 129,
in which Boyarin writes of the etiology of the colleague-ship of Rabbi Yohanan
and Reish Lakish: “Indeed, by the time that this story is being told, and in the
eastern reaches of the Sasanian Empire where it is being told, these figures [of
the brigand and the Roman soldier] would probably have been conflated in the
cultural imagination into a single image of violent, sexually aggressive mascu-
linity” (emphasis original). It is not coincidental that Reish Lakish and Rabbi
Yohanan are also paradigmatically Palestinian figures. While Rabbi Yohanan,
in Boyarin’s reading, is “the quintessential symbol of rabbinic Jewish male-
ness,” he is in many ways a Babylonianized version of Palestinian Rabbinic
culture in the Babylonian Talmud. For more examples, see Unheroic Conduct,
pp. 12–13; 92, n. 26; 93–94; 128, n. 3; 138, n. 32.
23. There are some possible examples of non-Rabbinic Jewish texts of this time per-
iod that undermine inherited notions of female virginity, most of which I will
consider in chapter 4. Additionally, the author of the (probably) Jewish romance
Aseneth extols the virtues of male virginity in strikingly similar terms to Philo
and the Greek romance novels discussed by, among others, Kelly, Perkins, and
Winkler. Aseneth is a particularly fascinating—and thorny—case to consider. The
work depicts Joseph as a virgin who resembles in many ways the gender-bend-
ing males of the Greek romances of the second Sophistic. But significantly, the
provenance and authorship of this work is contested. Many scholars believe it
to be a Jewish-authored work produced in Alexandria (or its environs), which
would make it, like potentially Philo, an example of non-Rabbinic Jewish author-
ship displaying similar ideas of virginity and masculinity to contemporaneous
Greek texts. However, Ross Kraemer has argued powerfully (and in my opin-
ion convincingly) for a late antique origin, perhaps in Syriac-speaking Christian
communities (When Aseneth Met Joseph). This would place the work in a setting
close to that of the Babylonian Talmud. Indeed, I hope to explore in an article
a similar interest on the part of Rabbinic authors in male virginity that appears
uniquely in the Babylonian Talmud.
24. See also Satlow, Tasting the Dish, as well as “They Abused Him,” pp. 4, 14–15,
who notes several ways in which we can point to distinctively Palestinian or
Babylonian tendencies regarding various sex acts in Rabbinic literature.
219
Notes to pages 10–12 219
25. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, p. 82.

26. Satlow, “From Salve to Weapon.”
27. It is important to note, though, that Satlow’s views appear to have changed
over time. In an earlier article, he argued that the model of manhood as self-
restraint was a “consistent construction of manhood” (“Try to Be a Man,”
p. 20), and that this construction “appears to hold for all rabbis, early and late,
Palestinian and Babylonian, and cuts across all documents” (ibid., p. 40). For
just one example to destabilize this totalizing narrative, see pMK 3:5 (82d), in
which a (male) mourner, normally forbidden from studying Torah, is allowed
to if he is “passionate [lahut] for the Torah,” a clear connection of Torah study to
lust rather than self-constraint, and implicitly a connection of both Torah and
lust to manliness.
28. See n. 29.
29. On the importance of sophrosyne for men, see the literature cited and discussed
above at nn. 13–15, as well as Goldhill’s Foucault’s Virginity and Cooper’s The
Virgin and the Bride.
30. See, for example, Boyarin, A Traveling Homeland.
31. Perhaps this is why he initially thought that this interest “[cut] across all docu-
ments” (Satlow, “Try to Be a Man,” p. 40). But most of the Palestinian texts that
Satlow cites are not clearly gendered (though one often needs to look at the orig-
inal Hebrew to see this fact, as when Satlow translates tzaddikim and resha‘im
in Sifrei Devarim 33 as “righteous men” and “evil men” respectively (“Try to Be a
Man,” p. 28).
32. Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia; Boyarin, “Hellenism in Jewish Babylonia”; Kalmin,
Migrating Tales.
33. “From Salve to Weapon,” p. 25. Satlow here is heavily influenced by Rubenstein’s
interpretation of the story and the thematization of dialectic in general in the
Babylonian Talmud; see Rubenstein, Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, esp. pp.
58–59. Rubenstein also focuses on the martial imagery without drawing our
attention to the clear, if implicit, critique of such a violent presentation of Torah
study. But unlike Satlow, Rubenstein does point out that the language of “wars
of Torah” appears in both Palestinian and Babylonian sources (ibid., p. 59).
34. See Boyarin’s interpretation of the story: Unheroic Conduct, pp. 127–150, and
esp. pp. 149–150.
35. Foucault, “Sexuality and Solitude,” p. 186.
36. See c hapter 8. To be sure, even the more ascetically inclined “orthodox” authors
such as Ambrose embraced marriage by comparison to those who actually called
themselves Manichean; see above, n. 24. And Augustine was himself accused of
Manichean tendencies—an accusation with particular bite in his case, given his
own Manichean past. Nonetheless, Augustine’s embrace of sex (as opposed to
lust) is far more expansive. See Sawyer, “Celibate Pleasures,” pp. 15–17. See also
Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride, p. 97.
20
37. This last phrase is perhaps not fully accurate, since, as we will see in chapter 8,
Augustine’s ideal male, at least in Augustine’s explicit rhetoric, does not trans-
form his partner’s body at all, while the ideal Babylonian Rabbinic male does not
intend to transform his partner’s body.
38. See Wenham, “Betulah”; Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible,

pp. 183–184; Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, pp. 1799, 1818. For one particularly
clear example of this phenomenon, see Joel 1:8. Frymer-Kensky also points us
to the similar ambiguity with regard to the Greek word parthenos, and “until
very recently, the English word ‘maiden’ ” (p. 184); Milgrom notes a similar
phenomenon in Korean (p. 1818). Wenham actually argues that the word betu-
lah has only the meaning of “young woman.” For a fuller description and evalu-
ation of Wenham’s particularly (and, I will argue, excessively) extreme form of
this point, see c hapter 2 in my discussions of Lev. 21 and Deut. 21:13–21 and in
the accompanying footnotes there. See also Rofé, Deuteronomy, p. 173, n. 11.
39. Despite Wenham’s claims to the contrary; see c hapter 2, nn. 25 and 32 and the
discussions there.
40. For scholarship on the meaning of parthenos, see Ford, “The Meaning of

‘Virgin,’ ” as well as Foskett, A Virgin Conceived, pp. 16 and 176, nn. 67–68.
41. Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Hebrew Bible,” p. 80.
42. See also Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 9–11 and 25–28.
43. Soranus, Gynecology, 1.17, trans. Temkin, p. 15.
44. Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” p. 324.
45. Ibid., pp. 324–330.
46. Soranus, Gynecology, 1.16, trans. Temkin, p. 15; emphasis added.
47. Goldhill, Foucault’s Virginity, p. 38. See also Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 12, 28.
48. To be honest, this last sentence is certainly too strong. The presentation of a
woman’s loss of virginity as the rupture of a recognized and distinct membrane
adds a level of violence and militarism to first-time sexual encounters that the
interest in postcoital blood alone, without the discourse of “the hymen,” does not
achieve on its own. See Hanson’s fascinating and disturbing analysis of Greek
literature in “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” pp. 325–327, as well as Wills’s inter-
pretation of Judith in The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World, p. 150. See also Sissa,
“The Hymen Is a Problem, Still,” p. 90. But, as I will argue in chapter 2, the re/
creation of male desire to see postcoital bleeding on the wedding night is plenty
violent enough, even without the construction of the hymen.
49. Neusner’s oeuvre is vast and often repetitive, but for one example of his view, see
Neusner, Making the Classics.
50. Rosenthal, “Ancient Redactions in the Babylonian Talmud.”
51. A number of scholars have written about and demonstrated the usefulness of
this approach, but the classic statement is Shamma Friedman’s programmatic
essay “Critical Study.”
21
Notes to page 22 221
C h a p t er 1
1. For a useful critical summary of a number of theories regarding why some cul-
tures prize female virginity, see Frymer-Kensky’s “Virginity in the Bible,” pp.
81–85. See also Cooper’s supplementary treatment, in his article “Virginity in
Ancient Mesopotamia,” pp. 104–105.
2. I am including many Muslim cultures in my intentionally vague phrase “cul-
tures influenced by the Hebrew Bible.” Understanding the ways in which
Deuteronomy would have filtered into Muslim culture is well beyond my field
of expertise, and I make no attempt here to consider that. What is important for
my purposes is that while models for testing virginity based on similar assump-
tions to those of Deuteronomy often appear both in Jewish and Christian com-
munities and in communities that often get labeled simply as “Mediterranean,”
bloodied sheets and midwives’ examinations strikingly do not appear in either
Roman texts or Ancient Near Eastern texts.
3. Cited at Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 119.
4. Ibid., p. 120.
5. Ibid., pp. 132–133. Importantly, Kelly also writes about the many manifestations of
a belief that one can “recapture” one’s virginity, which she ascribes to the “prevail-
ing popular belief that one can reinvent or construct oneself at will” (pp. 120–121).
But she also notes that “it may also be symptomatic of a capitulation to conserv-
ative mores” and not merely “evidence of a sense that bodily identities are more
fluid than fixed” (p. 121).
6. Stein, “Like a Virgin: Armenian In-Laws Want to See Blood on the Sheets.”
Jezebel, March 16, 2009. http://jezebel.com/5170699/like-a-virgin-armenian-in-
laws-want-to-see-blood-on-the-sheets
7. Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 138.
8. For an example of a community in which both interest in bloodied sheets and
the use of physical examinations to determine the presence of a “hymen” are
alive and well, see Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet, “In Europe, Debate
Over Islam and Virginity,” New York Times, June 11, 2008. This particular arti-
cle also could be usefully analyzed as a primary text that displays the ongoing
influence of Deuteronomic assumptions about female virginity in its own right.
See also Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 135–136, for examples of the continued
interest in “the hymen” in twentieth-century America.
9. Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 17–18; Meltzer, For Fear of the Fire, pp. 91–93;
Taylor, The Virgin Warrior, p. 43. The case of Joan of Arc highlights that these
examinations were not necessarily viewed as medical; the women involved in
Joan’s examinations were not midwives, but rather women of significant social
status. Kelly notes that though contemporary sources state that women exam-
ined Joan, the precise nature of these tests is never made explicit. I will return to
the case of Joan of Arc in the epilogue, but the same will hold true for the vaginal
2
inspections described in the Qumran texts that I consider in chapter 3, which

describe the examiners not as “midwives” but rather as “trustworthy women.”
Indeed, even the famous story of the vaginal examination administered to Mary
in the Protevangelium of James, which I will consider in detail in chapter 5, and
which explicitly features a midwife, does not have the virginity test itself per-
formed by the midwife, but rather by a woman named Salome, whose status
is not otherwise clarified. Thus, though I will occasionally refer to this sort of
examination as a “midwife examination” for felicity’s sake, I do not mean to sug-
gest by this locution that these tests were necessarily viewed by the authors of
the texts in which they appear as medical.
10. Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 132.
11. Cooper. “Virginity in Ancient Mesopotamia.” Cooper does address one possible
case of midwife-type examination in the Mesopotamian material, which others
have claimed based on the appearance of female witnesses, but Cooper rejects
this interpretation as speculative, in part because there are other reasons why
female witnesses would testify. He also rejects another particularly opaque legal
text as possible evidence of a physical virginity test (ibid., pp. 95–96).
12. Although the use of testimony to establish female virginity here is a striking
parallel to the use of testimony in the tannaitic work Sifrei Devarim, there are
more significant differences than there are similarities. See below in c hapter 3
my discussion of Sifrei Devarim.
13. Caldwell, Roman Girlhood, p. 47. On the difficulty of translating stuprum, see
ibid., p. 61. See also Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 19: “Hellenistic medicine has
very little to say about the signs of physical virginity.”
14. Caldwell, Roman Girlhood, p. 63. Caldwell (ibid.) cites Soranus as discussing
physical examinations, and Kelly similarly assumes, based on the testimony of
Soranus, that “presumably, such a judgment could be made . . . by a midwife or
physician” (Performing Virginity, p. 26). However, all Soranus discusses there is
whether a virgin’s vagina is covered by a membrane (the “hymen”—see my dis-
cussion of this term in the introduction); he does not suggest that what he calls
the popular belief in this idea, nor his own description of blood vessels burst-
ing during initial penetrative intercourse, was the basis of actual examinations.
See also Grubbs, Law and Family in Late Antiquity, p. 199, who speculates about
physical examinations being implied by a Constantinian law (even as she raises
the equally likely possibility that mere interrogation is implied), and similarly
assumes that Soranus implies a physical examination (and, more problem-
atically, conflates him with Augustine’s mention of midwives’ examinations
[ibid., n. 191]). Note also that the Constantinian legislation discussed by Evans
Grubbs there dates from 326, after Constantine’s conversion. For one fleeting
statement that reflects awareness of the uniqueness of bleeding and lacera-
tions as evidence of female virginity, see Harper, From Shame to Sin, p. 40.
23
15. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon p. 202.

16. Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” pp. 328–329; see also Armstrong and
Hanson, “Two Notes on Greek Tragedy,” pp. 97–100.
17. De secretis mulierum, trans. in Lemay, Women’s Secrets, p. 128. Note also that part
of what sullies the urine of the nonvirgin according to that text is postcoital
bleeding (ibid, p. 129), though that is not the only explanation for this phenom-
enon offered there. In any event, the author looks to urine, rather than bleeding,
for evidence of virginity or its lack.
18. William of Saliceto, Summa conservationis, trans. Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 29.
19. Lastique and Lemay, “A Medieval Physician’s Guide,” p. 61.
20. De secretis mulierum, trans. Lemay, Women’s Secrets, p. 126. Interestingly, this
description of vaginal narrowness as the reason for pain during an initial act of
penetrative intercourse appears there alongside a description of hymenal rup-
ture as another explanation of this pain. See the anonymous commentary there
(“Commentary B”), which explains this phenomenon as reflecting “particular”
(by which the author means “unusual”) evidence in the case of vaginal widening
and “common” evidence (ibid., p. 127).
21. De secretis mulierum, trans. in Lemay, Women’s Secrets, p. 126.
22. Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” p. 328; Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 32.
23. In truth, the possibility of artificial insemination means that even pregnancy
need not imply that a woman has engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse. See
Kelly’s citation of a “Dear Abby” question from a woman wanting to know if her
previous pregnancy and delivery of a child rendered her no longer “still a virgin”
(Performing Virginity, pp. 136–137). One can consider as well the popular TV
show Jane the Virgin, which operates on a similar premise. Although advances
in medicine during the twentieth century meant the vast improvement of this
option, there are scattered reports of premodern attempts at artificial insemina-
tion. In any event, the discussion of insemination occurring by means of a bath
in the Babylonian Talmud at bHag 15a (and note the fascinatingly similar ques-
tion in Averroës’s Colliget, cited by Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 30) makes clear
that even in late antiquity, some people considered the possibility that pregnancy
could occur without penetrative intercourse. And of course, the case of Mary’s
virginal conception, even as it claims uniqueness, introduces doubt even to preg-
nancy as a (failed) virginity test. See chapters 4 and 5, where I discuss Joseph’s
doubts about Mary, and his eventual acceptance of her claims, in the Gospel of
Matthew, the Protevangelium of James, and two anonymous Syriac poems.
24. Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” p. 328.
25. Kelly quite usefully gathers a number of examples (Performing Virginity, pp. 63–68),
a collection of cases and analysis thereon that I lean heavily upon in this section.
26. Herodotus, Histories, 4.180; see Sissa’s discussion in “Maidenhood without
Maidenhead,” p. 344; and Greek Virginity, pp. 83–84. See also Shaw’s discussion
24
of the caterva and its possible relationship to the violent ritual described by
Herodotus (Sacred Violence, p. 23).
27. Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings VIII.1.5., trans. Bailey, vol. 2,
p. 193.
28. Aelian actually writes about Lavinium, but this is clearly a mistake, as evidenced
by both the earlier testimony of Propertius (see next note) and numismatic evi-
dence. See Smith, Man and Animal, pp. 92–93, both for the evidence for the
correct identity as well as for a discussion of the possibility that Aelian’s mistake
was intentional and its significance. See also Ogden, Drakōn, pp. 205–206, 348.
29. Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals 11.16, trans. Scholfield, vol. 2, pp. 380–
383; also discussed by Sissa in “Maidenhood without Maidenhead,” p. 344.
The serpent of Lanuvium appears already in the work of first-century bce poet
Propertius (with less detail, fitting the different genre); see Propertius, Elegies
4.8, trans. Goold, p. 365. Aelian goes on to state that, following failure at the cave,
the false virgins are “examined” (elegxountai), but it is unclear what this exami-
nation consists of, and the Greek word used may well refer to an interrogation.
Smith translates the word as “put to the test” (Man and Animal, p. 96). However,
the word could also be translated as “shamed”; in other words, the ordeal with the
snake and the ants may well be the entirety of her virginity test, rather than the
preface to some other examination. I am thankful to Miriam-Simma Walfish for
helping me think through the possible translations of the Greek here.
30. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon, trans. Winkler, Collected Ancient Greek
Novels, pp. 279–281.
31. On a possible connection between this test and the similar one, designed to test
marital infidelity rather than virginity, which occurs in the same scene, and a
passage in the Syrian Christian author Bardaisan, see Harper, From Shame to
Sin, pp. 124–125, and p. 280, n. 69.
32. Heliodorus, An Ethiopian Story, p. 564.
33. Cooper, “Virginity in Ancient Mesopotamia,” p. 95.
34. Bettini, Anthropology and Roman Culture, p. 201.
35. Cited in Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 8–9.
36. In truth, from the answer (“any whose face turned green, she was known to be fit
for intercourse”), it appears that the ordeal here is not a virginity test, but rather
a puberty test. However, the Talmud continues (in a passage that I will discuss
briefly in chapter 6) to compare this to a Rabbinic tradition about Judg. 21:12,
where the context is explicitly about virginity testing, suggesting either that “fit
for intercourse” is a euphemism, or that the frontlet test was assumed to be use-
ful also for virginity testing.
37. Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 7. We can of course imagine other ways of titling
these categories, but the basic divide between tests that examine the body itself
for evidence of virginity and those that appear to invoke something metaphysical
is, on the face of it, apparent.
25
38. Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 8–9.

39. Bees and their stinging also appear in the first-century writer Plutarch, who
compares a heterosexual couple’s first act of intercourse to a bee sting that must
be endured by the bride in order that she later enjoy the sweetness of the hon-
eycomb (Advice to the Bride and Groom 138E, cited in Caldwell, Roman Girlhood,
p. 160). See Caldwell’s insightful discussion of this passage at Roman Girlhood,
p. 160, as well as Pomeroy, ed., Plutarch’s Advice to the Bride and Groom, p. 47.
40. On the accuracy of this phrase’s appearance in the text, see Winkler, Constraints
of Desire, p. 231, n. 19.
41. In particular, see Winkler’s Constraints of Desire, pp. 122–126, in which he under-
stands the passage as a coded critique of male sexual violence, and Goldhill,
Foucault’s Virginity, pp. 30–45, who critiques Winkler’s reading as applying too
modern a lens to the passage and instead thinks that such violence would have
been taken for granted as part of the sexual experience by the late antique reader.
But even for Goldhill, the passage clearly links sexual intercourse and the loss
of virginity to violence; the difference between his interpretation and that of
Winkler is that, for Goldhill, this violence was taken for granted by contempo-
rary readers of the novel, while Winkler thinks that the description of this vio-
lence would have been surprising and thus subversive.
42. Winkler, Constraints of Desire, p. 122.
43. See Goldhill, Foucault’s Virginity, pp. 35–39, who in arguing that the violence of the
scene would have been ho-hum for the novel’s readers, cites three Greek sources that
display a similar awareness, and Caldwell’s discussion of Catullus and Plutarch in
Roman Girlhood, pp. 141–164. See also the fifth-century Roman author Macrobius,
who wrote that “in marriage an act of violence is done to a virgin, and the celebration
of a marriage on a rest day is therefore eschewed” (Saturnalia, 1.15.21, ed. Davies,
103, cited in Schremer, “For Whom Is Marriage a Happiness,” p. 300).
44. Cryle, “A Terrible Ordeal,” p. 47.
45. Cryle, “A Terrible Ordeal,” p. 51. Cryle points out that the actual intent of Balzac’s
statement was in fact quite different from the point toward which it was directed
in these medical manuals, but for my purposes the relevant datum is the concep-
tion of the wedding night as a (potentially) violent event.
46. Ibid., p. 54.
47. Ibid., pp. 55–56.
48. Ellis, Erotic Symbolism, p. 142; emphasis added. See also Craft, Another Kind of
Love, p. 90 for a useful consideration of this passage.
c h a p t er 2
1. On the ambiguity of the Hebrew betulah—and its Greek counterpart, parthe-

nos—see my discussion in the introduction to this book.
2. 1 Kgs. 1:2; Esth. 2:2.
26
3. For example: 2 Kgs. 19:21; Isa. 37:22; Jer. 14:17. See also Isa. 47:1, for example,
where Babylon is mockingly described as betulat Bavel.
4. Exod. 22:15–16; Deut. 22:28–29.
5. The verse also serves as a site of patristic engagement with the meaning and
significance of female virginity, though not specifically of its verification. See
chapter 3, n. 93.
6. I assume that this is the implication of the NJPS translation. Speiser (Genesis,
p. 175) and Alter (Genesis, p. 115) translate similarly.
7. So read Sarna, Genesis, p. 165; and Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible,” p. 79.
8. This is in keeping with the biblical theme of important men seeking out betulot
as companions; see n. 2.
9. See Steinberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, p. 138.
10. Here, NJPS translates the Hebrew bivtuleha as who is a virgin, which I have ren-
dered here (perhaps) more literally as “in her betulim.” But again, the ambiguity
of the Hebrew betulah, and in this case the related form betulim, makes transla-
tion challenging at best. See the discussion of this ambiguity below.
11. There is some ambiguity about the best translation of this Hebrew phrase and
whether it stands for one or two categories of women forbidden to marry priests.
See Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, pp. 1806–1807, for a discussion of the various
interpretive possibilities. Some scholars have tried to argue that the word halalah
in this verse means “perforated” and refers to any nonvirgin; see, for example,
Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs, p. 156. For more citations of some of these schol-
ars and a convincing rejection of this interpretation, see Zipor, “Restrictions on
Marriage,” pp. 260–261.
12. Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, p. 1808; emphasis added. This point is particularly
important as it rejects claims of some scholars who view the act of sexual rela-
tions with a man previously as infecting the woman with demons or impurity;
see, for example, the view of Gerstenberger, cited and rejected by Milgrom
(Leviticus, vol. 2, p. 1819); and Laffey, Wives, Harlots, and Concubines, pp. 17–18.
13. Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, p. 1808. See also, for example, Levine, Leviticus,
p. 144; and Hartley, Leviticus, p. 348. Both Levine and Milgrom point out the
view of the House of Shammai at mGit 9:10 limiting divorce to cases where the
husband is concerned about some sexual violation. Of course, it is impossible to
know to what extent the interpretation of the House of Shammai reflects think-
ing about divorce similar to that which would have been found in the world of
Leviticus 21.
14. In truth, matters are a bit more complicated than this, since the precise meaning
of zonah vehalalah is unclear, as already mentioned in n. 11. Compare, for exam-
ple, the implication in Levine, Leviticus, that one-time sexual relations outside of
marriage would not necessarily render a woman a zonah (p. 143), and Hartley,
citing Hoffman, that any “woman who had lost her virginity” falls under this
category (Leviticus, p. 348).
27
15. This is similar to Philo’s interpretation, namely, that the prohibition serves “to
remove animosities and feuds from the lives of the priests. . . . [The first hus-
band’s] death carries with it the death of any hostility to the second husband”
(Spec. Leg. 1.108, trans. Colson, Philo, vol. 7, p. 163).
16. Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible,” pp. 79–80.
17. On the importance of genealogy in Leviticus 21 and Ezekiel 44, and its rela-
tionship to what she calls “genealogical impurity,” see Hayes, Gentile Impurities,
pp. 27–28.
18. This may not be the whole of the definition, because other previous sexual activ-
ity may be problematic to the legislators for other reasons, or it may be included
in those things that render a woman a “nonvirgin” as a safeguard around the
true concern, namely, pregnancy from a previous partner.
19. So understand Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, p. 1819; and Hartley, Leviticus, p. 349.
20. See the sources cited by Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, p. 1820.
21. For example Hirsch, The Hirsch Chumash, p. 602.
22. See Milgrom, Leviticus, vol. 2, pp. 1819–1820. Levine points out that the word
appears in vv. 1 and 4, and in those cases, it almost certainly refers to the priestly
class, rather than to the Israelites as a nation (Leviticus, p. 145). Of course, the
version of this ruling in Ezekiel limits the priests’ choice of brides to virgins of
the stock of the House of Israel, clearly including any Israelite-born woman. But
that need not suggest that the meaning of me‘ammav in Lev. 21:14 is similarly
expansive. First of all, recall that Ezekiel’s requirement is directed at all priests,
not only the high priest. But even if we assume that Ezekiel somehow equates all
priests with the high priest, his change in locution from that of Lev. 21:14 may
reflect a later interpretation or deliberate altering of the latter that cannot be deci-
sive in our interpretation of the Pentateuchal passage. See Milgrom, Leviticus,
vol. 2, p. 1819, who rejects Levine and argues that this is evidence for the relative
lateness of Ezekiel vis-à-vis Leviticus 21.
23. Brown et al., A Hebrew and English Lexicon, p. 144, s.v. “betulim”; Köhler and
Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic, vol. 1, p. 166, s.v. “betulim.”
24. I here avoid specifying what a biblical author might mean by physical signs of
virginity, though in my analysis of Deut. 22:13–21 below, it will become clear
that, if such physical markers were indeed intended here, they would likely be
25. Wenham argues, based in part on a morphological comparison to words such
as ne‘urim and zekunim, which are known to mean youth and old age respec-
tively, that the word can (and, in Wenham’s formulation, always does) mean
merely adolescence (though reserved only for females) (“Betulah,” and in partic-
ular, p. 331). Thus, Lev. 21:7 simply states that the priest is required to marry
a young woman who is of marriageable age (with the requirement of virginity
being expressed through the following phrase, excluding women who have had
previous sexual relations). Although I disagree with Wenham in applying this
28
interpretation of the word betulim to Deut. 22:13–21 because the context there
makes such a reading far-fetched (see below), this understanding clearly makes
sense as one meaning of the word, and indeed, as the one that makes the most
sense here. Milgrom supports Wenham’s conclusion with regard to this partic-
ular verse (Leviticus, vol. 2, pp. 1799, 1818–1819). However, he still adds in the
word “virgin” to his translation, even though he believes that this is assumed as
part of the idea of a young girl: “for the sake of clarity, it is added in the transla-
tion” (Leviticus, vol. 2, p. 1818; emphasis added).
26. In place of what I have here translated I did not find betulim in her, NJPS renders
I found that she was not a virgin. See n. 41 below regarding why I have chosen this
more awkward translation (and, in the case of betulim, lack of translation).
27. NJPS: the evidence of the girl’s virginity.
28. NJPS: I did not find your daughter a virgin.
29. NJPS: here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.
30. NJPS: the girl was found not to have been a virgin.
31. The precise nature of the accusation against the bride in this passage has
been debated by both premodern and modern commentators; see Halbertal,
Interpretive Revolutions, pp. 84–85; and esp. Rofé, Deuteronomy, pp. 176–177, who
usefully explains why even a critical reader such as Hallo (cited there, p. 176,
n. 23) could come to the otherwise unlikely reading of the pericope as discussing
specifically a postbetrothal violation. Halbertal neatly summarizes why a contex-
tual reading of the passage indeed makes clear that the topic under discussion
is an accusation of previous sexual activity generally, not adultery of some sort.
Later Rabbinic exegesis, however, transformed the passage into one about infi-
delity that occurred between betrothal and marriage. See Halbertal, Interpretive
Revolutions, pp. 85–86.
32. See the literature cited in “Betulah,” p. 332, nn. 1–2, regarding the identity of
the betulim as the blood resulting from postcoital rupture. Wenham, influenced
by his commitment that betulah always means “adolescent” rather than “virgin,”
rejects this common understanding. He instead suggests a surprising interpre-
tation, claiming that the betulim here refer to menstrual blood found on some
item of clothing worn by the bride during the first month of marriage, brought
forward in response to a claim that her lack of menstruation (and thus possible
pregnancy) proves that she has committed adultery. He prefers this interpre-
tation over the more common one primarily based on his assumption that the
item has to have been difficult for the parents to attain, since the husband seems
to think he is safe in falsely accusing the bride. However, his interpretation is rid-
dled by as many problems as the more well-known one. Wenham tries to defuse
the objection that menstrual blood could be forged, saying that this is merely
an example of biblical law giving the accused the benefit of the doubt. However,
this objection remains compelling—all the parents would need to do is find a
menstruating woman to provide some blood for the garment (or, for that matter,
29
a previously-stained garment belonging to their daughter). Postcoital bleeding,

which may have a different appearance from menstrual blood in general, is a far
more likely proof, given that any woman (or her father) would be likely to hold
on to her own “proof” of virginity. Indeed, the common practice of maintain-
ing the sheet, practiced until modern times and cited by Wenham, “Betulah,”
p. 334, n. 2, provides support for the idea the classic understanding of betulim in
Deuteronomy 22 can indeed be put into practice. There is no reason to assume
that the parents would not have had access to this sheet or garment. The hus-
band’s claim may result from a hope that the parents had lost it in the interim
(as the text suggests some amount of time having passed before the claim of
adultery), or from his genuine suspicion resulting from relatively little or “insuf-
ficient” blood, such that judges with more experience than the possibly young
and inexperienced husband could ascertain the proof of virginity (as happens
in stories in both the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds; see chapters 3 and
6). See also Rofé, Deuteronomy, p. 173, n. 11; as well as Zipor, “Restrictions on
Marriage,” p. 260, n. 10 (Zipor makes some problematic assumptions about the
reliability of blood-stained sheets, but many of his critiques—especially about
the implication of the close juxtaposition of when I approached her, I did not find
betulim in her—are nonetheless accurate). In any event, even Wenham agrees
that the word refers to something physical.
33. The commodification of female virginity is prominent in Exod. 22:15–16 and
Deut. 22:28–29 as well; see Rofé, Deuteronomy, pp. 171 and 174–175.
34. Of course, part of the man’s perceived injustice in this pericope may derive pre-
cisely from the misleading, rather than the “absence” of virginity. But the pun-
ishments for both the perjuring groom (a double payment of the bride price,
v. 19) and the convicted bride (stoning, v. 21) make clear that her virginity is a, if
not the, central “offense” to the groom constructed in these verses.
35. See Rofé, Deuteronomy, p. 174.
36. See also the reference to Hallo cited above, n. 31, who is not the only modern
scholar to follow the Rabbis’ lead in so interpreting (see, for example, Finkelstein,
Sifre, p. 271). See also Halbertal’s ultimately unconvincing attempt to resolve
a contextual reading of Deut. 22:20–21 with the contradictory ruling of Exod.
22:15–17 (Interpretive Revolutions, p. 85, n. 26).
37. Rofé argues convincingly, in large part based on the incongruities noted in the
preceding paragraph, that vv. 20–21 reflect a different source from that of vv. 13–
19 (Deuteronomy, pp. 173–181). See also the literature cited at Wells, “Sex, Lies,”
p. 42, n. 4, and p. 44, n. 9. But for my purposes, reading the passage in a source-
critical way or reading it holistically will not affect the basic point, namely, that
the biblical tradition that early Jewish and Christian authors received made clear
the ways in which false claims of virginity could be weaponized by a devious
groom. Though the Rabbis indeed “abrogated” the practical legal consequence
of the death penalty (Rofé, Deuteronomy, p. 178, and see my discussion of this
230
point in chapter 3), the discursive effects of these verses remain, especially when
read in tandem with the emphasis on blood in this pericope, and even more so
in light of the intertext from Genesis 19 that I discuss below.
38. I intentionally use the language of “murder” as the most apt description of what
the scheming husband does. For a similar use, see Sifrei Devarim #235, in which
the anonymous author of the midrash, discussing this biblical pericope, learns
from it that one who fails to fulfill the obligation to love one’s neighbor as one-
self will come to murder [shefikhut damim]. See Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the
Bible,” p. 93. See also Wells, “Sex, Lies,” pp. 56–71, who explicates the motiva-
tions of the groom in Deut. 22:19–29, but argues that the death of the bride is
not in fact one of those, with the death penalty only one option of possible pun-
ishment that would have been offered by the court to the groom in the Ancient
Near East. Though his comparative legal methodology is certainly enlightening,
I find the interpretation to these verses far-fetched.
39. Frymer-Kensky, “Virginity in the Bible,” p. 94.
40. Rofé, Deuteronomy, p. 185.
41. For this reason, in the translation above I have departed from the NJPS transla-
tion, leaving betulim in every case untranslated. My intent in this act of nontrans-
lation is to maintain ambiguity about whether the physical blood referred to by
the word is evidence of virginity or virginity itself.
42. Compare the groom’s claim in v. 14 (I found her not a maid) to the parents’ bring-
ing forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity in v. 15.
43. I did not find her a virgin in v. 14 compared to bring out the evidence of the girl’s vir-
ginity in v. 15.
44. Compare the father’s version of the groom’s claim in v. 17 with the earlier for-
mulation of the groom’s claim in v. 14 or the elders’ inability to “find” the young
woman’s virginity in v. 20. The ASV, ESV, and NRSV are all consistent, trans-
lating betulim as tokens (ASV) or evidence (ESV and NRSV) of virginity in every
occurrence in the pericope.
45. See n. 25 regarding Wenham’s comparison of betulim to stage-of-life words such
as zekunim and ne'urim. See also Tsevat, “Betulah,” in TDOT, vol. 2, p. 342.
46. My formulation here intentionally and distressingly prefigures the language of the
anonymous voice at bKet 5b, in a passage that I will analyze in detail in chapter 7.
47. On the cultural construction of the “hymen,” see my discussion in the

introduction.
48. See the discussion of the debate between the Sages and Rabbi Meir regarding the
woman who is mukat ‘etz in mKet 1:3 in c hapter 5.
49. Put differently: translating betulim as evidence of virginity means viewing the
word betulim metonymically, i.e., virginity is not defined here as the ability to
produce postcoital bleeding, but rather, that because this physical trauma is
so closely identified with the loss of virginity, the word “virginity” can stand
in for “the postcoital bleeding that proves the bride’s virginity” in the hands
231
of the Deuteronomist here. Taking the metonym seriously means appreciating

its effects on our thinking. See Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, esp.
chapter 8 on metonymy specifically.
50. A disturbingly similar story with similar implications for my project appears in
Judg. 19. Although there are important differences (and Daniel Boyarin uses
them productively in his analysis of the Genesis passage; see “Are There Any
Jews,” pp. 351–353), with regard to the question of female virginity, the passages
are similar enough for my purposes that I will analyze here only the passage
from Genesis, but my comments here apply to that passage from Judges as well.
51. A point already noted by classic medieval commentator Rashi in his commen-
tary on v. 5.
52. Sarna, Genesis, p. 136.
53. Ibid.
54. Alter, Genesis, p. 85.
55. See Fewell and Gunn, Gender, Power, and Promise, p. 59. See also the simi-
lar arguments in Boyarin, “Are There Any Jews,” pp. 348–353; and Toensing,
“Women of Sodom,” pp. 70–72, esp. p. 72. Both Boyarin’s and Toensing’s analy-
ses highlight violence (and specifically sexual violence) as the motivating theme
of the passage; my point here is that the daughters’ virginity is not incidental to
that theme.
56. Again, see Boyarin, “Are There Any Jews,” p. 350; and Toensing, “Women of
Sodom,” pp. 71–73, for alternative articulations of a very similar interpretation.
I differ from Toensing, however, with regard to understanding the townsfolk’s
refusal of Lot’s offer; whereas Toensing sees here a concern for the honor of men
of their own community, since these daughters were betrothed, presumably to
residents of Sodom, I am claiming that they refuse because raping Lot’s daugh-
ters does not accomplish what they intend to do, namely to degrade and demean
the visitors to their town.
57. It is unimportant, for my purposes, if Gen. 19:4–11 serves as the background for
Deut. 22:13–21, or reflects a culture affected by the sorts of ideas found in the
Deuteronomic passage. Rather, what is significant is that both reflect a shared
association of female virginity with physical violence.
C h a p t er 3
1. For an introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls, see VanderKam and Flint, The Meaning
of the Dead Sea Scrolls; and Lim and Collins, The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, though there is no shortage of popular and scholarly introductions.
2. Schiffman, Gross, and Rand, “Temple Scroll Defining Edition (11Q19),”
pp. 169–171.
3. Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining to Women in the Temple Scroll,” p. 221. For sim-
ilar comments about the Temple Scroll, see also Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining
23
to Women and Sexuality,” p. 547. However, on one possibly significant varia-
tion between the Temple Scroll and Deuteronomy 22, see Halbertal, Interpretive
Revolutions, p. 91.
4. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 82, n. 136. The fact that Philo,
in his treatment of Deut. 22:13–21, leaves out the punishment for the bride if
found guilty (as discussed by Belkin, Philo and the Oral Law, p. 266) is thus likely
a coincidence and does not reflect a broader trend in Second Temple texts to
leave out vv. 20–21.
5. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 83. I am not sure what Satlow
means by claiming that this text, like 11Q19, simply “repeat[s]‌the biblical pas-
sages verbatim” (Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, p. 338, n. 93), especially since he
cites this passage (as well as Tigay’s influential interpretation of it) as a parallel
to 4Q271 3 (pp. 315, n. 139, and 339, n. 95).
6. Though note that the order of the two subunits of the biblical pericope—vv. 13–
19, dealing with the case when the accusations are false; and vv. 20–21, discuss-
ing when they are “true”—has been reversed. Rofé suggests that this reflects the
Qumran authors’ sense that the biblical pericope manifests a “lack of coherence”
(Deuteronomy, p. 191).
7. Here, Wassen has helpfully left the translation vague, in keeping with the orig-
inal Hebrew: examine her/it. However, the direct object pronoun in the Hebrew
is feminine, and context thus suggests that the more likely meaning of that pro-
noun is her, i.e., the trustworthy women inspect the actual body of the accused
bride. See next note.
8. Tigay, “Examination of the Accused Bride,” esp. p. 131. Tigay’s reconstruction
has been widely accepted, especially in light of the publication of 4Q271 3, to be
discussed below. See, for example, Shemesh, “4Q271.3,” p. 254; Wassen, Women
in the Damascus Document, p. 82; and Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining to Women
and Sexuality,” pp. 565–566, reversing his earlier opinion in “Laws Pertaining
to Women in the Temple Scroll,” p. 221. Menahem Kister, however, has argued
that the passage means that the “trustworthy women” inspect the sheet, and not
the body of the bride herself (“Studies in 4QMiqsat,” pp. 333–334, n. 69). Kister
views this as “a long ways away from the contextual meaning of the biblical pas-
sage.” I will argue below, however, that even Tigay’s interpretation, and all the
more so Kister’s, is not nearly so far from the simplest reading of the biblical
verse as they at first appear.
9. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, pp. 72–73.
10. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, pp. 73–74; Shemesh, “4Q271.3,”
pp. 252–253.
11. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 80; Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining
to Women and Sexuality,” p. 565.
12. I write “implies” because, as mentioned in c hapter 2, Rabbinic exegesis and some
modern scholars interpret the passage as discussing post-engagement infidelity;
23
see chapter 2, n. 31. But the most straightforward reading of the passage indeed
appears to be about any premarital activity. Indeed, both 11Q19 LXV and 4Q271
3 suggest that these authors understood the passage in this way, rather than as
interpreted by the Rabbis. See Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining to Women,” p. 221.
13. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 81.
14. Accepting the common assumption about the missing material in this text;
see n. 4.
15. Baumgarten sees the regulation of 4Q271 3 as part of a general trend in the
Dead Sea Scrolls to minimize use of the death penalty; see “Tannaitic Halakhah
and Qumran,” pp. 6–7, and esp. “The Avoidance of the Death Penalty,” p. 33.
In any event, this text lives alongside 4Q159 2–4, which was a closer match for
the Deuteronomic pericope, simply replacing blood-stained sheets with physio-
logical examinations. Thus, the community that produced these texts suggests
that a premarital “verification” of virginity was not sufficient to deal with com-
plaints about premarital chastity, contra the claim in Satlow, Jewish Marriage in
Antiquity, p. 176.
16. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 84.
17. The question of women as witnesses in various cultures is a contentious one.
See Wassen’s discussion of this text’s evidence for this question (Women in the
Damascus Document, p. 88).
18. Contra the claim in Chapman, “Marriage and Family,” p. 206, that “[t]‌hroughout
Second Temple literature, sexual consummation of the marriage forms an impor-
tant aspect of the marriage. Among other things, from this event the virginity of
the wife is proved” (emphasis added).
19. See Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 84, on the relationship
between 4Q271 3 and 4Q159 2–4. Hempel’s work in The Laws of the Damascus
Document regarding the literary development of the Damascus Document is per-
suasive generally and with regard to 4Q271 3 in particular (see pp. 68–69), but
does not provide any clear insight for thinking about the relationship between
4Q271 3 and 4Q 159 2–4, other than to note that what she identifies as the earlier
stratum of the Damascus Document generally “shares a great deal with other
halakhic works from the corpus of the scrolls such as 4QMMT, 4Q159 Ord, and
11QT” (p. 188).
20. Tigay, “Examination of the Accused Bride,” p. 133; Shemesh, “4Q271.3,” p. 254.
It is worth noting that Tigay consulted doctors, all of whom (with the possible
exception of the “Egyptian gynecologist who wishe[d]‌to remain anonymous”)
have typically male names (p. 133, n. 14). Shemesh’s attitude toward the possi-
bility of midwives’ accurately determining previous sexual experience based on
the evidence of a woman’s body is slightly more difficult to pin down. Although
his book Halakhah in the Making was published four years after Wassen’s Women
in the Damascus Document, Shemesh does not cite or respond to Wassen’s cri-
tique of this assumption (or any other aspect of Wassen’s treatment of this text).
234
Shemesh nonetheless used more equivocal language in the book than in the
article on which this chapter was based. Compare, for example, his claim in the
earlier article that “it seems that these women’s expertise actually enabled them
to determine whether the present sexual act was truly the girl’s first” (“4Q271.3,”
p. 115) with the more tempered language in the book: “these women’s expertise
actually was supposed to enable them to determine” (Halakhah in the Making,
p. 116; emphasis added). And in both the article and the revision for the book,
he writes, “[T]his physical examination would enable these women to determine
(or they were believed to be able to determine) the truth or falsity of the husband’s
accusation” (“4Q271.3,” p. 254; Halakhah in the Making, p. 254; emphasis added
in both cases). However, in both the article and the book, he then goes on to
write, “This was undoubtedly a more trustworthy method than examination of
a bloodstained garment” (“4Q271.3,” p. 254; Halakhah in the Making, p. 115;
emphasis added again in both cases). It seems to me that this equivocal stance
toward the actual effectiveness of examining a woman’s body to assess previ-
ous sexual experience simply reflects the ways in which such attitudes remain
deeply embedded in contemporary consciousness and are terribly difficult to
uproot. I am sure that I will betray similar inconsistencies in my own writing
in this book and take this example as a reminder of the importance of vigilance
in constantly questioning my own assumptions about virginity generally and
female virginity in particular.
21. See, for example, Anderst, Kellogg, and Jung, “Reports of Repetitive Penile-
Genital Penetration,” as well as the studies cited therein.
22. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 83. Compare Wassen here to my
analysis in chapter 5 of the character Salome and her assumptions about Mary’s
virginity in the Protevangelium of James.
23. As I noted above, the theme is particularly prominent in Christian texts. See
above at the end of my initial discussion of 4Q159, as well as in chapters 5 and 8.
24. See, the literature cited by Loader, at Dead Sea Scrolls on Sexuality, p. 219, n. 91,
as well as Watkeys et al., “The Timing of Medical Examination,” the last of which
is specifically about examinations following rape. It is worth noting, however,
that at least in the case of the study by Watkeys et al., this greater consistency
is still fairly inconsistent; genital examinations to determine recent trauma are
consistent only by comparison with vaginal examinations performed later than
seven days after the abuse. In any event, this particular study noted that, partic-
ularly for pubertal and postpubertal girls, examinations performed within seven
days of sexual abuse revealed a greater likelihood of genital signs of abuse. We
should not make more of these studies than what they are: considerations of
whether an examiner can determine, through physical inspection, whether a
woman has had previous penile-vaginal intercourse, and not whether virginity
can be determined, since such a reading of these studies would assume a partic-
ular meaning of virginity.
235
25. See, for example, Wassen’s discussion of the implications of these texts for the
status of women as witnesses in the Damascus Document community; Women
in the Damascus Document, pp. 87–88.
26. The lone exception to this exclusively male action is in v. 15, when the girl’s father
and mother shall produce the evidence of the girl’s virginity. Perhaps the appear-
ance of the silent mother here reflects cultural norms in which the mother of
the bride takes possession of bloody sheets. See, for example, Patai, Sex and
Family, p. 61.
27. Indeed, while 4Q271 3 makes mention of the Examiner, in 4Q159 2–4, the use
of passive voice allows for the omission of male judges as well as minimizing of
the role of the groom.
28. Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, pp. 83–84.
29. For a general introduction to the work, see Strack and Stemberger, Introduction
to the Talmud and Midrash, pp. 270–273. On the general category of tannaitic
midrash (or, as it is called there, “halakhic” midrash), see there pp. 247–276.
30. SD (#240) also appears to transform the biblical pericope by limiting it to a case
of premarital infidelity, that is, a case in which the bride engaged in sexual rela-
tions prior to marriage, but after her engagement, which, by the standards of
Rabbinic law, is considered adultery. See chapter 2, n. 31, and esp. nn. 35–37.
However, Halbertal points out that this midrash is in fact copied from Sifra,
and that it assumes, rather than proves, that Deuteronomy 22 deals with an
engaged woman (Interpretive Revolutions, p. 86, n. 27). In any event, since my
interest is the means of verifying female virginity in these texts, this difference
is actually relatively unimportant, though see chapter 4, n. 11, on Halbertal’s use
of this interpretation in tandem with the move from physical sheets to oral tes-
timony, and later in this section, on the importance of appreciating this shift to
understanding how SD #237 and the first chapter of Mishnah Ketubot can coex-
ist in the same legal-cultural universe. Virginity in this passage in SD becomes
equivalent to premarital sexual fidelity, and the verification of the former thus
the standard for judging the latter. But see below, where I address the way in
which SD’s verification of virginity is also a specific response to the rereading of
Deuteronomy 22 as discussing post-engagement infidelity, rather than premari-
tal unchastity.
31. Citations are based on the transcription of ms. Vatican 32 located at http://www.
biu.ac.il/js/tannaim/sifrei/Sifre%20Dev%20Vatican.pdf.
32. Most of the other manuscripts have here Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaakov (ms. Berlin
actually as Akiva b. Yaakov, an obvious mistake), rather than Rabbi Eliezer,
though the first printing also has “Rabbi Eliezer.” But see Halbertal, Interpretive
Revolutions, p. 88, n. 30, as well as p. 90, on the reading of Rabbi Eliezer b. Yaakov
as the likely result of textual emendation to be in line with the version of the
midrash that appears in the Bavli. Note that Finkelstein, in his edition, lists ms.
London as also having the reading “Rabbi Eliezer” (Sifre ‘al sefer Devarim, p. 270),
236
but this appears to me to be a mistake (transcription of this manuscript available

at http://www.biu.ac.il/js/tannaim/sifrei/Sifrei%20Bam%20Dev%20London.
pdf).
33. In the Oxford manuscript, the order of this passage is reversed, with lines C–F
appearing first, then followed by lines A–B, the latter being introduced with the
technical phrase “another interpretation” (davar aher). The London manuscript
is similar, though there the restatement of Rabbi Ishmael’s midrash is left out,
and it moves immediately into line A (presumably the result of dittography). In
Berlin, lines C–F do not appear at all. This led Finkelstein to view lines C–F as an
interpolation (Sifre ‘al sefer Devarim, p. 269, comment to line 9). In any event, the
passage, which also appears in the Mekhilta deRabbi Ishmael (Tractate Nezikin,
#6 and #13) is clearly tannaitic.
34. Halbertal, Interpretive Revolutions, pp. 89–91.
35. The move to witnesses is also tied to Rabbinic interpretation of the bloody sheets
pericope as discussing specifically the case of a woman accused of sexual rela-
tions following betrothal but before the wedding night; see Halbertal, Interpretive
Revolutions, pp. 88–91, esp. p. 88. See also my discussion in the next paragraph.
36. See Gilat, R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, pp. 23–67, on Rabbi Eliezer’s connection to
“ancient tradition,” as well as pp. 68–82 on his general tendency to read verses
contextually rather than midrashically. More recently, see Noam, “Traces of
Sectarian Halakhah.” For a different view, see the references to Neusner, Eliezer
ben Hyrcanus, cited in Noam’s article at p. 69, nn. 4–5.
37. The Mishnah there is technically discussing a different topic—the value of a
woman’s ketubah price, rather than her guilt or innocence against a charge of
adultery—but for my purposes that is largely irrelevant. See the continued dis-
cussion here, as well as my discussion in chapter 5 at n. 33.
38. This interpretation appears explicitly in SD #240. See Halbertal’s discussion of
this interpretation in Interpretive Revolutions, pp. 85–87, as well as Joshua Kulp,
“Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” pp. 36–37.
39. See my discussion of this difficulty, and especially my citations of Rofé, in
chapter 2, as well as earlier in this chapter, n. 30.
40. See Kulp’s very clear explanation of this oft-overlooked point in “Go Enjoy Your
Acquisition,” pp. 37–38.
41. Halbertal actually briefly mentions this distrust of forensic evidence, especially
in capital cases, as well, at Interpretive Revolutions, p. 88.
42. Halberstam, Law and Truth, p. 91. Halberstam helpfully points out as well that
this refusal to consider physical evidence is at odds with Roman law (ibid. and
p. 196, n. 34).
43. tSan 12:3, paralleled at Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, Nezikin #6, and discussed by
Halberstam, Law and Truth, pp. 91–96.
44. Halberstam, Law and Truth, p. 94. For one possible explanation of this Rabbinic
preference for verbal testimony as evidence, to the exclusion of physical evi-
dence, see Halberstam’s suggestion at p. 96, as well as p. 197, n. 38.
237
45. pKet 3:4 (28c).

46. See also Halbertal’s similar discussion in Interpretive Revolutions, p. 87.
47. Shemesh also intriguingly argues that the view attributed to Rabbi Ishmael that
the garment is to be interpreted metaphorically is actually a third opinion in the
midrash, and that it is in fact an allusive way of discussing midwives’ examina-
tions (“4Q271.3,” pp. 255–258). This would effectively increase the number of
voices in SD arguing for standards of virginity based in the woman’s body and
support my argument here that these tannaitic authors are continuous with ear-
lier Jewish views of female virginity. Unfortunately, I find Shemesh’s argument
unconvincing. Shemesh translates the line nose’in venotenin besitrei hadavar in
the parallel line in Midrash Tannaim as “they examine the intimate details,”
which is critical to his argument; a more accurate translation would be “they
discuss the hidden things of the matter,” which sounds much more like testi-
mony and discussion than a physical examination. Furthermore, his assump-
tion that Rabbi Ishmael’s opinion is in opposition to that of Rabbi Akiva is far
from obvious; the two lines may simply reflect different exegetical approaches
that nonetheless lead to a shared legal conclusion. See also Kulp’s discussion
of Shemesh’s suggestion at Critical Edition, p. 164, n. 18; and “Go Enjoy Your
Acquisition,” p. 52–53. My doubts regarding Shemesh’s reading of the mid-
rash, however, need not invalidate his other points there; see my comments in
chapter 5, n. 46.
48. For a summary of these debates, see Noam, Megillat Ta‘anit, esp. pp. 33–36.
49. Noam points out that nearly half of the material in the scholion appears in only
one tradition or the other (ibid., p. 23).
50. In the version of the scholion that combines the two versions (as well as in one
fragment from the Oxford tradition; Noam, Megillat Ta‘anit, p. 208), in lieu of
the phrase “an actual garment,” the more general comment “the words as they
are written” appears. This phrase is the same as that which appears in Rabbi
Eliezer’s mouth in SD above.
51. Noam, Megillat Ta‘anit, p. 79; my translation.
52. The identity of these “Baytusin” remains somewhat disputed; for one compelling
argument that they should be associated with the Essenes of Second Temple lit-
erature, see Sussman, “History of Halakhah,” pp. 40–60.
53. Kister actually points to 4Q159 2–4 as support for the view of the Baytusin here
being an actual Second Temple interpretation. See Kister, “Studies in 4QMiqsat,”
pp. 332–333, n. 69.
54. Though see Noam, Megillat Ta‘anit, pp. 369–370, who argues that Babylonian
amoraic sages seem to have known both the earlier scroll and the later scholion.
55. See, for example, Schiffman, “Laws Pertaining to Women and Sexuality,” p. 567,
who writes that “this text cannot stand as direct evidence for early Jewish sec-
tarianism. The text in the Sifre leads us to believe that a tannaitic argument has
been adapted into a Pharisee/Sadducee conflict, simply because it concerns
the question of how literally to take the Torah’s text,” and similarly at “Laws
238
Pertaining to Women in the Temple Scroll,” p. 221, n. 57. However, Schiffman

follows the printed editions of SD in reading the author of the literal view as
being Rabbi Eliezer b. Jacob; following the reading of the better manuscripts
as “Rabbi Eliezer” suggests to me, following Gilat’s appraisal of Rabbi Eliezer
b. Hyrcanus, that SD may indeed be capturing something ancient rather than
the scholion here retrojecting a Rabbinic debate into earlier times.
56. In Rabbinic Hebrew, the letter nun and the letter mem are often interchangeable,
as evidenced by the appearance of the forms betulim and betulin. Where I am
transcribing a Rabbinic text, I follow whatever appears in the manuscript from
which I am transcribing; where I use the word in my own writing, I will refer to
betulim, but the reader should treat these as identical.
57. pKet 1:2/25b; and pKet 1:3/25b. All citations from the Palestinian Talmud are
based on the Venice printing of the Talmud. On my use of the word “hymen” in
this sentence and throughout this chapter, see below, n. 60.
58. pKet 1:1 (24d–25a).
59. pKet 1:1 (25a). Note the similar but even more disturbing story at bShab 63b.
60. The use of the word betulim in reference to a time prior to the wedding night, as
in this case, where the accused woman refers to losing her concrete, physical bet-
ulim while still in her father’s house, sounds much more like common modern
ideas about the existence of the hymen as a specific and specialized organ. See
my discussion of the culturally specific construction of the hymen in the intro-
duction, as well as my treatment in c hapter 7 of the passage from the Babylonian
Talmud that refers to the blood as “deposited,” waiting to be released on the wed-
ding night. This use appears with some frequency in amoraic texts, and I will
thus use words and phrases such as “hymen” and “hymenal rupture” with more
frequency with regard to the Palestinian Talmud than I did in previous texts.
61. pKet 1:1/25a. See also my analysis of this text and others relating to the troketei
in chapter 6.
62. I will consider a very similar moment in the Babylonian Talmud in chapter 6.
63. tKet 1:4; pKet 1:1 (25a); bKet 12a. For a summary of the variations (including varia-
tions among the various textual witnesses of the Tosefta itself), both of local phrases
as well as in the order of the material, see Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-feshutah, vol. 6,
pp. 193–194. I note here only variants that I have deemed relevant to my argument.
64. The first printing and the Vienna manuscript, the latter of which Lieberman
argued to be in general the more reliable of the two primary manuscripts, are
largely identical; I have chosen the first printing here over the Vienna manu-
script because the latter combines the first two clauses in a clear case of homeo-
teleuton. The other main manuscript, Erfurt, presents the first two clauses in the
opposite order of how they appear in the other two witnesses. Both the evidence
of the manuscripts and the parallel versions in other redacted works, as well as
the content of the material, suggest to me that the order in ms. Vienna and the
first printing is to be preferred.
239
6 5. Ms. Vienna has here “the huppah and the groom and the bride.”
66. Ms. Erfurt has “an hour” in lieu of “three days” here.
67. A fairly large tradition of scholarship has arisen over precisely this question. See,
for a small sampling: Ilan, “Premarital Cohabitation in Ancient Judea”; Satlow,
Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, p. 175; Katzoff, “On P. Yadin 37,” p. 140.
68. I believe the interest expressed in this baraita in blood as the standard marker
of virginity also finds manifestation in line B, which from the time of the
Babylonian Talmud until today has perplexed commentators. Clearly, the other
Judean practices described in the baraita are all stringencies imposed on grooms
and brides to increase the likelihood of “accurate” virginity tests. The seclusion
of bride and groom prior to the wedding, however, sounds to this diachroni-
cally diverse set of readers to describe a less than pious practice. This apparent
incongruity between laxity regarding premarital sex and stringency regarding
verifying virginity led the Babylonian Talmud to read the baraita as describ-
ing different practices in different places in Judea, an approach that remains
common among modern readers of the text. However, more likely is that line
B also is a “stringency” (in the sense of an additional requirement) intended
to increase the “accuracy” of this virginity test: it is an attempt to decrease the
chance of blood-free sheets due to the groom’s performance-anxiety-induced
impotence. Two factors in particular make such an interpretation of the baraita
likely correct: 1) The language used to describe the seclusion denotes an active
practice on the part of some outside authorities (“They would place [them]
together in seclusion”) rather than a popular practice frowned upon by Rabbinic
or (or other local Judean) authorities. 2) The reason for this seemingly strange
practice is stated explicitly—so that he will be familiar with her! The clear intent
is that the authorities who encourage this practice are hoping for a “successful”
wedding night, defined as penetrative vaginal intercourse that results in blood.
In this way, line B is totally consistent with the remainder of the baraita. To
my knowledge, the only commentator who reads the text in this way is Hirsch
Mendel Pineles (Darkah shel torah, p. 48), and I am thoroughly convinced by his
interpretation of the meaning of line B (though certain details of the remain-
der of his interpretation, influenced by the Babylonian Talmud’s interpretation,
reflect his largely precritical approach).
69. I have translated here in accordance with the interpretation of the Korban
Haedah, which follows the reading of the passage found in the commentary
of the Ritba to bKet 9a, s.v. “amar.” The Leiden manuscript, however, has
here pishpesh lo’ pishpesh, which is very difficult to translate. See Penei Moshe,
who reads it as a rhetorical question with an emphatic verb: “Did he not
inspect?”
70. pKet 1:1 (25a).
71. mKet 1:3.
72. pKet 1:3 (25b).
240
73. Earlier in the passage, the Yerushalmi cites a view (paralleled in the Tosefta) that
defines the age at which one goes from being a “minor” to an “adult” for these
purposes as being three for girls and nine for boys.
74. See, for example, bZev 65b, bHul 9a, bHul 21a, bHul 28a, bHul 45a, and bHul
53b–54a. The usage, it seems to me, is far more common in the Babylonian
Talmud than in the Yerushalmi (though for an example from the Palestinian
Talmud, see pBer 9:3 [14a]).
75. See the awkwardness with which Jastrow tries to explain this use of the Hebrew
siman as nonetheless a sign of something else; Dictionary, p. 981.
76. The phrase appears only a handful of times in classical Rabbinic texts: in addi-
tion to here, tYev 11:10, bYev 68a (citing the toseftan passage), bKid 19a, and
bSan 69b. In all of these cases, the phrase clearly means that the boy’s act of
penetration is legally efficacious; why that is so, however, is left unstated.
77. The Yerushalmi indeed goes on here, in a passage that I am not analyzing, to
consider the relevance of these concerns to the prohibitions of Leviticus 21; for
one analysis of that passage, see Kanarek, Biblical Narrative, pp. 92–95. I am not
suggesting that even Rabbi Yose b. Rabbi Abin would hold the view, implicitly
rejected in that passage, that a woman who gave birth to a child fathered by a boy
younger than nine would be allowed to marry a high priest. Rather, my intent in
this framing is to highlight the different kinds of concerns that motivate virgin-
ity testing in various texts and note the places where certain authors overlap and
where they disagree.
78. ms. Leiden has betuleihen.
79. tKet 1:3. Sources about the bogeret and virginity claims often use language imply-
ing that a bogeret is presumed not to bleed following initial penetrative inter-
course, but this is likely rhetorical. The inclusion of the bogeret with the mentally
incapacitated (shotah) and a bride who was born deaf in the list of women not
subject to virginity claims (tKet 1:3) makes clear that we are dealing not with a
presumption that there will be no postcoital bleeding, but rather with a lack of
presumption that there will be. In the case of the shotah and the bride born deaf,
there is no particular reason to assume that they have previously had sexual
relations or for some other reason will not produce the “evidence” of “virginity”;
rather, their mental or physical state simply makes it impossible for them to ver-
ify their sexual status.
80. It is worth considering whether this baraita somehow is a part of a broader
Rabbinic-Christian debate about the virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and
whether that virginity, defined physically, continued even beyond the birth of
Jesus, and the anxiety that Mary’s virginity often induced for early Christian read-
ers. My own sense is that there is not strong evidence to suggest that this particu-
lar text is part of a broader Marian discourse, both because nothing in the context
implies such a reading, and because interest in Mary’s physical virginity, includ-
ing following her labor and delivery, is not a significant element of Palestinian
241
Christian writings from this time. See my article “Sexual Serpents” for a treat-
ment of Rabbinic interest in Mary and her virginity, as well as Himmelfarb,
“The Mother of the Messiah,” on the rise in Marian devotion in Palestine only
following the close of the Yerushalmi.
81. This notion is common throughout the Babylonian Talmud, especially in trac-
tates from the Order of Nashim. One particularly relevant example (but which
also hints at the other possibility, i.e., that anal and vaginal intercourse are not
equivalent for the purposes of asserting virginity) appears at bKet 46a. These
two kinds of sex are often equated in tannaitic and Palestinian amoraic sources
as well, but in Palestinian texts the cases are generally limited to cases of forbid-
den or otherwise problematized intercourse, whereas the Babylonian Talmud
includes wedding-night relations as a case where anal sex is equated with vagi-
nal penetrative intercourse. Indeed, one example of Palestinian sources treating
anal sex as relevant for prohibited relations, but not necessarily for a woman’s
virginity status, is in Sifrei Devarim’s treatment of Deut. 22:13–21, which I must
again note assumes that the biblical pericope deals with premarital adultery
rather than simple premarital sexual relations; see Sifrei Devarim #235 and #239.
But this suggestion requires a more detailed analysis to be confirmed.
82. Fränkel leaves his own view in doubt; here, I consider what he implies.
83. For an introduction to this work, see Strack and Stemberger, Introduction to the
Talmud and Midrash, pp. 276–283, and esp. p. 279 on the ambiguity regarding
the relationship between Bereshit Rabbah and the Yerushalmi.
84. Note that BR abbreviates the mishnah, beginning with the words mukat ‘etz,
because it is not interested in the questions surrounding sexual activity where at
least one partner is sexually immature.
85. BR 60:16, translation based on text in Midrash Bereshit Rabbah, ed. Theodor and
Albeck. On this midrash, see Poorthuis, “Rebekah as a Virgin,” pp. 439–444. See
also Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, p. 123. Much of this midrash is closely
paralleled in the Yerushalmi, immediately following the passage that I discussed
in this chapter, though the legal context has been shifted from verification of
female virginity to the definition of which women are “fit” to marry priests and
high priests. For a useful synoptic presentation of this midrash and its parallel
in the Yerushalmi, see Teugels, Bible and Midrash, pp. 198–200, as well as her
comments on the relative priority of these parallels at p. 206. See also Kanarek,
Biblical Narrative, pp. 92–94. I have chosen not to analyze the Yerushalmi paral-
lel, as well as its own important parallels in Bavli Yevamot, since those passages
are, strictly speaking, not about the verification of virginity. That said, my sense
is that similar trends manifest themselves in those texts as in these.
86. Teugels, Bible and Midrash, p. 201.
87. See Teugels, Bible and Midrash, pp. 205–206.
88. See Kanarek, Biblical Narrative, p. 91.
89. To my knowledge, the phrase appears only here in classical Rabbinic literature.
24
90. See also the brief discussions of anal sex in this context at Sifrei Devarim #235
and #239; see above, n. 81.
91. Cyprian, Ep. 4.3.1–2. Latin text from CSEL 3.2.4, pp. 472–478; trans. Clarke,
Letters of St. Cyprian, vol. 1, pp. 57–61.
92. Though see Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 34, who reads “part” here as perhaps
referring to the will rather than some other body part. I will return to this phrase
in my more thorough consideration of Cyprian in chapter 8; see my discussion
there at n. 8.
93. To be explicit here, I am not arguing for some sort of influence between Reish
Lakish and Cyprian—not because I think it impossible, but simply because it
is not necessary to my argument here. Nor am I even committed to the more
general claim that Cyprian and Reish Lakish are part of a common cultural con-
text in which these ideas are likely to circulate, though to be sure, their shared
location in the third century under Roman rule (though in very different parts
of that Roman Empire) makes such a reading of these two passages at least
worth consideration. Here I am making a far more modest claim: that reading
Cyprian’s letter, with its similar topic and language but more explicit statement
of motivating concerns and assumptions, opens up ways of reading the typi-
cally laconic statement of the midrash. It is worth noting as well that Origen of
Alexandria—also close in time to Reish Lakish—writes similarly, and specifically
in the context of his own exegesis of the perceived redundancy in Gen. 24:16: “Is
there, indeed, another virgin whom a man has touched?” (Homilies on Genesis
and Exodus, GCS 29, 98, trans. Heine, p. 164). Origen, however, interprets the
two phrases (a virgin, and no man had known her) to refer to Rebecca’s physical
virginity (a virgin) and her spiritual purity (and no man had known her). See also
in Origen’s teacher, Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 4.25. See on this general
point Elizabeth A. Clark, Reading Renunciation, pp. 317–318. This difference in
interpretation between Origen, on the one hand, and Cyprian and Reish Lakish,
on the other, in some ways parallels and prefigures the split that I will describe
in chapters 6 and 8, with the Babylonian Rabbis transitioning from one model of
physical virginity to another model of physical virginity, while Christian authors
increasingly de-emphasize, at least rhetorically, physical virginity and glorify, in
its stead, spiritual virginity.
94. See Poorthuis, “Rebekah as a Virgin,” p. 444.
c h a p t er 4
1. Much has been written about Josephus’s use of and relation to the Hebrew
Bible. For one usefully concise introduction, see Rodgers, “Josephus’s Biblical
Interpretation.” Borgen’s “Philo—An Interpreter” provides a similarly useful,
brief introduction to Philo’s work as a biblical interpreter. On the possible influ-
ence of Philo on Josephus’s thought, see Rajak, The Jewish Dialogue with Greece,
243
pp. 199–200; and, for a more skeptical take, Schwartz, Josephus and Judean
Politics, p. 54, n. 120.
2. Trans. Feldman, Flavius Josephus, vol. 3, pp. 423–424.
3. Spec. leg. 3.80–82, trans. Colson, Philo, vol. 7, pp. 525–527.
4. On some of the important differences between Philo’s discussion and that of
Deuteronomy, see Belkin, Philo and the Oral Law, p. 268.
5. The evasion in both authors is noted already by Satlow, Jewish Marriage in
Antiquity, pp. 176 and 338, n. 93. Unlike Satlow, however, I do not think that this
omission, in and of itself, reveals to us that “it is likely that [inspection of sheets]
was not practiced in their communities,” since, as I will explain below, the omis-
sion may reflect evasion because of their intended audiences rather than these
authors’ opinions or the practices of their communities.
6. I do assume that these changes reflect intent on their part. On Josephus’s deliber-
ate use of his biblical sources, see Rodgers, “Josephus’s Biblical Interpretation,”
and esp. the sources cited at p. 437, n. 3. It is also worth noting that the Septuagint
does not gloss over the forensic nature of the proof of virginity, referencing both
parthenia (parallel to the Hebrew betulim) (vv. 14, 15, 17) and, most clearly, the
sheet (imation). Thus, the likely reliance of Philo on the LXX cannot explain the
evasion; rather, it reflects his own exegetical choices.
7. On the various audiences of the Jewish Antiquities, see the discussion and cita-
tions in Rodgers, “Josephus’s Biblical Interpretation,” pp. 453–455. In particular,
on Josephus’s tendency to omit “themes which might embarrass an enlightened
Greek readership,” see Ribary, “Josephus’ ‘Rewritten Bible,’ ” p. 235. For a gen-
eral consideration of reasons why Josephus adds or omits details in his retelling
of biblical passages, see Feldman, Studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible, pp. 539–
570. Feldman discusses Josephus’s retelling of biblical narrative, and although
our case provides an example of deviation in a legal pericope, I see no reason
why Feldman’s criteria there should not be applied to law as well.
8. Even though, as I noted above, Roman law made room for forensic evidence in
criminal law, that procedure likely would not have extended to evidence so eas-
ily falsified as bloody sheets. We have surprisingly little evidence for if and how
female virginity was tested in Roman law; see Caldwell, Roman Girlhood, p. 63.
9. Even if one wants to assume that Josephus made use of the Bible primarily
through Greek translations—contrary to the growing consensus that he used
a variety of versions of the Bible (Rodgers, “Josephus’s Biblical Interpretation,”
p. 440)—the LXX translates the relevant passage more or less literally.
10. Interestingly, Loader connects this Josephan passage to both 4Q159 3 and 4Q271
2–4, claiming that both “dropped” the bloody sheets of Deuteronomy 22 (Philo,
Josephus, and the Testaments, p. 324). My analysis of the Scrolls in chapter 3
shows the way in which this comparison is misleading, however. While it is true
that neither the Qumran texts nor Josephus mention blood as evidence of virgin-
ity, the physiological examinations in the Dead Sea Scrolls texts still represent a
24
closer cognate than the vague “evidence” in Josephus—though the latter can eas-
ily be construed to include the former. But Loader may well be right in linking
these two corpora based on a shared discomfort with the legal methods of Deut.
22:13–21.
11. Halbertal actually points to Josephus as possible evidence for his claim that
Rabbi Eliezer in Sifrei Devarim embodies an earlier legal tradition regarding the
bloody sheets pericope (Interpretive Revolutions, pp. 90–91). Halbertal, however,
requires several logical steps to make his claim, since Josephus does not in fact
weigh in explicitly on the question of whether the bloody sheets should be taken
literally or not. Rather, Halbertal argues that since Josephus reads Deuteronomy
22 as assuming a problem with any premarital sex on the part of the bride,
rather than it being specifically a case about premarital (postbetrothal) adul-
tery, and since bloody sheets can be effective only for proving the former but
not the latter, therefore Josephus and Rabbi Eliezer represent two exponents
of the same ancient tradition. This argument makes a number of unnecessary
assumptions. I believe my work in chapter 3 and here fleshes out and supports
Halbertal’s argument, but the case is not nearly as straightforward as Halbertal
implies. Attention to these details is important, because Halbertal there also
applies the same logic to reading the Philonic passage, suggesting that since
Philo also reads Deuteronomy 22 as being about premarital relations generally,
he too likely is glossing over awkward details rather than signaling a real change
in legal holding. As I will explain below, I think there is reason to question such
an interpretation of Philo.
12. See Patai, Sex and Family, p. 61.
13. See Feldman’s note in Josephus, Flavius Josephus, vol. 3, p. 424, n. 786, who
cites Gallant, “Josephus’s Expositions of Biblical Law,” p. 226, who suggests
that Josephus here incorporates the reference to kinsfolk in Lev. 25:48–49. This
explanation, however, does not address the omission of the mother. So too with
Loader’s brief treatment of this phenomenon, which simply notes that this
reflects “usual assumptions about guardianship of women” (Philo, Josephus, and
the Testaments, p. 324).
14. The question of Philo’s audience—both his actual audience and his intended
audience—is a sore spot in Philonic scholarship and has generated a wealth
of literature. I find Ellen Birnbaum’s approach the most compelling, namely,
recognizing that though Philo’s Allegorical Commentary assumes knowledge of
Hebrew Scripture and thus must be aimed at relatively well-affiliated Jews, the
Exposition of the Law—of which Spec. Leg. 3.80–82 is a part—may well have had
gentiles, exclusively or in part, as part of its intended audience. See Birnbaum,
Place of Judaism, pp. 17–21. For a selection of other takes on the question, both
those that agree with but slightly modify Birnbaum’s approach, as well those that
go in different directions, see Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity, p. 9, n. 30; and
Pearce, Land of the Body, p. 24, n. 141.
245
15. See also Spec. Leg. 3.74, where Philo writes of a young woman raped who “does
everything possible to keep her virginity intact and invulnerable” (trans. Colson,
Philo, vol. 7, p. 521). This too is physical, though the translation here of “intact”
may suggest more than necessary about Philo’s conceptions about female vir-
ginity, since the Greek apsauston could also be translated more generally as
“untouched.”
16. Philo, Spec. Leg. 1.105, trans. Colson, Philo, vol. 7, p. 160.
17. Philo, Spec. Leg. 1.105, trans. Colson, Philo, vol. 7, p. 161.
18. See Colson’s note, Philo, vol. 7, p. 160, n. b.
19. Ibid.
20. See introduction, n. 28.
21. Niehoff, “New Garments for Biblical Joseph,” pp. 40–41.
22. Contrast Philo’s interest in Joseph’s virginity with Josephus’s presentation of
this material (Antiquities 2.42–44), where the emphasis is on the problematic
nature of sexual relations with a married woman, rather than sexual relations in
general. See Feldman’s comments there (Flavius Josephus, vol. 3, p. 145, n. 147).
23. On the importance of this passage for Philo’s construction of Jewish identity,
see Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity, pp. 65–66; and “New Garments for Biblical
Joseph,” pp. 40–42.
24. Deuteronomy 23:18 (No Israelite woman shall be a cult prostitute [kedeshah], nor
shall any Israelite man be a cult prostitute), which Philo appears to be citing here,
makes no mention of the death penalty. See Niehoff, “New Garments for Biblical
Joseph,” p. 41. Perhaps Philo here conflates Deut. 23:18 with Exod. 22:18 (You
shall not tolerate [tehayyeh] a sorceress [mekhashefah]).
25. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon 5.20, trans. Winkler, Collected Ancient
Greek Novels, p. 244; see also 8.5, p. 271, as well as the protagonist’s plea in
the fragment of the earlier Hellenistic romance Ninus (trans. Sandy, Collected
Ancient Greek Novels, p. 806). For further discussion of this phenomenon in
Greek novels, and of the countercultural nature of this interest, see Goldhill,
Foucault’s Virginity, chapter 1, esp. p. 22. (Goldhill’s point is that male premar-
ital abstinence was exceedingly rare, but in the process he cites a number of
examples in literature that extol the practice.) Additionally, if we follow the tradi-
tional dating of Aseneth, that work too would offer a striking point of comparison
for Philo’s interest in male virginity, but see the introduction, n. 28 regarding my
hesitancy to do so.
26. Indeed, rather than highlighting Jewish distinctiveness, Philo may have been
working to portray Jewish religion in precisely such a way as would be viewed
positively by non-Egyptian Alexandrians, i.e., Romans and Jews, thus supporting
Niehoff’s argument in “New Garments for Biblical Joseph.”
27. See Loader, Philo, Josephus, and the Testaments, p. 61, who suggests that Philo’s
interest in premarital sexual relations stems from his belief that “the sole ground
for sexual intercourse” is procreation.
246
28. See Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 2 and chapter 4.

29. Indeed, virginity generally is an important theme in Philo, and it appears often
in his allegorical interpretations. Perhaps most relevant to my claims here, see
On the Cherubim 42–52, and Niehoff’s analysis in “Mother and Maiden,” pp.
434–443. See also On the Posterity of Cain and His Exile 132–134. I think it par-
ticularly difficult to assess what to make of Philo’s allegorical writings for his
thinking about lived virginity, and so I have not analyzed these passages in this
chapter, but I suspect that those with greater expertise in Philo will see those pas-
sages as being also of a piece with my treatment of passages from the Exposition
here.
30. On the dating of Matthew, see Albright and Mann, Matthew, p. clxxv; Brown,
Birth of the Messiah, p. 45.
31. Matt. 1:18–25.
32. I am thankful to Christine Hayes for pointing out this possible connection to me.
33. See discussion in chapter 3.
34. A variety of translations reflect this interpretive debate. See, for example,
Albright and Mann’s translation, which renders the Greek Joseph her husband,
being a man of character, and unwilling to shame her (p. 7); and Brown, who, by
contrast, translates it as Her husband Joseph was an upright man, but unwilling
to expose her to public disgrace (Birth of the Messiah, p. 122). Brown discusses
the interpretive possibilities at some length there, pp. 125–128. Related to the
question of how to translate kai here is a much more extensive interpretive
debate about the meaning of dikaios and its related forms in Matthew; for a
useful discussion of this debate, see Olender, “Righteousness in Matthew.”
35. Brown, Birth of the Messiah, p. 126; emphasis added. To be clear: Brown argues,
in my opinion compellingly, for understanding the word kai here as an adver-
sative, and here is explicating an interpretation that he does not endorse. My
point here is simply that even interpretations that render it as and assume
some other, more stringent (and perhaps sinister) outcome in the background.
36. Perhaps Deuteronomy is alluded to as well in the relatively unusual word deigma-
tisai, translated above as expose her to public disgrace. Though context reasonably
leads to the understanding above, the word also carries a meaning of “make trial
of, test,” and in the noun form deigmatismos can mean “public inspection, ver-
ification” (LSJ; though note that many manuscripts of the Gospel have instead
paradeigmatisai). These connotations bring to mind the public inspection and
testing of the accused bride in Deut. 22. See also Brown, Birth of the Messiah, p.
128, who points to the strongly public element implied by the word and its spe-
cific connection to adultery in Greek texts.
37. In both cases, the Greek preposition is the same (ek).
247
c h a p t er 5
1. In this chapter, I begin to write more regularly of distinctively “Jewish” and

“Christian” works and the differences between them vis-à-vis virginity testing.
The words “Jewish” and “Christian” in antiquity are of course highly loaded,
and I certainly do not mean to lump together, for example, works as diverse
as Deuteronomy, Sifrei Devarim, and everything in between as part of one uni-
form and continuous tradition, a move that would be both anachronistic and
deleterious to my analytical goals in this study. To some extent, I use “Jewish”
in this chapter only to differentiate from “Christian,” a distinguishing that, in
the second and third centuries, is itself a delicate dance to perform, since, as
I will argue in this very chapter, an unambiguously Christian work such as the
Protevangelium of James can also be (at least ambiguously) Jewish. I nonetheless
use the problematic terms “Jewish” and “Christian” to avoid a host of infelicities,
but the reader should understand these terms to mean “non-Christ believing
Jewish” and “gentile or Jewish Christ-believers” respectively, unless I note spe-
cifically otherwise. On the impossibility of differentiating precisely and without
fuzziness between Jewish and Christian in late antiquity, see, most prominently,
Boyarin, Border Lines, though the literature on this topic is quite extensive. See,
for another good starting point, Becker and Reed, eds., Ways that Never Parted,
esp. their introduction, pp. 1–34.
2. See two important works that do read PJ and the Mishnah together: Horner,
“Jewish Aspects”; and Vuong, Gender and Purity.
3. For a summary of research, see Vuong, Gender and Purity, pp. 32–40, as well as
Vuong’s assessment that, for all the debate, a dating to the late second or early
third century is something of a “general consensus,” a view that Vuong’s own
research supports (ibid., p. 39, as well as chapter 5); so too J. K. Elliott, Apocryphal
New Testament, p. 49; Hock, Infancy Gospels, pp. 11–12.
4. Vuong, Gender and Purity, esp. pp. 194–195, 213–223, 236–239. For a summary
of earlier research on the work’s provenance, see ibid., pp. 40–44. Even if one
rejects Vuong’s arguments, all would agree that the work was significant in
Syrian Christianity early in its history; see ibid., pp. 9–11.
5. On the points of connection between PJ and Rabbinic texts, see the works cited
in n. 2. For a general survey of the debate about the Jewishness—or not—of PJ,
see Vuong, Gender and Purity, pp. 44–51.
6. Horner, “Jewish Aspects,” pp. 328–329.
7. Naomi Seidman, somewhat hyperbolically, refers to it as “surely one of the most
astonishing passages in religious literature” (Faithful Renderings, p. 67).
8. Foskett, Virgin Conceived, p. 20.
9. Vuong, Gender and Purity, pp. 165–166 and 171–190, and in particular p. 189.
10. See Zervos, “Christmas with Salome,” p. 79.
248
11. I take my translations and verse divisions from Hock, The Infancy Gospels.
Vuong points out that Hock’s translation tends to prefer colloquial English over
word-for-word literalism (Gender and Purity, p. 8), but for my purposes here, the
differences between Hock’s translation and a more literal one are generally not
significant, and I will note the one place where, for purposes of my argument,
I replace his translation with a more literal one.
12. Vuong points out that both the first and second tests are as much accusations
of Joseph as they are of Mary (Gender and Purity, p. 172). In a sense, this only
highlights the third test, which is the only one that is uniquely focused on Mary’s
virginity. But in any event, all three tests examine Mary (even if the first two also
call Joseph’s probity into question), thus creating the narrative arc around the
theme of Mary’s virginity.
13. I have already noted the striking similarity to the drink test of Numbers 5, but
see also Hock, Infancy Gospels, p. 61, commenting on this verse, who directs our
attention as well to the similar test in the Greek novel Leucippe and Clitophon.
14. Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 64; see also pp. 7, 13–14, where Kelly highlights the
public aspect of the ordeal, which is so clearly an aspect of this scene in PJ. Kelly
actually cites the bitter waters passage from Num. 5:11–31 as her first example
of an ordeal (ibid., p. 63) and describes a late medieval play that, clearly based on
the description in PJ, has Mary and Joseph both drinking water in a test of their
mutual chastity (ibid., p. 163, n. 1).
15. Foskett points out that the text describes Mary’s returning from the drinking of the
waters in the wilderness as “intact” (holokleros) in 16.5, perhaps hinting at an ele-
ment of physical virginity here as well (Virgin Conceived, p. 155). However, it is worth
noting that the very same word is applied to Joseph in 16.4 following his drinking
of the water, thus suggesting that a translation such as that of Elliott (“whole”) or
Hock (“unharmed”) is more appropriate. Still, it is interesting at least that the same
word appears in Leucippe and Clitophon in a similar sort of context, and there the
double entendre likely is intended; see Foskett, Virgin Conceived, p. 86.
16. Here I have replaced Hock’s “into Mary” with the more literal “into her genita-
lia.” On the translation of the Greek physis as “genitalia,” see Winkler, Constraints
of Desire, pp. 217–220, who notes that this usage appears primarily in “quasi-
technical writers: physicians, pharmacists, veterinarians, farmers, omen-readers,
dream-interpreters and the like” (p. 217). Given the medicalized nature of this
scene, such a meaning is particularly likely. See also Foskett, Virgin Conceived,
pp. 159, 186 n. 82; and Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, p. 116.
17. In addition to Salome in PJ, physiological exams to verify virginity appear in a
variety of Christian authors, as I will describe in c hapter 8, and then continue
to appear throughout later history, as, for example, most famously in the case of
Joan of Arc. See the epilogue.
18. To be clear, I am also not intending to suggest here that PJ was directly influ-
enced by the Qumran texts that mention vaginal examinations. Though I see no
249
reason to dismiss that possibility, I also think it equally likely that the author of
a work such as PJ, reading Deuteronomy 22 just as the authors of the Qumran
texts would have been, and dealing with the same sorts of interpretive and legal
questions, would come to the same conclusion as that author and introduce, as
a cognate for the biblical bloody sheets, a vaginal examination. Once again, this
sort of question of direct influence or not is a distraction; more important is rec-
ognizing the Qumran works and a text such as PJ as part of a shared community
of readers of Deuteronomy 22.
19. As already pointed out by Vuong, Gender and Purity, p. 190.
20. Consider, for example, the architecture of the Jerusalem Temple, the concen-
tric circles of which extend from areas open only to priests, to those open to
all Israelite males, and finally to the “ezrat nashim,” the area in which “even”
women were permitted. PJ presents a similar sort of widening, from the central
Joseph, to the priests in the Temple and the potential onlookers, to the women,
the midwife and Salome, present for this final test.
21. See n. 16.
22. On this interest in “virginity” as something tied not only to sexual experience,
but also to childbirth, see Lillis, “Paradox in Partu.”
23. In this sense, the Salome scene is similar to what I described in discussions in
the Palestinian Talmud in chapter 3.
24. See the statement of Walter Bauer cited in van der Horst, “Sex, Birth, Purity,”
pp. 64–65.
25. Knibb, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2, p. 175.
26. See Plumpe, “Some Little-Known,” p. 574; Hannah, “Ascension of Isaiah,”
p. 192; Vuong, Gender and Purity, p. 42, and see as well there n. 45. For a more
skeptical view, see Hunter, Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy, pp. 173.
27. Vuong, Gender and Purity, pp. 218–221.
28. Meltzer, For Fear of the Fire, p. 71.
29. Seidman, Faithful Renderings, pp. 67–68.
30. Foskett, A Virgin Conceived, p. 159. See also Glancy’s treatment of this passage in
Corporal Knowledge, pp. 116–117.
31. Kelly, Performing Virginity; Goldhill, Foucault’s Virginity.
32. Both the work as a whole and its component paragraphs (i.e., the subdivisions of
each of its chapters) are called mishnah. Following common convention, where
referring to the work as a whole, I capitalize the word (“Mishnah”), while when
referring to an individual paragraph I leave the word uncapitalized (“mishnah,”
plural “mishnayot”).
33. In fact, the Mishnah in the first chapter of Tractate Ketubot is in many ways quite
a departure from the biblical pericope, most notably in that it is concerned with
monetary consequences—namely, the value of a bride’s ketubah and her poten-
tial loss of that ketubah—rather than capital punishment, should the groom’s
claim be upheld in court, a point commonly missed by modern interpreters,
250
250 Notes to page 99
and which can lead to misleading conflations (see, for example, Satlow’s use
of Rabbinic texts regarding accusations in which only monetary consequences
are at stake as a contrast with Qumran texts, in which the bride’s life is at stake;
Jewish Marriage in Antiquity, p. 176). On this development, see c hapter 3, nn.
38 and 40, and the text at n. 40 as well. As noted there, Kulp clearly and con-
cisely describes this development in “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” pp. 37–38.
But given my project here of assessing how Rabbinic and other early Jewish
authors defined and tested virginity, and not primarily in considering what
consequences they attached to the violation of a cultural norm encouraging or
demanding a young woman’s maintenance of virginity until marriage, this dif-
ference need not distract us from the fundamental continuity the Mishnah dis-
plays with Deuteronomy 22 in its treatment of what constitutes evidence of a
bride’s virginity.
34. My translation is based on Albeck’s edition of the Mishnah; I note variants only
where I think they may be relevant to interpretation. I will point out below the
literary traits that mark these mishnayot as a distinct unit, but for now it is suf-
ficient to note simply that, beginning with mKet 1:6, the topic shifts from the
value of the ketubah and the relevance of accusations about the bride’s sexual
status to the proper adjudication of disputes between a bride and a groom over
that status. Of course, these two topics are intimately related—there is a reason
they are juxtaposed by the text’s editor—but they are distinct.
35. The days referred to here are “Jewish” days, that is, days counted from the
end of the Sabbath and beginning with sunset and ending with the following
sunset. Thus, “the fourth day” is equivalent to Tuesday night up until (but not
including) Wednesday night, while “the fifth day” means Wednesday night until
Thursday night.
36. Ms. Kaufman vocalizes the word here as “pe‘amim,” which would have a more
general meaning of “times” rather than “twice.” Context makes clear, however,
that the meaning is twice a week.
37. Heb: mashkim, which has a related meaning—very likely the correct one here—
of “to rise early,” i.e., to get up first thing in the morning.
38. To ease reference to the two different cases in this mishnah in my analysis below,
I have labeled them (a) and (b), and will refer to them as 1:2a and 1:2b. But this
differentiation does not reflect any numbering in Albeck’s edition.
39. This category refers to a woman whose husband died without offspring, who as
a result automatically has a legal connection to her deceased husband’s brother.
The brother, according to Deut. 25:5–10, may either consummate the relation-
ship and attempt to produce offspring in the deceased husband’s name, or reject
the widow through an act known as halitzah, based on the Hebrew for the act of
removing the shoe (see there in Deuteronomy). The laws of levirate marriage,
as it is known in English, have their own tractate (Yevamot); for one scholarly
251
treatment, see Weisberg, Levirate Marriage. For my purposes in this analysis,

halitzah is essentially a form of divorce.
40. According to Rabbinic law, the freeing of a gentile slave, male or female, is essen-
tially an act of conversion. As with halitzah and divorce (see previous note), for
my purposes conversion and emancipation are essentially synonymous.
41. This is not the place to consider in any depth this deeply disturbing case other
than to take note of its repugnance, regardless of whether it was a primarily
theoretical case or something that occurred with relative frequency. On the
marriage of minors in the Roman Empire generally, see Hopkins, “The Age
of Roman Girls at Marriage”; Shaw, “The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage”; the
literature cited in Hanson, “The Medical Writers’ Woman,” p. 322, n. 65; and
esp. Caldwell, Roman Girlhood, in particular pp. 3–7 and c hapter 4. Even more
important, see Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, pp. 69–70, on the importance of
not allowing our theoretical conversations about texts and history to cause us to
ignore the real horror inherent in a text such as this. Although I will here engage
in precisely the kind of analysis that Plaskow warns us about, I hope that I do so
in a way that does not erase in whole or in part the experience, real or imagined,
of the female character in this text, and that is, I hope, ultimately in service of a
feminist agenda.
42. An array of Rabbinic sources as well as scholarly accounts discuss the allegedly
uniquely Judean practice of brides and grooms, following the legal engagement
but prior to the wedding, being alone together so as to ease the trauma of the
wedding night (at least for the groom, but perhaps for the bride as well). See, for
example, tKet 1:4. But see pKet 1:5. See also my very partial treatment of this text,
and especially the reference to Pineles, Darkah shel torah, in chapter 3, n. 68.
43. Actually, the first paragraph here discusses the appropriate day of the week for a
wedding, not the value of the ketubah, a point to which I will return below.
44. For a useful analysis of the development of ketubah out of the biblical bride-
price, see Hauptman, Rereading the Rabbis, pp. 62–68.
45. And see tKet 1:3, which, regarding one specific example, makes explicit what
appears to be a generalized dependence of a 200-zuz ketubah on the groom’s
privileges regarding virginity claims: “the second husband cannot make a virgin-
ity claim, therefore [lefikhakh] her ketubah [imposes] on him only 100 zuz.”
46. See Shemesh, “4Q271.3,” pp. 258–259. If correct, this would of course be
another striking point of comparison between Mishnah Ketubot and PJ. But see
Kulp’s rejection of Shemesh’s interpretation: Critical Edition, p. 164, n. 18; and
“Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” pp. 52–53. Although in c hapter 3, n. 47, I also
rejected Shemesh’s related interpretation of a passage in Sifrei Devarim, my rea-
sons for doing so there had to do with the specific language of the midrash and
what I viewed as an overreading on Shemesh’s part. However, the intense inter-
est in immediate reporting of suspected premarital infidelity in the Mishnah
25
(as opposed to the text in Sifrei Devarim) may indeed mean what Shemesh has
suggested.
47. Wegner points to the use of categories in these mishnayot as evidence that “the
sages judge virginity not by direct examination of the girl herself, but by external
cultural criteria. ‘Virgin’ means any girl or woman conventionally presumed inno-
cent of sexual activity” (Chattel or Person, p. 22). However, this use of categories is
true only for the initial determination of the ketubah value; that determination is
based on, the structure of the Mishnah makes clear, Rabbinic assumptions about
whether virginity claims on the basis of bloody sheets are reasonable or not (see
Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 28–29). In other words, the authors of these mishnayot
make use of the categories as an expedient way of determining who is likely to
provide physical evidence of virginity and who is not; their interest remains,
however, that physical evidence.
48. Margalit describes a different way of marking off this unit as a literarily distinct
unit; see “Not by Her Mouth,” 71–73. See also Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 28–29,
who points out the superior literary craftsmanship of this passage of Mishnah in
comparison to its parallel in the Tosefta.
49. In truth, it is likely that the mention of the bet din in this mishnah is in fact a
later addition, and that an earlier form of the mishnah simply stated the days
on which couples should get married without providing a reason; see Albeck,
Shishah Sidrei Mishnah, vol. 3, p. 345; Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-feshutah, vol. 6, p.
185; Halivni, Sources and Traditions, pp. 129–131; Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 100–
105 (and the literature cited there at p. 100, n. 10), esp. p. 102, n. 21; and Brody,
Mishnah and Tosefta Studies, pp. 15–16. In light of my analysis here, it may be
that this particular explanation of the ruling—which was only one of several
possible explanations proffered in late tannaitic and early amoraic times—was
added into the mishnah precisely in order to create the inclusio that highlights
the borders of this unit.
50. I am thankful to my student, David Wynn Finkelstein, for first pointing out this
aspect of the structure to me. See also Margalit, “Not by Her Mouth,” 73.
51. Christine Hayes has suggested to me that perhaps these too are linked by the
suggestion of dependency—the minor boy or girl in 1:3a, and the implication
of a groom eating in his father-in-law’s house, since “reliance on” a parental
figure’s “table” is a common expression in Rabbinic literature for expressing
dependency.
52. In the case of the girl who was possibly raped prior to the age of three (1:2b),
the question is whether she has been the victim of a sexual assault that would
be considered “relevant” by males, but accepting those assumptions for the time
being simply for the sake of explicating the concerns and intents in these mish-
nayot, that is equivalent to previous penetrative intercourse.
53. Marcel Poorthuis compares Rabbi Meir’s view to Augustine’s differentiation
between integritas and sanctitas (“Rebekah as a Virgin,” p. 443). I think that that
253
bifurcation is in some ways a useful heuristic for talking about the innovative
thinking that lies behind Rabbi Meir’s ruling here, but we should not forget that
for Augustine, not only is the state of a woman’s body irrelevant to her status as
“virgin” or not, but even the question of sexual activity is not directly relevant,
since what matters for him is the state of a woman’s will and her consent—or
not—to sexual activity. From the fact that Rabbi Meir does not disagree regard-
ing the ruling in paragraph 1:4 about a woman freed from captivity—and thus
presumed to have been raped—after the age of three, the Augustinian parallel is
far from exact. See my discussion of Augustine in chapter 8.
54. Thus, though this is not made explicit in 1:3, I assume Rabbi Meir believes
that this is a unique case in which a woman is entitled to a 200-zuz ketubah,
but whose husband may not lodge a virginity complaint against her. On this
point, see Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 31–33. This incongruity—the unusual case
in which a ketubah of 200 zuz is not tied to the groom’s legal power to accuse—
reflects Rabbi Meir’s clear notion of female virginity that is divorced from the
woman’s physical state. Tellingly, the other case in this pericope in which we
do not see both halves of the literary formula linking the ketubah-price to the
groom’s power to make virginity claims is 1:5, where we are told that he may
not make virginity claims, but not told what the value of the bride’s ketubah is.
That mishnah actually represents a case in which the Rabbinic author/editors
are concerned that the bride on her wedding night is indeed not a virgin—in the
sense of previous sexual experience—but that her lack of virginity is irrelevant,
because the previous sexual experience occurred with the groom himself.
55. But see tKet 3:5, in which an anonymous voice rules that a man who rapes or
seduces a woman who is mukat ‘etz is not culpable to pay the additional fine (en
lahen kenas). Comparison to mKet 3:2 would suggest that this ruling implies that
such a woman is not treated as a betulah. But also note that the woman who is
mukat ‘etz in tKet 3:5 is included in a list that also comprises a deaf woman, a
mentally incapacitated woman, and a bogeret, all of whom are deemed entitled to
a 200-zuz ketubah in the first chapter of the Tosefta.
56. tKet 1:2. Lieberman, consistent with his general approach to Mishnah-Tosefta
parallels, simply assumes that the toseftan version is a citation from the
Mishnah that was cut off prior to the conclusion of “the words of Rabbi Meir.
But the Sages say: a mukat ‘etz—her ketubah is 100” (Tosefta Ki-feshutah, vol.
6, p. 190). See Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 32, n. 25, on the shortcomings of this
approach. Note also that Teugels mistakenly describes the phenomenon in the
reverse, writing that Rabbi Meir’s view does not appear in the Tosefta; see Bible
and Midrash, p. 195, n. 3. However, only the view attributed to Rabbi Meir in the
Mishnah appears in the Tosefta; only (and significantly) the attribution to an
individual authority is absent. Teugels further claims there that the Palestinian
Talmud favors Rabbi Meir’s view because it comments on it while the view of
the Sages in the Palestinian Talmud is “left uncommented” (ibid., p. 195), but
254
though the Talmud there indeed explains Rabbi Meir’s view (an explanation
deemed necessary precisely because Rabbi Meir’s view is so surprising to the
Palestinian editors there), the passage indeed loops back to explain both Rabbi
Meir and the Sages in light of the explanation of Rabbi Meir. See my discussion
of the Palestinian pericope on this mishnah in c hapter 3.
57. Relevant to thinking about this question is the ongoing scholarly debate about
the relationship between the Mishnah and the Tosefta. Until relatively recently,
scholarship generally followed the traditional narrative in viewing the Tosefta
as a later work, commenting on the Mishnah. Increasingly, however, schol-
ars have suggested that the Mishnah, if not actually earlier than the Tosefta
in whole or in part, at least preserves earlier traditions of passages that also
found their way into the Tosefta. For two versions of the increasingly regnant
view, see Hauptman, Rereading the Mishnah, and Friedman, Tosefta Atiqta. See
also Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 29, where he applies Friedman’s methodology
specifically to these mishnayot and in particular to the case of mKet 1:3. Kulp
tentatively concludes (though he notes that this is fundamentally unprova-
ble) that this section of the Mishnah is indeed likely a reworking of the par-
allel material in the Tosefta, and that the inclusion of Rabbi Meir’s opinion
specifically at paragraph 1:3 and the relative lack of editorial intervention in
the Rabbi Meir material results from this view contradicting the general prin-
ciples implied by the surrounding material of paragraphs 1:2 and 1:4. I dif-
fer from Kulp’s interpretation only in viewing the editorial choice to include
this material here as resulting—intentionally or otherwise—in a highlighting
of this discordant legal holding (and thus all that it implies). See also Kulp,
Critical Edition, pp. 31–33.
58. For a summary of evidence for the early importance of PJ, see Elliott, J. K.
Apocryphal New Testament, p. 48.
59. Ephrem Syrus, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary, p. 327 (17.21). See also 2.6 and
21.21, cited in Reynolds, Gateway to Heaven, p. 79.
60. Hymns on Mary 5.2, trans. Brock, Bride of Light, p. 41 (#10).
61. On the Mother of God, trans. Hansbury, p. 19; Syriac from the edition of Bedjan,
S. Martyrii, p. 616.
62. Jacob of Serug, On the Mother of God, p. 20; Bedjan, S. Marytrii, p 617.
63. Jacob of Serug, On the Mother of God, p. 70; Bedjan, S. Martyrii, p. 667.
64. McVey, Ephrem the Syrian, p. 178. See also Hymns on Virginity 7.5, which per-
haps hints at physical changes in Mary’s body during labor (in ibid., p. 294, and
McVey’s note on the translation of the Syriac r-sh-m at n. 108) and again men-
tions birth pangs, though it is unclear to me if these are intended literally.
65. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, pp. 95, and 157, n. 62.
66. Brock, Bride of Light, p. 14.
67. As already noted by Brock, Bible in the Syriac Tradition, p. 85; and Bride of Light,
p. 146.
25
68. The translation and line divisions come from Brock, Bride of Light, pp. 147–160
(#47). Brock’s translation is based on his edition of one recension of the poem,
published in Luqoto, pp. 57–67. Another edition, based on a different recen-
sion, appears in Beck’s edition: Ephrem Syrus, Nachträge zu Ephrem Syrus.
I have unfortunately been unable to access Brock’s edition, and thus where
I cite the Syriac original, it is from Beck’s edition, which may explain some
differences, both minor and significant, between the English and Syriac. In
any event, the basic outlines of the story as it appears in this poem remain
the same, and I do not believe that my argument is affected by the different
recensions.
69. Fire in the context of the Annunciation is a significant theme in Syriac literature.
See Brock, Fire from Heaven, pp. 236–239. Brock points out that regarding Mary,
fire imagery is used specifically to denote the Word incarnate, as opposed to its
more common use in Syriac texts referring to the Holy Spirit (p. 238).
70. Vuong, Gender and Purity, p. 172.
71. On the soghitha form generally, see Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems,” pp. 31–
34; and Mary and Joseph, pp. 1–6, as well as the brief bibliography provided
there, p. 93.
72. Brock has published this particular soghitha in a number of works; my citations
of this poem are from his edition of the Syriac text and translation into English
in Mary and Joseph, pp. 32–47. The English translation also appears in Bride of
Light #42.
73. Brock, “Syriac Dialogue Poems,” pp. 35–36. On the possible though necessarily
speculative relationship between this poem and Homily 6 on the Theotokos,
attributed to Proclus, see ibid., p. 36.
74. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge, p. 117.
75. Strikingly, when in PJ Mary is asked by Joseph what has happened, she fails to
recall her visit from the angel, and this is thus another difference from PJ.
76. I have here deviated from Brock’s translation, replacing his more poetic phrase
“which has no voice” with the more literal “which does not speak.”
77. In the Syriac this is one continuous phrase, with the subject of the verb “testi-
fies” following rather than preceding the verb, thus making the parallel between
the two verses even more striking than the English translation implies.
78. Perhaps there is more going on here as well, since the Syriac kiyane also carries
a meaning of “penis” (Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, p. 213, s.v.
“kiyane”; and Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon, p. 619, s.v. “kiyane”) or “procreation”
(Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary, p. 213, s.v. “kiyane”). Indeed,
the meanings of kiyane and its ambiguity in this poem are strikingly similar
to the use of physis in PJ, which I discussed above; see n. 16, as well as the text
at n. 21.
79. Tellingly, the word for “witnesses” here is from the same root (s-h-d) as the word
for “testify” in the previous two arguments from her body.
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8 0. See n. 69 above regarding the significance of fire in Syriac literature.

81. Brock, Bible in the Syriac Tradition, pp. 83–84.
C h a p t er 6
1. Including, for these purposes, the Protevangelium of James.

2. As with Bavli passages throughout this book, I cite the passage based on the
Vilna printing as found in the Bar-Ilan Responsa Project CD, version 21+. With
regard to the relative stability of the text specifically in bKet, see Kulp, Critical
Edition, p. 1. A synopsis of the manuscripts of the Babylonian material covered
in this chapter appears in Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 50–63 (in the second set of
pagination).
3. Tosafot Ketubot 9b, s.v. “ne’eman” try to claim that Rabbi Eleazar can be read
as denying a bride her ketubah in such a case, but that is clearly not the most
straightforward meaning of this statement when read in its local context (as evi-
denced by Rashi’s explicit statement to the contrary [9a, s.v. “ne’eman”]), and
especially in light of the parallel but distinct language used by Samuel, which
I will present and discuss below. See also Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 192, n. 42.
While I agree with Kulp’s conclusion that the Rabbi Eleazar’s statement is not
intended—by “Rabbi Eleazar” or the pericope’s editors—to deprive the accused
bride of her ketubah, I think that Kulp, following the Ran on this passage, gives
too much weight to the language of ne’eman in the Babylonian casting of the
statement; even the Babylonian form of the claim makes explicit that the trust-
worthiness of the groom extends only so far as to forbid relations, but not to have
any financial implications. The subsequent discussion introducing mKid 3:10,
as I argue presently, makes this meaning perfectly clear. See also Kulp, Critical
Edition, pp. 198–199.
4. Of course, in this case, the consequences on the groom—ending the marriage—
also have consequences on the bride. What I mean by “not those that affect
primarily the bride” is that the point of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement (at least as
formulated in the Bavli) is that an accusing groom must always bear the conse-
quences of having his accusation taken seriously, even lacking evidence. But, by
contrast, a groom’s accusation with insufficient evidence cannot lead, in this sec-
tion of our pericope, to the reduction or withholding of the bride’s ketubah—the
negative consequence of which would be felt primarily by the accused, rather
than the accuser. I will explicate this further below.
5. I am skipping over a brief anonymous passage, paralleled in the Yerushalmi,
about the various doubts that could be invoked regarding whether the bride’s
premarital sexual activity—even if accepted as legally “true”—occurred following
betrothal and thus constituted an act of adultery. The passage is interesting vis-à-
vis the development of the pericope, but I do not believe that it affects the argu-
ment that I am making in this book generally, and in this chapter in particular.
257
6. Mss. Munich 95 and Munich 151 insert here “That he has made her into a forbid-
den item vis-à-vis himself?” This line is likely an example of a phrase from the
commentary of Rashi entering the text of the Talmud (see Rashi, s.v. “ne’eman”),
but it also is an accurate distillation of the meaning of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement
in its Babylonian context.
7. The clause providing the legal ruling (“she is permitted . . . but he is forbidden”)
displays some variation in the manuscripts, with the ruling about her some-
times placed first and then followed by the ruling about him (mss. Vatican 112,
Munich 151, Moscow/Gunzberg 1339, and the Pesaro and Venice printings,
as well as the Vilna printing from which I have copied the text here), and oth-
ers reversing the order (Munich 95 and Vatican 130). This is an easy change to
make, and I see no significance in it for my argument.
8. There are a number of variations, most of which are not significant, in this line
(though the existence of so many minor variations may indeed indicate some-
thing about the provenance of this line; see Friedman, “A Critical Study,” p. 306).
Perhaps notable for my purposes here is the variation in ms. Vatican 130, fol-
lowing the words “but here”: “Since he is a bachelor [panu’i], who would say that
he is sure?” The phrase “since he is a bachelor” presumably reflects the intro-
duction of an idea from the first of the six stories that follow this lengthy legal
pericope, which I will discuss below (see section “Beating the Accuser”).
9. bKet 9a.
10. See Rashi, s.v. “ne’eman.”
11. Though, of course, the case in Rabbi Eleazar’s statement leads inextricably to
consequences for the accused as well. See above, n. 4.
12. As Joshua Kulp pointed out to me in a personal communication, the Rabbinic
shift to read Deut. 22:13–21 as discussing specifically premarital adultery adds
an additional layer of doubt for our imagined groom, since he must also assert
that the premarital intercourse occurred following betrothal. But the implica-
tion of ambiguity regarding the bride’s status as “virginal” nonetheless remains
prominent. See the commentary of the Meiri on this passage.
13. The discussion that I am skipping over here considers the requirements to rule
a married woman guilty of adultery and is not specific to the case of premarital
unchastity (and indeed, is primarily not about that). For the sake of simplicity,
therefore, I have left it out of my discussion here.
14. Munich 95 and Vatican 487 have ta‘anat in place of ta‘anah; Vatican 112 seems
to have ta‘ anat damim, which likely simply reflects the greater ubiquity of blood
claims to “open door” claims in the Bavli.
15. bKet 9b.
16. It is often difficult, especially with sages from the time of Abaye and later, to
know where the sage’s statement ends and anonymous additions and commen-
tary begin. This ambiguity will become important later in my argument, when
I will claim that lines E and F postdate Abaye. On the problem in general and
258
criteria for determining, to the best of our ability, the parameters of such state-
ments, see Friedman, “A Critical Study.” In any event, here, Abaye’s statement
would be exceedingly opaque were it to include only the reference to mKet 1:1
(line A), since the connection between that mishnah and Rabbi Eleazar’s state-
ment is tenuous, to say the least. Therefore, at least some of the lines that follow
are necessary to make sense of his statement (though this does not rule out the
possibility that even lines B–D are an attempt by later editors to figure out and
make explicit what Abaye meant by referencing this particular mishnah). In any
event, for my purposes, it does not matter whether lines B–D were originally
part of Abaye’s statement, and I thus refer to them as the continuation of his
statement for ease of reference. What is important is that lines B–D are essen-
tial to making sense of Abaye’s statement, unlike lines E–F. See below (“Open
Doors: A Babylonian Invention”).
17. Thus, for example, Rashi (s.v. “ha’omer”). Modern scholars, to my knowledge
with only one exception, to be discussed below, all follow this interpretation. See,
for example, Ilan, Mine and Yours, p. 192; Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 181; and “Go
Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 49 (though see below, nn. 35 and 38); Valer, Women
and Womanhood, p. 32.
18. bKet 10a–b.
19. Valer (Women and Womanhood, p. 38) tries to claim that we can consider it a ser-
ies of seven stories, which would fit nicely with what many have written about
Rabbinic literature preferring groupings of seven (see, for example, Friedman,
“Some Structural Patterns,” pp. 398– 399; “A Critical Study,” pp. 315– 319;
Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, pp. 17 and 254), if we count the second possibil-
ity of Rabban Gamliel’s response in line H, but this seems to me to be a case
of finding nails because one has a hammer. The dominant refrain of “A certain
man came before . . .” in the series is what gives the unit its character and ties the
stories together literarily, and there are only six of that phrase to be found. Ilan
explicitly refers to this as a cycle of six stories (Mine and Yours, p. 198). Fonrobert
refers to the series as having five, or, if we count both versions of the second
story, six components (Menstrual Purity, pp. 59 and 240, n. 60, citing Valer in the
latter case), a numeration that I do not understand.
20. Regarding the name of this sage, I am deviating from the Vilna printing; see
below, n. 65.
21. See Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 233–235. Note that Kulp’s argument is based in
part on two different understandings of “angled” penetration in the Bavli, one of
which views this as a widespread, negative phenomenon and the other of which
(epitomized by Samuel’s bawdy claim about his own sexual exploits) presents it
as a sign of sexual skill. His argument implies a parallel phenomenon to what
I am describing in this chapter—the transformation of sexual gentleness from a
“failing” to a “skill.”
22. Valer, Women and Womanhood, p. 32.
259
23. Kulp, “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 49. Of course, if blood claims remain
legally relevant, then the bride or her family could produce bloodied sheets to
acquit her; this makes the absence of arguments based on blood to justify the
use of “open door” claims all the more surprising. On the question of whether an
“open door” claim trumps the absence or presence of bleeding, see below, n. 29.
24. See also Fonrobert’s astute citation and interpretation of Rashi (10a, s.v. “bemei-
zid”) that the word bemeizid, which appears in the second version of Rabban
Gamliel’s response to the groom, generally translated as “intentionally,” must in
context be about force, and not (merely) intentionality (Menstrual Purity, p. 241,
n. 66). Rabbi Elijah of Vilna (the “Vilna Gaon”) offers a similar reading in his
comment on the Shulhan Arukh, section Even Ha‘ezer, 66.6, when he interprets
the phrase “you did not penetrate gently” (lo ba‘alta benahat) in the Shulhan
Arukh as deriving from the second version of the story (“shema bemeizid”) (Biur
HaGra Even Ha‘ezer 66:4). Rashi’s previous comment (10a, s.v. “ika de’amrei”),
however, suggests a more typical understanding of the word bemeizid; these two
somewhat contradictory interpretations reflect the logical and literary discrepan-
cies that result from introducing force as a problematic aspect of male sexual
performance, as I will discuss below.
25. See n. 21; only the later version of the story discourages vigor in penetration.
Indeed, the earlier version makes exactly the opposite claim!
26. bNid 64b (see introduction, n. 3). Christine Hayes has pointed out to me that
Samuel’s interest in leaving no mark on the body of his sexual partner is an
interesting sort of parallel for the development in the Protevangelium of James of
the notion that Mary’s body remains unchanged even by childbirth, a juxtaposi-
tion I hope to consider more fully in a future project on Rabbinic interest in the
Virgin Mary.
27. We can also contrast Samuel’s statement with the opposite claim of Rav, also
cited in the introduction of this book, that a woman will “form a covenant only
with the one who makes her into a vessel.” In chapter 7, I will provide a case in
which Rav represents the older, more violent model of female virginity and male
sexuality, contrasted with Samuel’s “gentle male” model; Samuel’s and Rav’s
contrasting statements about the merit of transforming a bride’s body suggest
that they may more broadly represent two different models.
28. On the irony of this statement, see Septimus, “The Poetic Superstructure,” pp.
57–65. Note also the passage, claimed to be a baraita (though, to my knowledge,
with no parallel) in bBek 44b, that the phrase ba‘al gever mentioned in mBek 7:5
refers to a man whose penis is large, and that a penis is considered large when it
descends past a man’s knees (this last part follows Rashi’s interpretation; others,
such as Rambam, interpret differently).
29. I thus disagree with Kulp’s formulation that this talmudic pericope “expands
the relevance of the ‘open door’ claim in particular and the relevance of virgin-
ity in claims in general” (Critical Edition, p. 181), since, culturally, the invention
260
of and any increased emphasis on the “open door” claim necessarily leads to a
decrease in the cultural relevance of blood claims. The tension between these
two kinds of claims manifests itself as well in the medieval debate about whether
a groom could make an “open door” accusation even if he found evidence of his
bride’s postcoital bleeding. See, for example, Rashi, Ketubot 9a, s.v. “ha’omer,”
who states that the “open door” claim is relevant only when a blood claim is
impossible, e.g., where the nuptial sheets have been lost. Rashi’s comment here
implies that blood claims remain not only relevant, but the primary standard
of female virginity, even after the introduction of the “open door” claim (see
Hiddushei HaRitba, 9a, s.v. “ha’omer,” for a clear explication of the implications
of Rashi’s commentary here). Contrast Rashi’s view with, for example, that of
the Ramban, Hiddushei HaRamban, ad loc., s.v. “ha,” who states explicitly that
a groom could make an open door claim even if blood “was found,” thus effec-
tively defanging the power of blood. See Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 193, n. 47, for
a number of other medieval commentators who read the pericope similarly to
the Ramban. See also Kulp’s discussion of this topic generally (Ibid., pp. 193–
194). Kulp attributes Rashi’s interpretation to the Babylonian formulation of
Rabbi Eleazar’s statement, but, as Kulp himself points out (p. 193), it likely also
derives from the local context.
30. By referring to what Rabbi Eleazar “had . . . in mind,” I by no means intend to
suggest that we are dealing with the ongoing literary and legal development of
an idea originally uttered, in some form, by a particular third-century Palestinian
sage, whether named Rabbi Eleazar or otherwise. That level of detail in taking
attributions seriously simply cannot be supported. I do believe, however, that
through comparison of the statement in the Palestinian Talmud and the clear
parallel in the Bavli, as well as through careful attention to the literary strata
within the Bavli, we can speak meaningfully of the development of this idea, and
locate, even if only roughly, some of the points, chronological and geographical,
at which the meaning of this idea changed. But even if one wants to take a more
minimalist, documentary approach to texts (the approach introduced and cham-
pioned by Jacob Neusner; see the introduction), there remain important stylis-
tic differences between the Palestinian Talmud’s statement and the statement
found in the Bavli. My argument in this chapter and this book more generally
thus can still bear even a minimalist approach to attributions, with the minor
modification that what I am calling “late Babylonian” could be described only
as “Babylonian.” All of this notwithstanding, I will refer to “Rabbi Eleazar” and
“his” statement for ease of reference.
31. See, for example, pKet 1:1 (24d–25a). Note that the statement attributed to Rabbi
Kerispa that a postpubescent young woman (bogeret) is like an open barrel (keha-
vit petuhah) is compared to, among other things, the young woman whose betu-
lim were not “found” and who, when asked by Rabbi “where are they,” states in
her own defense that they “fell off” (nosherin). As I wrote in chapter 3, the clear
261
sense of the latter story is that the characters are talking about the physical “evi-
dence” of her virginity, i.e., the hymen, and it is this story that is presented as
relevant—without any distinction about the sort of claim made—to the discus-
sion of the young woman who is “like an open barrel.” What is more, this and
the other cases cited there are grouped together as sharing a common ruling
(namely, that even though the brides in those cases are entitled to their ketubah
payments, in all of those cases the marriage must be ended), which is derived
precisely from the statement of Rabbi Eleazar about an “open door.”
32. Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 189–193; and “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” pp. 48–50.
33. Perhaps the introduction of trustworthiness in the Bavli’s version has its roots in
the Palestinian Talmud’s statement that, since there are bodyguards (shoshbinin)
assigned to the groom and the bride with the purpose of discouraging Jewish
women from engaging in premarital sex (shelo’ yifretzu benot yisra’el bezimah),
the groom in a case where he makes an accusation should not be trustworthy
(lo’ yehei ne’eman) (pKet 1:1 [25a]). Though the Palestinian Talmud there simply
means that he is not even taken seriously enough for his accusation to initiate
court proceedings—as opposed to his not being trusted, for example, to deprive
the bride of her ketubah—one can easily see how this could be read as implying
a general assumption of trustworthiness when grooms make accusations about
brides’ virginity. See Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 208, 211.
34. Bamberger notes that Rabbi Eleazar’s ruling “doubly penalize[s]‌” the groom, who
must both divorce his wife and pay the ketubah (“Qetanah, Na‘arah, Bogereth,”
p. 288). In this sense, it actually represents a reversal of biblical punishment for
the groom who falsely accuses a bride, who indeed has to pay double (the biblical
equivalent of) the ketubah, but is now required to remain married to her (Deut.
22:19).
35. As will become clear, I very much disagree with Kulp’s reading into the

Palestinian Talmud the notion of the “open door” claim as something distinct
from a blood claim (see “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 49). One particularly
cutting proof, in my opinion, that Rabbi Eleazar does not intend to reference
a specific kind of virginity test appears at pKet 1:6 (25c). There, the Palestinian
editor(s) juxtapose Rabbi Eleazar’s statement with a proposed case in which a
bride claims that her groom found blood, but that the bloody sheet was lost.
The traditional commentators (see, for example, Korban Haedah on this passage)
must explain this juxtaposition as being a very general one—since Rabbi Eleazar
states that a couple must divorce wherever there is a “possibility of adultery,” his
ruling applies in the proposed case as well. A simpler reading, however, under-
stands the editors here as viewing any case where a groom believes his bride was
not to be a virgin to be one of “[finding] the door open.” On the difficulty that
this juxtaposition raised for commentators influenced by the Bavli, see Kulp,
Critical Edition, p. 195, n. 53, though again, Kulp does not take this evidence to
its logical conclusion, namely, that the phrase “open door” in the Palestinian
26
Talmud is a general term for virginity claims and not a specific kind of virginity
test. Note also the comment in the Penei Moshe (s.v. “sheneihen”) that in the case
of mKet 1:6 (“One who married a woman and did not find her virginity”), the
bride “concedes to his claim that he found an open door.” But there is no rea-
son to believe that the Palestinian Talmud understands this mishnah as being
limited specifically to what comes to be called an “open door” claim; rather, it
is a general accusation of premarital unchastity. See Kulp’s analysis of this very
difficult Palestinian passage (Critical Edition, pp. 194–196). Despite my disagree-
ment with Kulp on this key point, his analysis of the earlier, Palestinian version
of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement is otherwise a clear and accurate rendering of the
development and meaning of this idea, especially its development out of the tan-
naitic ruling that a woman who committed adultery becomes “forbidden” to her
husband (“Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 48, and see as well there n. 55). His
rendering of the “open door” as a specific kind of claim does not generally affect
the picture that he draws for us of the development of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement.
36. For my purposes, it is unimportant who—or when—this re-worker worked. That
said, in light of my larger argument in this chapter, it strikes me as almost cer-
tain that this reworking occurred sometime prior to the fourth amoraic genera-
tion, i.e., prior to the mid-fourth century.
37. Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 205.
38. Kulp cites Dünner, Hidushe ha-Ritsad, Ket 9b, s.v. “udeka,” who already argues
that lines E–F (as well as the very similar lines that follow Rav Joseph’s com-
ments on Samuel, which I will address below in this chapter) are later additions
to the original statements of Abaye (and Rav Joseph, respectively). His argu-
ment is predicated on the fact that Abaye and Rav Joseph are both introduced
to support the statements of Rabbi Eleazar and Samuel respectively, neither of
which has made any mention of a distinction between “open door” and “bloods”
claims. Although Kulp does not take him this way, it seems likely that Dünner
is signaling his own perception that the very distinction of an “open door” claim
as something distinct from blood-based accusations postdates Abaye, though to
be sure, he does not make such an argument explicitly. I would add to Dünner’s
argument the fact that one could read the pericope without lines E–F and still
have a coherent text. No legal holding would change as a result, and we would
have no less clarity. Kulp also picks up on the possible implications of Dünner’s
reconstruction for the meaning of the term “open door,” but in the end dismisses
them because “we have seen that no one mentioned this form of claim prior to
[Rabbi Eleazar]” (Critical Edition, p. 206), and “both talmuds and all subsequent
commentators and modern scholars accept that R. Elazar is concerned with a
claim which differs from ‘I did not find blood’ ” (“Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p.
49, n. 59). But rather than assume, as does Kulp, that Rabbi Eleazar introduces a
new standard for testing virginity, I think it is far more likely that he simply uses
an alternative locution for referring to virginity claims in general. And indeed,
263
the only texts that clearly contrast blood claims with “open door” accusations are
anonymous, Aramaic passages in the Bavli—clear markers of relatively late, edi-
torial activity. Indeed, even more clearly than does Dünner, Kulp argues convinc-
ingly that Abaye did not relate to any aspect of Rabbi Eleazar’s statement dealing
with such a distinction (Critical Edition, p. 206), which is not far at all from my
claim that middle-generation amoraic sages such as Abaye did not relate to it
because they knew not of it. Indeed, Kulp himself interprets the statement of
Rabbi Kerispa in the Palestinian Talmud that a bogeret is an “open barrel”—a
strikingly similar phrase to the “open door”—as referring to a lack of blood (“Go
Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 46). Note also that Kulp, like the traditional commen-
tators cited in n. 35, has to read the string of sources in the Palestinian Talmud,
each of which is read in light of the statement of Rabbi Eleazar, as making a
comparison based on shared legal consequences (required divorce, but no loss
of ketubah) despite different kinds of claims (Critical Edition, p. 191), as opposed
to the simpler reading that Rabbi Eleazar’s statement is in fact directly relevant
to each of these cases.
In fact, Kulp even locates the source of this distinction in another dis-
tinctly Babylonian, editorial passage, namely bKet 36a–b, in which an apparent
contradiction between mKet 3:8 about claims made against a bogeret and Rav’s
ruling from bNid 64b that a bogeret is “given” the first night is resolved by claim-
ing that one is speaking of a blood claim and the other about an “open door”
claim (Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 206). Kulp argues that this resolution, which is
anonymous and in Aramaic, served as a source for the idea of such a distinction,
which then was imported into our passage. But regardless of which passage we
view as the original location of such a distinction, these two clearly related pas-
sages simply highlight the decidedly late Babylonian character of “open door”
claims as something different from the more classical blood-based accusations.
39. On the unusual meaning of the word bemezid, which I have translated here as
“intentionally,” in this context, see above, n. 24.
40. I am thankful to Julia Watts Belser for encouraging me to take this metaphor
more seriously. See also Kulp’s comparison of this language to its biblical foun-
dation; Critical Edition, p. 233, n. 223.
41. I will consider this passage in depth in the next chapter.
42. On this phenomenon generally, see Friedman, “A Critical Study,” pp. 301–302.
On the use of language shifts as indicators of editorial activity in narratives
specifically, see the many examples in Kalmin, Migrating Tales, esp. pp. 15–20
and 23–29.
43. See Ritba, who cites a comment in the name of Tosafot, not present in our
editions of Tosafot, claiming that the angling here “is not actual angling, for
if it were, how could he say ‘You have pushed aside the door and the bolt’?”
(Hiddushei HaRitba, 10a, s.v. “shema”).
44. See above, n. 21.
264

46. There is one possible exception to this claim, namely, the story about a groom
who makes an accusation before Rav Nahman, which opens the story cycle to
be discussed below. If we take the attribution in that story seriously, then the
“open door” claim as a distinct kind of accusation should be dated earlier, to the
late second generation/early third generation of amoraic activity, though still
specifically in Babylonia. However, there are good reasons to view that story as
being a later construction and not actually representing the likely assumptions
of Babylonian Rabbis of the second amoraic generation. I will address this in
more detail below.
47. I have labeled the lines here beginning with “G,” so as to make clear that this pas-
sage follows immediately on the heels of the one presented and discussed above.
48. bKet 9b.
49. On the history of this section and its construction based on the earlier discussion
of Abaye, see Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 208–209. See also there, p. 192, where
Kulp convincingly suggests that Samuel’s statement here served as the source for
the Babylonian reformulation of Rabbi Eleazar’s ruling. One minor difference
between the two pericopae is that in this second version, Rav Joseph introduces
mKet 1:5 as a sort of objection to Samuel’s statement (“What does this teach us?
We have already learned it in a mishnah!”), while Abaye likely introduces the
mishnah in support of Rabbi Eleazar (“We have learned this in a mishnah”).
50. See Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 183.
51. bKet 10a.
52. Rava’s statement finds a parallel in a statement attributed to R. Illa at pKet 1:1
(25a). The specifics there are different (asking how a groom’s accusation could
ever be taken seriously in light of various local practices designed to weed out
premarital unchastity among young Jewish women), but the form is similar; the
expense and burden of wedding planning functions as enough of a deterrent to
grooms’ accusing vindictively that, at least to some extent (though much less so
in the Palestinian Talmud than in the Bavli), their accusations receive affirma-
tion from the Rabbinic court. See Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 211.
54. Valer, Women and Womanhood, pp. 41–45; Ilan, Mine and Yours, p. 192; Kulp,
Critical Edition, p. 181; Go Enjoy Your Acquisition, pp. 61–62.
55. My friend Ellie Ash, when studying this story in a course I taught in 2007 at
the National Havurah Committee Summer Institute, suggested that perhaps the
sage in this story is aware of the idea that cold water brings out protein stains
such as blood, which, at least anecdotally, is well known to modern women, but
is less so to men. Perhaps the sage here is wise precisely because he possesses
knowledge more commonly held by women.
56. See Salzberg, “Testing Virginity,” pp. 132–139, for an argument that, though dif-
ferent in focus, complements my claims here.
265
57. See Kulp, “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 58, n. 80, on the likely more correct
version in the manuscripts: “said to them.”
58. On the possible meanings of the word “Mevarkheta,” which was understood by
most classical commentators as referring to the name of a city, see Kulp, Critical
Edition, p. 231, n. 216. See also Sokoloff, Dictionary, p. 640, on the basis of which
I have translated the phrase. I have also translated the phrase as a question,
in accordance with the first interpretation in Tosafot (s.v. “mevarkheta”), i.e.,
that Rav Nahman’s statement is a rhetorical question; see Tosafot there for an
alternative.
59. Ilan translates this line as a question, concluding the attack begun in line
C: “Credible and yet lashed?” (Mine and Yours, p. 193). I have followed instead
the interpretation of Tosafot (s.v. “mevarkheta”), which emphasizes the Rabbinic
disapproval of the young man’s premarital sexual escapades.
60. See Jastrow, Dictionary, p. 155.
61. Medieval and early modern commentators hotly debate whether the latter reso-
lution assumes the former or rather stands independent of it. For a sampling of
these views, see the commentaries in Shitah Mekubetzet on the passage. See also
Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 232, and esp. nn. 217–219. For a briefer discussion of
this matter, see Kulp, “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 58, nn. 82–83.
62. In truth, we could also understand the phrase to be a general, nonspecific term
for a virginity accusation, as it meant in the two versions of Rabbi Eleazar’s state-
ment (i.e., as redacted in both Talmuds) prior to the late anonymous back and
forth on it in the Bavli, rather than as specifically referring to a claim based on
vaginal narrowness. But the latter possibility seems likely enough that I think it
worth addressing here.
63. See below, n. 65.
64. See also Valer, Women and Womanhood, p. 42, who reasonably contends that
the Rav Nahman story was appended at the beginning of the series in order to
highlight the contrast between Rav Nahman’s legal ruling and his verdict in
the story.
65. See Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 230–231, who argues compellingly based on man-
uscript evidence that stories 2–4 are meant to have the same figure judging in all
three cases, perhaps Rabban Gamliel, but more likely Rabban Gamliel b. Rabbi.
Because this difference is particularly relevant to my analysis below and to sim-
plify my discussion, I have deviated here from the text of the Vilna printing and
followed Kulp’s preferred manuscripts in my transcription here. An abbreviated
version of this discussion appears in English at “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,”
p. 58, n. 84.
66. See, for one typical example of the legal application of the story, Hiddushei
HaRitba, 9a, s.v. “amar”: “[but the groom’s claim of an ‘open door’ is accepted]
only when he said it as a sure thing [bari], for he says ‘I am sure that I did not
penetrate at an angle.’ ” See also Kulp, “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 59.
26
67. Heb: sudar. Jastrow provides as a definition of this word only the meaning of
scarf and turban (Dictionary, p. 962, s.v. “sudar”), neither of which makes much
sense here. Kulp translates as “cloth.”
68. See Kulp, “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 59, n. 89, on Sokoloff’s alternative
translation.
69. See also Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 236; “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 27.
70. See both Ilan, Mine and Yours, p. 194; and Kulp, “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,”
p. 60, who come to similar conclusions. Ilan allows for some ambiguity as to
whether the late Babylonian commentary on the story leads to this conclusion
or, perhaps instead, that the groom is simply believed even in Babylonia. I see
no reason to allow for this latter possibility in light of Rav Ashi’s response, but in
any event, Ilan clearly prefers the former option, since “the main thrust of this
entire chain of stories suggests [it]” (p. 194).
71. Soranus, Soranus’ Gynecology, trans. Temkin, 1:9, p. 33. There the purpose of the
test is to determine whether a woman is fertile.
72. Preuss, Biblical and Talmudic Medicine, p. 478; though see Salzberg, “Testing
Virginity,” p. 93 who points out that the anonymous commentary here presents
the test as “exotic” and untested. The fact that Soranus was a Greek writer who
lived both in Alexandria in the Roman East and in Rome, while this test appears
specifically in the Babylonian Talmud is, in light of recent scholarship, not so
surprising, since an increasing body of research has demonstrated the particular
relationship between the Bavli and non-Rabbinic and even non-Jewish litera-
ture of the Roman East. See Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia, and esp. Migrating Tales.
Indeed, I believe that there may be an especially strong connection between the
Bavli and Alexandria in particular; for one example, see Kalmin, Migrating Tales,
pp. 4–5, in which he points out the shared motifs in the Bavli’s tales about Jesus
and those reported by Origen as coming from Celsus of Alexandria (though
in that case Kalmin reasonably assumes that the Alexandrian Celsus and the
Babylonian Talmud both received their traditions from a common source “in
the eastern Roman provinces” rather than through some special relationship
between Alexandria and the Rabbis of Babylonia). In any event, I have similarly
pointed to some similarities between the Bavli and Philo in this book and sus-
pect that these may not be isolated examples. I hope to return to explore this
possibility more fully in the future.
73. As already noted by Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 237.
74. Although all the textual witnesses to the Bavli have here “Dorketi” (or some-
thing similar), manuscripts of parallel texts reveal the word in fact to be
“Troketei” or the like, with the version in the Bavli a corruption likely based on
the midrash in line Y. See Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 237–238; and “Go Enjoy
Your Acquisition,” p. 60, n. 95. For the sake of simplicity and given my focus
here on the Bavli, I will write of “Dorketi” unless directly citing a text in which
it appears as “Troketei.”
267
75. The Hebrew here is the same as in line X. However, since the point of disagree-
ment between Rabbi Jeremiah b. Abba in this line and Rabbi Yose b. Abin in
the next is precisely what Rabban Gamliel the Elder meant in line X, it makes
sense that he is intentionally playing on an alternative meaning of the Hebrew
root zayin-kaf-heh, and thus the word means something different—and less
ambiguous—than it did in line X.
76. The alleged baraita taught by Rabbi Hanina appears also at bNid 64b, there
attributed to the Palestinian sage Rabbi Hiyya.
77. This phenomenon of the Bavli presenting an ideal of male gentleness as

Babylonian and a greater appreciation for male aggression as Palestinian is sim-
ilar to Boyarin’s analysis of bBM 88a (Unheroic Conduct, p. 99, n. 41).
78. See Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 240; and “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 61, n. 96,
on the logical and manuscript difficulties with the phrase “I was still a virgin.”
See nn. 79–80. Since it remains ambiguous what the best alternative is, rather
than resolve this lower critical problem, I have simply maintained the version of
the printed editions (despite the fact that Kulp is surely correct that this version
must be a mistake) and leave it to the reader to form her own opinion; I will dis-
cuss this variant in slightly more detail presently.
79. This version appears in ms. Vatican 112 and the Venice printing.
80. Kulp, Critical Edition, p. 240; and “Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” p. 61, n. 96, fol-
lowing the majority of manuscripts (Munich, Moscow/Gunzberg 1339, and
Vatican 487), as well as the majority of medieval commentators.
81. Such an idea certainly makes sense in light of what we know about the rela-
tionship between menstruation and malnourishment/dehydration. Perhaps the
author of this story attributes a similar relationship to postcoital bleeding. See
Salzberg, “Testing Virginity,” pp. 124–129 for a consideration of this story in
light of ancient medical views about famine and bodily fluids.
82. On the careful editing of this series of stories as a cohesive unit, see Salzberg,
“Testing Virginity,” pp. 22–26, 132.
83. Valer, Women and Womanhood, pp. 37–50. Valer’s conclusion in effect suggests
that the unit of stories reinforces and updates the tannaitic legal tradition, doing
for “open door” claims what Kulp (“Go Enjoy Your Acquisition,” pp. 38–47)
described tannaitic Rabbis as doing to blood claims, that is, undoing them in
practice, while affirming the tannaitic conclusions about the impracticability of
relying on blood as well.
84. Ilan, Mine and Yours, p. 192; Kulp, Critical Edition, pp. 229–230; “Go Enjoy Your
Acquisition,” pp. 57–62.
85. Ilan, Mine and Yours, p. 194.
86. Ilan, Mine and Yours, p. 194; Labovitz, Marriage and Metaphor, p. 128. Salzberg
points out as well that the judges’ responses shift in focus at this point; whereas
in the first two, “open door” cases, the judge questions the groom’s sexuality, in
the latter four cases, the judicial response turns our attention to the bride’s body
268
(“Testing Virginity,” p. 70). This observation coheres well with what I will argue
here about a shift from attacking subjectivity to questioning objectivity.
87. See Valer, Women and Womanhood, pp. 48–49.
88. See above, nn. 78 and 80, as well as the text at n. 80.
89. This final story—like the one that precedes it—is likely a later addition to an
earlier literary kernel. Kulp, based on his comparison of manuscript evidence, in
fact argues that the original core of the series of stories were the second, third,
and fourth stories, each of which are told about a single figure in most of the
manuscripts (Critical Edition, pp. 230–231). Kulp’s finding actually makes clearer
the message of the unit of stories, since it is precisely in those three in which the
trends I am describing here are most vivid. This is particularly striking in the
case of the brides’ claims, which go from silence (story #2), to a claim of lost but
undocumented virginity (story #3), to an argument for maintained—and thus
still testable—virginity (story #3).
90. See, in particular, Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, pp. 70–72, 77–79, 114–115. The
parallel is imperfect, since Fonrobert examines cases where the subjective rul-
ing is one where the woman actually becomes the subject, that is to say, the only
person who can determine her own status, and the objective ruling is one where
some outside (male) figure views the woman as an object to determine her sta-
tus. Here, both what I am calling “subjective” (the “open door” claim) and that
which is “objective” (claims of blood) are determined from the point of view of a
male actor, and in both cases the woman is the object of investigation. (Indeed,
we might say that blood claims allow the woman to be more of a subject in a
certain sense, since she is able to see the blood or lack thereof as well, whereas
the definition of the “open door” claim is that it derives only from the groom’s
experience). But see my ensuing discussion.
91. Libson, “Radical Subjectivity.”
92. On subjectivity in earlier Rabbinic texts, see Balberg, Purity, Body, and Self.
93. The “open door” claim is similar to Libson’s examples also in what it reflects
about Rabbinic epistemology and juridical anxiety; she argues that the resort to
subjectivity reflects doubt about their ability to rule accurately (see, for example,
Libson, “Radical Subjectivity,” pp. 278–279). The adaptations and contortions
of early Jewish authors that I described in chapters 3 and 4 make clear the par-
ticular juridical challenges of bloodied sheets as “evidence” of virginity; it thus
makes sense that in this case especially Babylonian Rabbis would turn to subjec-
tivity to, in Libson’s words (about a different case), “shift responsibility for this
decision on the shoulders of the individual [person]” (p. 122).
94. It is also worth noting that in at least one case described by Libson, women’s sub-
jectivity is introduced only to be “severely curtailed,” even as “men’s sensation
remains a significant legal principle” (“Radical Subjectivity,” p. 123). That the
Bavli, uniquely among Rabbinic texts, evinces interest in women’s subjectivity
cannot erase the deep-seated inequalities in that interest that it leaves in place.
269
95. Libson, “Radical Subjectivity,” pp. 18–22, 280–281. In particular, and intriguingly

for this study given the role Augustine will play in c hapter 8, Libson points to
scholarship demonstrating the particular importance of Augustine in this con-
cept of the reflexive subject (ibid., pp. 19–20).
CHa p t er 7
1. The locus classicus is Lev. 15:19–30, but see also, e.g., Lev. 12, Lev. 18:19, and
Ezek. 22:10. Note that Lev. 20:18, often cited as evidence of menstrual “impurity”
in the Hebrew Bible, does not make use of purity language, nor does it appear
in a broader context of impurity concerns; see Rosenberg, “Conflation of Purity,”
pp. 461–463.
2. On the ways in which the prohibition on sexual relations and the ascription of
ritual impurity are related to each other, and the ways in which they are not, see
Rosenberg, “Conflation of Purity,” as well as Fonrobert, Menstrual Purity, for the
treatment of these two discourses regarding menstruation in Rabbinic thinking.
3. Indeed, technically, menstrual “blood” is not the same substance as other blood,
since the former is the shedding of the uterine lining rather than simply intra-
vascular blood. I thank my friend, Dr. Chavi Karkowski, for reminding me of this
important distinction.
4. This formulation is found in only one of the two textual witnesses, the editio prin-
ceps. Ms. Vienna has instead “because it is the blood of betulim,” which, like mNid
1:7, makes the point implicitly rather than explicitly, but which still means the
same thing.
5. To my knowledge, only one text possibly implies a tannaitic ruling of impurity for
postcoital blood (pSan 11:3 [30a]), and one other may suggest a tannaitic prohibi-
tion on sexual relations following wedding-night relations (pBer 2:6 [5b]). In the
passage from Tractate Sanhedrin, the inclusion of postcoital blood among three
other kinds of blood, all of which are ritually impure, might suggest a similar legal
ruling regarding postcoital bleeding. The ambiguous implication of the baraita,
however, should not cause us to forsake the clarity of the mishnaic and toseftan pas-
sages cited above, which clearly implied or stated explicitly that postcoital bleeding
is in fact ritually pure. Furthermore, comparison of the baraita in the Palestinian
Talmud with its parallels at Sifrei Devarim #152 and bSan 86b suggests that the
very implication of this text results from posttannaitic editing, though see Epstein’s
suggestion of ambiguity here based on a manuscript variant in Sifrei Devarim
(Epstein, Introduction, pp. 121–122; I am thankful for my friend Shoshana Cohen’s
bringing this passage to my attention). The passage from Tractate Berakhot is sim-
ilarly suspicious based on comparison with other texts, including Tractate Kallah,
though the analysis needed to demonstrate this requires more space than I can
give it here. For a detailed, source-critical analysis of these two texts, see my disser-
tation: Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am Impure,’ ” pp. 234–236, and 241–245.
270
6. As in chapter 5 when discussing mKet 1:3, we cannot allow the grotesque nature
of this mishnah’s casual discussion of penetrative intercourse with a young girl
to go unremarked, and I again state explicitly that, even claiming that ancient
texts such as this one are theoretical rather than practical (if that is indeed the
case) does not mitigate the moral challenges to all of us as modern readers of
these texts (and indeed, it may even make them more morally problematic; once
again, see Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, pp. 69–70). In this half of the chap-
ter, I will discuss this text at some length, and as I wrote in chapter 5, my sincere
hope and honest attempt is that even as I continue the discussion of such dis-
turbing texts, that I do so in a way that ultimately serves feminist ends. Thus,
paying attention to the language of “wound” in this text, as I will do shortly, is
especially important. I still discuss these texts with significant trepidation.
7. And see as well in the second half of this chapter tKet 1:1, where a different
Hebrew word for “wound” (haburah) similarly appears describing the results of
wedding-night relations.
8. This passage is paralleled in bKet 39a–b, which I discuss at the end of this
chapter.
9. Vayikra Rabbah 22:10; translation based on the edition of Margulies, Midrash
Va-ykira rabah, pp. 521–522.
10. bHul 109b; my translation is again based on the Vilna printing. Though there
are many variations among the manuscripts (and in particular regarding the
order of the pairs that Yalta lists), I do not believe any are relevant to my point
here—though the fact of a number of variations may itself be relevant.
11. So the Rabbinic understanding. See Lev. 12:4–5 and Milgrom’s commentary
thereon: Leviticus, vol. 1, pp. 749–750.
12. See Tosafot Hullin 109b, s.v. “niddah.”
13. See Sussman, “Pirqei Yerushalmi,” pp. 244–256, for a compelling rejection of the
claim that some medieval authors had access to Palestinian Talmud on Tractate
Niddah.
14. Line C is absent in ms. Leiden, found only in a genizah fragment; see Ginzberg,
Commentary, vol. 1, p. 365.
15. This is the only occurrence in classical Rabbinic literature of the phrase lehal-
akhah aval lo’ lema‘aseh—which becomes ubiquitous in posttalmudic responsa
literature—though the similar phrase kan lehalakhah kan lema‘aseh is relatively
common (see Moscovitz, “Parallel Sugiot and the Text-Tradition,” p. 534, n. 64).
Ginzberg (Commentary, vol. 1, p. 364), based on comparison with his under-
standing of the Babylonian parallel, believes that while Samuel here is indeed
being stringent, he is doing so only with regard to a girl who has reached the
time of expected menstruation. Thus, the following statement of Rabbi Yannai is
an even greater stringency in comparison to that of Samuel. While the idea that
the editor would move from the less extreme case to the more extreme (or, put
271
differently, from the least innovative to the most innovative) has a certain appeal,
it is difficult to pin down the precise meaning of Samuel’s enigmatic statement
precisely. More to the point, Ginzberg’s claim is based on a reading of the Bavli
that, I argued in my dissertation, was unlikely; see Rosenberg, “I Am Impure,”
pp. 264–266.
16. See Penei Moshe.
17. See Ba‘al Sefer Haredim. Saul Lieberman apparently understood the statement
similarly, claiming that Rabbi Yannai’s statement reflects a personal stringency
(in Lewin, Thesaurus of Halachic Differences, p. 18).
18. In addition to the traditional commentaries, see the explanations of Ginzberg,
Commentary, vol. 1, pp. 365–367; Lieberman in Lewin, Thesaurus of Halachic
Differences, pp. 18–19; and my own more detailed discussion in Rosenberg, “I
Am Impure,” pp. 253–257.
19. On the suspicious tannaitic provenance of this ruling, see Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am
Impure,’ ” pp. 241–245.
20. So too in all textual witnesses other than the Vilna printing, which has a disjunc-
tive vav: “But this applies.”
21. For a collection of the textual variants of this name, see Rosenthal, “Binyamin
Genazechiya,” p. 439, n. 1.
22. Both the Soncino and Vilna printings lack the conjunctive vav (“and”).
23. All other witnesses attribute this statement to Samuel explicitly, and the absence
of his name in this line in ms. Munich 95 is presumably an error.
24. On this translation of the Hebrew ma‘aseh rav, see Frank, Practical Talmudic
Dictionary, p. 183.
25. My translation of line K until here departs from ms. Munich 95, which is clearly
mistaken, and follows instead the consensus of all other witnesses.
26. Following Sokoloff, Dictionary, p. 816.
27. Based on Rabbinic chronology and the ease with which this name could be con-
fused, this attribution is surely a mistake. The Soncino and Vilna printings have
here “Rabbi Abba,” while ms. Vatican 111 has “Rava.”
28. bNid 64b–65b, generally following ms. Munich 95, except as noted
29. The literary superiority of the Babylonian version is only clear in the Hebrew,
which involves a repeated use of the root b-‘-l (“bo‘el be‘ilat mitzvah uforesh”) and
makes use of a distinctive phrase from mNid 10:1 (the only unambiguously tan-
naitic appearance of the phrase; see Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am Impure,’ ” pp. 268–276).
30. A fact already noted by many medieval commentators; see, for example, Tosafot
65a, s.v. “savar”; and Hiddushei HaRashba 65b, s.v. “Rav.”
31. Although one might read line B as a continuation of Rav’s statement, it is almost
certainly a much later addition, as evidenced by the absence of the disjunctive
vav in all of the manuscripts (see n. 20), the use of the Aramaic technical phrase
vehanei milei, and, most importantly, the story of Binyamin in line C, which
27
makes clear that at least one early tradition did not ascribe the clarity of line B to
Rav. See Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am Impure,’ ” pp. 261–264.
32. Although some medieval commentators attempted to limit the scope of this strin-
gency, the simplest understanding is that it applies to all first acts of coitus. See,
for example, the commentary of the Maggid Mishneh on Rambam’s Mishneh Torah,
Laws of Forbidden Intercourse, 5:19. See also, for example, Arukh Laner 65b, s.v.
“Rav.” Ginzberg also argues in support of a more limited understanding of Rav
and Samuel, based on “the order of things in the Bavli” (Commentary, vol. 1, p.
363). However, literary rather than legal factors likely explain the phenomena that
lead Ginzberg to his conclusions. See Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am Impure,’ ” pp. 264–266.
33. See, for a summary of the medieval conclusions based on the sugya, Bet Yosef YD
#193.
34. For a catalog of these comments and a more detailed analysis, see Rosenberg, “ ‘I
Am Impure,’ ” pp. 270–274.
35. See Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am Impure,’ ” p. 206, n. 509, for a source-critical argument
on the lateness of the attribution of this view to Rabbi Yohanan and Reish Lakish.
36. See Margulies, Differences, p. 100, who, without access to more recent develop-
ments in source-critical methodology, instinctively picks up on much of this and
essentially labels the baraita that affirms Samuel’s view a Babylonian production.
37. A related explanation would be to attribute this stringency to a “general” Rabbinic
tendency toward stringency in the realm of the menstrual laws. For a rejection of
this suggestion, see Rosenberg, “ ‘I Am Impure,’ ” pp. 277–279.
38. Secunda, “Dashtana.” Secunda is currently at work on a book on this topic.
39. Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1, p. 306. For more detail, see Boyce and
Kotwal, “Zoroastrian bāj and drōn,” p. 311, n. 101. Of course, the great challenge
with these sources is that so many of them are later than the works that I am
examining. On the problem of using later Zoroastrian sources as points of com-
parison for Rabbinic texts, see Herman’s review of The Iranian Talmud in AJS
Review 39, no. 1. Compounding the problem, too often claims in secondary lit-
erature are based on even later, sometimes even modern practices. For example,
Patricia Crone also notes impurity attached to postcoital bleeding, but she cites
a hodgepodge of sources, many of which are obliquely, if at all, about impurity
(Nativist Prophets, p. 433). See also Choksy, Purity and Pollution, pp. 41 and 92.
40. Secunda, Dashtana, particularly c hapter 5.
41. This formulation of the effect of the groom’s action as a wound merits atten-
tion in its own right. The language of “wounding” is similar to the appearance,
discussed above, of the same idea in mNid 10:1 (though with a different Hebrew
word there). As I noted earlier, this take on postcoital bleeding is not universally
held, and indeed, we will see that the author/editors of the Babylonian Talmud
call this perception into question.
42. See, for example, Rashi 5b, s.v. “mahu,” and Tosafot 5b, s.v. “mahu.” Two tan-
naitic texts, mBer 2:6 and mNid 10:1, could be read as suggesting a permissive
273
attitude toward the question of first-time penetrative intercourse (or, in the

case mNid 10:1, penetrative intercourse, whether initial or not, that is likely to
produce postcoital bleeding) on the Sabbath, since both of these texts clearly
(though nonetheless implicitly) suggest no legal problem with first-time sex-
ual relations on the Sabbath. The first of these appears in both the Palestinian
and Babylonian Talmuds’ discussion of our topic, while the latter appears in the
Bavli’s. In the case of the latter, the fact that, as I already intimated, the text is
most likely discussing acts of intercourse other than the first night (though still
during the first four days of marriage) explains its congruence with the general
tannaitic picture that I have laid out here (and that is probably why it does not
appear as an objection to this picture in the Palestinian Talmud). The mishnah
from Tractate Berakhot may well be an outlier; in addition to my analysis of the
Palestinian pericope below, see the Babylonian pericope at bKet 6b; for the sake
of space and clarity, my treatment of the larger sugya there glosses over that por-
tion of the passage.
43. Or, in light of the parallels from pKet 1:1 (24d) and tKet 1:1, simply a mistake
which should instead read “he.”
44. At this point, a similarly structured attack appears based on a baraita about
breaking open abscesses on the Sabbath for medicinal purposes. I have skipped
over it since it essentially reproduces the same information and dialectic as in
lines D–E.
45. See c hapter 6, nn. 31 and 38.
46. As already pointed out by R. Ovadia Yosef; see Yabbia Omer OH 4.34.10.
47. Following a precisely parallel objection and response to that seen in lines D–E;
see above, n. 44.
48. “Abun” and “Abin” are simply different spellings of the same name; this sort of
interchanging a vav for a yod and vice versa is common in Rabbinic texts, espe-
cially those with so sparse a manuscript tradition as the Palestinian Talmud.
49. Ayin Yaffah, a commentary that points out parallels between passages in the
Bavli and Palestinian Rabbinic literature, claims that the Yerushalmi story
is discussing the implications of this bleeding for niddah law (a position
taken as well by Ginzberg, Commentary, vol.1, pp. 360–362), in line with the
Babylonian version discussed above. The simpler understanding, however, is
that taken by both the Penei Moshe and Ba‘al Sefer Haredim, namely, that the
story should be understood in the context of what preceded it (and not what
follows), i.e., the question of Shabbat law. See Halivni, Sources and Traditions,
vol. 3, p. 134.
50. See my discussion of Sissa, and Hanson’s critiques of Sissa’s argument, in the
introduction. Perhaps the two options laid out here—“deposited” or “wound-
blood”—in some way refer to, or at least are cognate with, the debate in Soranus
of Ephesus’s Gynecology 1.16–17 about whether postcoital bleeding results from
the rupture of a hymenal membrane (which is “deposited” there precisely for
274
this purpose) or the rupture (i.e., wounding) of blood vessels that are viewed as
internal and integral to a woman’s body.
51. For two very clear medieval explications of the meanings of these two ways of
constructing the blood, see the commentary of Rashi, Ketubot 5b, s.v. “mifkad”
and s.v. “o haburei,” and at slightly greater length, the commentary of the Meiri,
Bet Habehirah, Ketubot 5b, s.v. “dam habetulim.”
52. Note the interpretation of the medieval Tosafist Isaac of Dampierre (cited, e.g., in
Tosafot, Ketubot 5b, s.v. “ledam”), who states explicitly that the reason the groom
would need this blood is to know on the wedding night that his bride was a vir-
gin—i.e., a straightforward reading of the question in light of the implications
of Deut. 22:13–21 as I have described them. His disputant, Rabbenu Tam (cited
there as well), does not take this more straightforward interpretation and instead
understands the groom’s “need” for this blood as resulting from his desire to
have penetrative intercourse in the future without bleeding (“to extract the blood
so that he will not dirty himself the next time he penetrates”), an interpreta-
tion that generates technical legal problems (see there). Perhaps Rabbenu Tam
chooses this more complex interpretation precisely because he picks up on the
move away from violence in the pericope, though see the discussions of the Penei
Yehoshua, Ketubot 5b, s.v. “peresh”; and the Hetam Sofer Ketubot 5b, s.v. “veda‘.”
53. The Aramaic word itmar (“it was stated”) does not appear in all of the witnesses.
See also Herschler, Babylonian Talmud, pt. 1, p. 26, n. 1.
54. Though note the ambiguous ruling of Rav Papa, a Babylonian sage known to
have had a particularly close relationship with Palestinian traditions, which per-
mitted first-time penetrative intercourse on festivals, but not on the Sabbath. See
also the interesting connection of this relatively stringent ruling to Rav Papa’s
statement at bShab 133b (discussed below) made by Ya‘akov Shimshon Shabtai
Sinigali’ah in his commentary Shabat shel mi, 133b, s.v. “temihah.”
55. Rav Hisda objects from mNid 10:1; Rav Joseph objects from mBer 2:6 in a way
that finds a parallel in the Palestinian pericope discussed above; and Rabbi Ami
objects based on mEd 2:5=tEd 1:8, which also finds a parallel in the Palestinian
pericope (the two lines that I omitted above; see n. 44). See also above, n. 42.
56. The introduction of this baraita is attributed to Abaye, but the style suggests
that this is a pseudepigraphical attribution. In any event, both for readers who
take attributions seriously and those who read more skeptically, what is impor-
tant here is the discussion, attributed to the middle-generation amoraic sages
Rabbah and Abaye, about the baraita.
57. Mss. Munich 95 and Vatican 130 have “Rava” rather than “Rabbah.” See also
Herschler, Babylonian Talmud, pt. 1, p. 30, n. 31, on the variant readings in medi-
eval commentators. In light of Richard Kalmin’s analysis of traditions about the
three figures Rabbah, Abaye, and Rava, which showed that the latter two rarely if
ever engaged with each other, I follow the reading of the other witnesses, includ-
ing the Vilna printing: “Rabbah.” However, see the next note and the implied
275
possibility that these are two independent statements stitched together rather
than actual dialogue. See Kalmin, Sages, Stories, Authors, pp. 175–192. See also
Friedman, “Ketiv ha-shemot.”
58. The word “to him” is absent in ms. Vatican 130.
59. There is some variation in the textual witnesses with regard to the phrase trans-
lated here as “rather, there are those who are,” which seems to appear first in
the Pesaro printing. In the extant manuscripts (Vatican 112, Vatican 130, and
Munich 95) it is something like “rather, like those who are,” which makes it
sound like a more common practice.
60. There is good reason to believe that Abaye (as opposed to later editors) did not
view the lenient view in this baraita as authoritative, since he tries to understand
mBer 2:6 as consonant with a view that first-time sexual relations are forbidden
on the Sabbath; see Tosafot 6b, s.v. “vehanei.”
61. Ritba appears to pick up on the inherent tension between this exchange of
Rabbah and Abaye, on the one hand, and the resolution of Rav’s lenient ruling in
this case and his general holding in according with Rabbi Yehudah in line N, not-
ing that Rabbah’s attribution of the lenient view here to Rabbi Simeon implies
that the stringent view is in accord with Rabbi Yehudah, and thus Rav should
rule stringently regarding first-time penetrative intercourse on the Sabbath. See
Hiddushei HaRitba, 6b, s.v. “man” and s.v. “amar leih Abaye.”
62. We should take note, however, of Rabbah’s praise of those who are “expert in
angling,” which, like the similar discussion in the “open door” pericope, may
have the discursive effect of encouraging men to penetrate more gently, rather
than simply to ignore the consequences of their aggressive penetration.
63. The doubled form mifkad pakid (with a slight variation to reflect a plural noun)
interestingly appears at bPes 33b in a passage about the impurity of food and
drink. Though there are some reasons to view that passage as distinct from
these two (most notably, the absence of the parallel phrase haburei mihbar,
replaced there, appropriately to the context, with mivla‘ beli‘ei—absorbed blood),
it remains striking that the impure item discussed is wine not yet juiced from
grapes, which appears in Rabbinic literature as a metaphor for female genital
bleeding, including postcoital bleeding (see the discussion of the troketei in
chapter 6).
64. Though see the commentary of Sinigali’ah, Shabat shel mi, 133b, s.v. “amar Rav
Papa,” who reasonably argues that the open-endedness of the question in bKet
5a, as opposed to the final and unambiguous ruling in bShab 133b, implies
that the former predates the latter. Of course, the question raised by Sinigali’ah
and his answer assumes that the status of circumcision blood and postcoital
bleeding is the same (though see his own back and forth on this point there),
itself an interesting datum that clearly tells us something about the nineteenth-
century commentator, and may well imply something about these Babylonian
passages as well.
276
65. The parallel at bBK 59a in the Soncino and Vilna printings has here “Rabbi
Simeon b. Menasya,” but all of the manuscripts are consistent with the attribu-
tion as found here as well as the Tosefta and the Palestinian Talmud.
66. So ms. Vatican 130 as well as the Soncino and Vilna printings. Mss. Vatican 112,
St. Petersburg 187, and Munich 95, however, all have terafta desikurei (with some
minor variations), which would mean the same thing as how I have translated
the other phrase.
67. bKet 39a–b.
68. See, for example, Tosafot, s.v. “tza‘ar.”
69. See the commentary of Rashi here.
70. Indeed, the discursive moves here are an exception to, not an example of, Adiel
Schremer’s generally accurate description that “some men are quite deaf in
matters pertaining to the pain women suffer from forced sexual intercourse”
(“For Whom Is Marriage a Happiness,” p. 302). The Babylonian author/edi-
tors are acutely aware of the pain women experience in first-time penetrative
intercourse—even when consensual—and are working to contradict their own
experience in order to allay their anxiety.
71. Their debate is attested as well in tKet 3:6, as well as pKet 3:5 (27a–b).
72. The only early figure in this passage who seems to minimize rhetorically the
pain a woman experiences is the Father of Samuel, who answers the anonymous
opening question (“Pain of what?”) by claiming that the rapist is paying for non-
sexual aspects of the physical assault. However, if we remove his statement from
its editorial context and read it on its own, it is quite reasonable to read him as
simply following the tannaitic view of Rabbi Simeon, i.e., that first-time sex is
painful, and that nonconsensual sex is no more painful for a woman. Indeed, in
the parallel passage in the Palestinian Talmud, a similar view, attributed to Rav
Hisda, is described precisely as working to reconcile the view of Rabbi Simeon
with the mishnah. Thus, it may well be that the diminishing of women’s pain
resulting from consensual sex (to be sure, the Father of Samuel, like Rabbi
Simeon, diminishes the pain experienced by women in nonconsensual sex) in
the Father of Samuel’s statement here is solely the result of the editorial moves
of the Babylonian editors.
73. Winkler, Constraints of Desire, p. 122; see my discussion in chapter 1.
74. Compare the difficulties that both the Mishnah and the Bavli have in assessing
pain for compensatory purposes in the eighth chapter of Bava Kama.
75. Libson, “Radical Subjectivity,” and see my discussion near the end of the previ-
ous chapter.
c h a p t er 8
1. That is, even as much (though surely not all) recent scholarship has emphasized
the ways in which Rabbinic Jewish and Christian identities remained blurry for
27
far longer than previously thought (see the literature cited in c hapter 5, n. 1),
Augustine’s political, theological, ethnic, and geographic locations make him
a figure that fits more neatly into the more traditional “parting of the ways”
model (though for greater nuance in understanding Augustine’s stance vis-à-vis
Judaism, see Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews).
2. I suspect the common lumping together of these three originates in the work
of Giulia Sissa, which has been so foundational to studies of the construction of
female virginity as physical or not. Sissa writes about these three in “Maidenhood
without Maidenhead,” pp. 362–363, and Greek Virginity, p. 174, asserting, “Like
Ambrose, Augustine and Cyprian were most contemptuous of vaginal inspection”
(emphasis added). For two authors who wrote after Sissa’s influential work and
accordingly treated these three as fundamentally similar, see Kelly, Performing
Virginity, pp. 33–35; and Wassen, Women in the Damascus Document, p. 86.
3. Although these are certainly not the only churchmen of late antiquity to address
the topic of midwives inspecting women physically to determine if they are
indeed virgins, these three all operate in a fairly contained geographical and
cultural space, making the juxtaposition particularly striking. One Father in the
East whose discussion of this topic is useful is John Chrysostom. Chrysostom
displays an attitude similar to that which I will describe for the writings of
Cyprian and, especially, Ambrose. For reasons both methodological and having
to do with keeping the scope of this chapter manageable, I have chosen not to
focus on Chrysostom, but I will reference some relevant passages in the foot-
notes in the hopes that other scholars will see and be able to fill out the larger
picture here.
4. Cyprian of Carthage, Letters of St. Cyprian, vol. 1, trans. Clarke, pp. 57–61 (Ep. 4).
Latin text from CSEL 3.2.4, pp. 472–478.
5. See n. 2. By contrast, Dyan Elliott correctly describes Cyprian as “insist[ing] that
the women undergo gynecological examinations to ensure that their virginity
was still intact” (Bride of Christ, p. 33). See also Grubbs, Law and Family in Late
Antiquity, pp. 199–200; and Dunn, “Infected Sheep,” p. 16, n. 77.
6. On the question of whether the situation described here is “spiritual marriage”
or something else (and in particular, whether the men in question are them-
selves continent), see Dunn, “Infected Sheep,” pp. 14–15, including the discus-
sion and citations in n. 70.
7. Cyprian of Carthage, Letters of St. Cyprian, vol. 1, trans. Clarke, p. 59 (4.3.1).
8. For this reason, I discussed this passage in chapter 3 as a possible intertext of
sorts for Palestinian Rabbinic discussions of anal sex. As I noted there, Kelly sug-
gests that “some other part” refers not to another physical member, but rather, to
“that ‘part’ in which the will or spirit resides (here reified for rhetorical effect)”
(Testing Virginity, p. 34). Much here depends on the translation of the Latin cor-
poris, which could mean “person,” as rendered by Clarke (Letters of St. Cyprian of
Carthage), but could also mean “body” (as translated by Donna; Letters, p. 12).
278
9. Cyprian is echoed in this by the late fourth-century Antiochene John Chrysostom,

who in a similar tirade against living arrangements for consecrated virgins that
he deemed inappropriate, also cites a hypothetical response of a virgin: “ ‘But
how is that necessarily so,’ the virgin asks, ‘when we can show that our body has
not been deflowered or prostituted?’ ” And like Cyprian, Chrysostom responds
that “the wisdom and skill of the midwife can see only such things as whether
the body has experienced intercourse with a man. But whether it has also fled the
rude touch, the adultery of kisses and embraces and their defilement, [only the
future day of judgment] will then reveal” (On the Necessity of Guarding Virginity
p. 218).
10. Cyprian of Carthage, Letters of St. Cyprian, vol. 1, trans. Clarke, p. 60, 4.4.1.
11. Thus, Dunn’s parenthetical comment that women could be ruled by midwives
“to have preserved their physical (if not spiritual) virginity” actually introduces an
element of “spiritual” virginity that is not at all present in Cyprian’s letter (Dunn,
“Infected Sheep,” p. 15). Like Kelly’s reading of “some other part” as referring to
the will rather than a physical organ (see n. 8), such a reading likely says more
about the influence wielded by the ideas of later writers such as Ambrose and,
especially, Augustine, to be discussed below, than it does about Cyprian’s own
views. Perhaps the same can be said of J. Patout Burns’s comment that these vir-
gins were in a “probationary” status suffering from a “permanent disability” fol-
lowing their acquittal by midwife exam (Cyprian the Bishop, pp. 65, 204, n. 101);
nothing in Cyprian’s letter suggests a lower status for these readmitted virgins.
See also Dunn, “Infected Sheep,” p. 16, n. 78.
12. Cyprian of Carthage, Letters of St. Cyprian, trans. Clarke, vol. 3, pp. 95–97
(Ep. 62.2.3, CSEL 3.2.62, pp. 698–701).
13. On Ambrose’s views on female virginity generally, see Peter Brown, The Body
and Society, pp. 341–365.
14. Ambrose of Milan, Letters, trans. Beyenka, pp. 152–163 (Ep. 5, Latin text at PL
16.891–898. For aiding the reader in finding the references, I provide section
numbers from PL but cite page numbers from Beyenka’s translation.
15. On the political rivalries and theological issues potentially involved in the

case, including but not limited to the fact that Indicia was apparently a family
friend of Ambrose’s, see McLynn, Ambrose of Milan, pp. 286–287; and Uhalde,
Expectations of Justice, pp. 68, 71–76. In any event, Ambrose’s rhetoric here
remains a revealing indicator of his attitudes toward female virginity, even if the
intensity of his vitriol may be in part the result of social or political concerns.
See also Elliott’s particularly sensitive and subtle reading of this affair in Bride of
Christ, pp. 51–55.
16. Ambrose of Milan, Letters, p. 154 (5.5).
18. Ambrose of Milan, Letters, pp. 155–156 (5.8).
279
20. Ambrose of Milan, Letters, p. 159 (5.14). Ambrose does argue for one physical
sign of unchastity as unfailingly accurate, namely, pregnancy. Of course, this is a
problematic marker for Ambrose, since he is one of the Latin authors most com-
mitted to Mary’s perpetual virginity, a challenge that he tries to resolve (Ambrose
of Milan, Letters, pp. 157–158 [5.12–13]).
21. Lactantius, a Christian adviser to the emperor Constantine in the first half of the
fourth century, may also refer to physical examinations of women to determine
their sexual status (if so, performed, uniquely, by eunuchs), though the passage
is opaque, and I think it more likely refers to more general examinations to
determine general “fitness” for the pagan emperor Maximinus II. See De mor-
tibus persecutorum 38.2, ed. and trans. Creed, pp. 56–57. See Kuefler, The Manly
Eunuch, p. 97.
23. Ambrose of Milan, Letters, pp. 155–156 (5.14).
24. John Chrysostom, who preached in Antioch and Constantinople, also referenced
the commonness of midwives inspecting virgins to determine if they were phys-
ically “intact,” suggesting that this practice was not only relatively common but
widespread throughout Christian communities in a variety of locales; see On the
Necessity of Guarding Virginity p. 213. This treatise was probably written prior to
Chrysostom’s appointment as archbishop of Constantinople, while he was still
in Antioch (see Miller, Women in Early Christianity, p. 123).
25. Unlike the cases of Cyprian and Ambrose above, Augustine here is not dealing
with a specific case, or even one posited to be likely. Rather, he uses the exam-
ple of a midwife’s examination to make a broader point about the very nature of
female virginity—an important point that I think some of the earlier treatments
have glossed over.
26. Augustine, City of God 1.18. My citations of the Latin text are taken from CSEL
40.1, and my translations are from Augustine, City of God, trans. Dyson, in this
case on p. 28.
27. Augustine, City of God 1.18, trans. Dyson, p. 28.
28. See Poorthuis, “Rebekah as a Virgin,” p. 443, on the comparison between
Augustine and Mishnah Ketubot, and see also chapter 5, n. 53, for my caveat
regarding this juxtaposition. To be clear about my intent with this comparison:
even those scholars most committed to viewing the boundaries between Jews
and Christians in late antiquity as blurry would not suggest that the Mishnah
was in some way a canonical text for Augustine, or even that he was familiar with
its contents. See below in this chapter, where I make a similar caveat regard-
ing my juxtaposition of Augustine and the Babylonian Talmud. I contrast him
here with this earlier work for two reasons. First, even when comparisons of
Christian and Jewish writings reveal neither influence nor even shared milieu,
they remain useful for highlighting the possible paths that interpreters, legisla-
tors, and theologians could have taken. Setting Augustine and the Mishnah side
280
by side here lays bare the most extreme positions that these authors could take
with regard to the physiology (or not) of female virginity. But more provoca-
tively, I think the comparison is worthwhile not only as an interpretive strategy
but also as a suggestion about the development of ideas about virginity testing
in late antiquity. I argued that the Mishnah and the Protevangelium reflected a
shared discourse about female virginity, and while the Protevangelium itself was
not a significant work in the Christian West until much later in history (and
was even banned in the West and condemned by Jerome; see Elliott, Apocryphal
New Testament, p. 48; see also Vuong, Gender and Purity, pp. 11–13), it and
the Mishnah both represent responses of readers of Deuteronomy 22. In this
sense, then, regardless of Augustine’s knowledge or lack thereof of mishnaic
traditions or of the Protevangelium, his view represents a later—and entirely
opposite—response.
29. For two takes on what it means to read this passage as consolation, see Miles,
“From Rape to Resurrection,” and Webb, “‘On Lucretia Who Slew Herself.’ ” See
also Burrus, Saving Shame. The competing arguments of these interpretations
make clear how complex and multivalent is Augustine’s treatment of rape, guilt,
and shame in this passage.
31. See Brown, The Body in Society, pp. 387–427.
33. Miles helpfully points out that, in saying that raped women can still be vir-
gins, Augustine is startlingly “body-denying,” thus creating conflict with his
general principle that the body is indeed a part of the person (“From Rape to
Resurrection,” p. 82). The point however, it seems to me, is that Augustine can
embrace human bodies as fundamentally redeemable precisely because he
ascribes the lustful tendencies of humans fully to the will. Thus, where there is
no violation of the will, any violation of the body is irrelevant.
34. Salisbury, Church Fathers, Independent Virgins, p. 40. See also Kuefler, The Manly
Eunuch, p. 173; Sawyer, “Celibate Pleasures,” p. 16.
35. Gambero, Mary and the Fathers, p. 66. See also Dunn, “Mary’s Virginity In
Partu”; Hunter, “Helvidius, Jovinian,” pp. 65–67; Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy,
pp. 181–184; Vuong, Gender and Purity, pp. 217–219; and Lillis, “Paradox in
Partu,” pp. 22–28. And while Origen of Alexandria, a third-century thinker who
influenced both Ambrose and Augustine, defended Mary’s continued celibacy
following the birth of Jesus (i.e., her virginitas post partum), he explicitly rejected
the notion of virginitas in partu. See Hunter, “Helvidius, Jovinian,” p. 69; and
Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy, pp. 184–186.
36. For a fuller context of the Jovinian “heresy” and its place in debates about virgin-
ity, Mary, and asceticism in the fourth century, see Hunter, “Helvidius, Jovinian,”
and Marriage, Celibacy, and Heresy, chapter 4.
37. Ambrose, Ep. 42.4, PL 16.1173, trans. Beyenka, Letters, p. 227.
281
38. Ibid. On the importance of Mary’s perpetual virginity in Ambrose’s work, see
Brown, The Body and Society, pp. 353–355; as well as more recently, Elliott, Bride
of Christ, pp. 43–55.
39. Brown, Body and Society, p. xv; Hunter, “Helvidius, Jovinian,” p. 57; Marriage,
Celibacy, and Heresy, chapter 4. See also Gambero, Mary and the Fathers, pp. 208–
209, specifically on Jerome, though Gambero takes a more apologetic approach
in claiming that not only Ambrose and Augustine, but also “many other Fathers
before and contemporary with” Jerome “had taken a stand in favor of virginity
during birth” (emphasis added).
40. Hunter, “Helvidius, Jovinian.”
41. Augustine references in partu virginity in a variety of places; see, for exam-
ple, Against Julian 2, trans. Matthew A. Schumacher, p. 6; Sermon 51.11.18;
Sermon 196.1–2. For more, see also the works cited by Gambero, Mary and the
Fathers, p. 224; and Doyle, “Mary, Mother of God,” p. 543. Augustine’s support
of Ambrose on this point is particularly understandable in light of the relation-
ship apparently drawn by Jovinian between supporters of in partu virginity and
Manichaeism, a Christian movement to which Augustine had a close relation-
ship and toward which he may have felt a particular need to deny any apparent
continuing affiliation. See Hunter, “Helvidius, Jovinian,” p. 57.
42. Sissa already points out the apparent paradox in Ambrose; see Sissa, Greek
Virginity, p. 173. See also Meltzer, For Fear of the Fire, pp. 145–146; and Dyan
Elliott, Bride of Christ, p. 55, who points out the contradiction in Ambrose by
assuming that lurking behind any claim of Mary’s virginity is some version of
the narrative of Salome found in the Protevangelium. Sissa resolves the seeming
contradiction by arguing that Ambrose fundamentally thinks of physical defini-
tions of virginity as “vulgar . . . [he] did not believe in it at all,” but that since it
was theologically useful, “the hymen exists” in the realm of theology and scrip-
tural interpretation (Greek Virginity, pp. 172–173). But I will argue below that
the sheer quantity of Ambrosian material that endorses physical definitions of
virginity suggests that we resolve this crux in the opposite direction: Ambrose
fundamentally believes in physical virginity as an important and relevant cate-
gory, but his theological and/or political concerns led him to dismiss midwives’
examinations in the case of Indicia.
43. Elliott, Bride of Christ, p. 53. See also Sarah Alison Miller, who makes a similar
point about Ambrose’s rhetoric: “Ambrose criticizes the manual examination
of Christian virgins by midwives on the grounds that such practices brought
shame to the office of virginity and were scientifically unsound, objections that
do not so much discredit the inherent truths of the virgin body as voice concerns
about the effect of such exams on the fragile character of women unaccustomed
to such corporeal manipulations” (Medieval Monstrosity, p. 65).
44. See below, in my discussion of Concerning Widows, for more evidence of

Ambrose’s prioritization of spiritual virginity as not coming to exclude the
28
significance of the physical. Here, too, Ambrose is paralleled in the works of

Chrysostom, who similarly disparages the practice of genital examinations (On
the Necessity of Guarding Virginity, p. 213) and extols spiritual virginity (e.g., On
Virginity 5.2, 6.1, trans. Shore, pp. 7–8), but without ever denying that anatomy
forms a part of his definition of female virginity.
45. In this sense, perhaps the work most similar to Ambrose is Sifrei Devarim, the
authors of which I argued likely did not deviate from Deuteronomic conceptions
of female virginity, but nonetheless rejected literal interpretations of the biblical
pericope; see my discussion in chapter 3.
46. Ambrose of Milan, Letters, pp. 158–159 (5.14); emphasis added.
47. Sissa, Greek Virginity, p. 175.
48. Sissa, Greek Virginity, p. 172. Meltzer makes a similar assumption about
Ambrose (For Fear of the Fire, p. 69, n. 28).
51. Ambrose in the passage cited from 5.9 (“either bad-willed or unskilled . . . through
lack of skill she will put a mark on unblemished modesty”) sounds somewhat like
Augustine’s description of the midwife in City of God 1.18 (“while examining with
her hand the maidenhead . . . through malice or clumsiness or accident, destroyed
it”), perhaps suggesting that the more opaque passage from the teacher’s oeuvre
should be read in light of the more explicit passage in his student’s work. That
said, though there is some substantive similarity, these two particular English
translations make this connection more striking than does the original Latin.
52. I am thankful to my friends Julia Kelto Lillis and Caroline Musgrove for discuss-
ing this passage with me as well and encouraging me to take seriously the less
metaphorical interpretation.
53. Ambrose of Milan, Concerning Widows 4.26, PL 16.242, trans. Schaff, Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 10, p. 395.
54. I thus disagree with Uhalde’s citation of this passage as another “occasion” on
which Ambrose was skeptical regarding these examinations (Expectations of
Justice, pp. 72 and 170, n. 148).
55. One might also explain the difference between Ambrose’s view in Concerning
Widows and his opinion in the letter to Syagrius based on their respective dates—
the treatise is generally dated to shortly after 377 (see Ramsey, Ambrose, p. 60),
while the letter likely dates from sometime after 380 (Ambrose of Milan, Letters,
p. 152, n. 1; see Uhalde, Expectations of Justice, p. 68, who dates it to around 394).
In this case, Ambrose would display a change in his thinking in which female
virginity becomes increasingly nonphysical.
56. Ambrose of Milan, Exhortatio virginitatis 6.35(PL 16.346), trans. in Dyan Elliott,
Bride of Christ, p. 57.
57. Ambrose of Milan, De virginibus 3.7.32, trans. Schaff, in Nicene and Post-Nicene
Fathers, vol. 10, p. 386.
283
58. Ambrose of Milan, De virginibus 3.7.33–35, trans. Schaff, in Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, vol. 10, p. 387.
59. See the literature cited in Schulenberg, Forgetful of Their Sex, pp. 131–133. See
also Webb, “ ‘On Lucretia Who Slew Herself,’ ” pp. 37–38.
60. Gaddis, There Is No Crime, p. 168, n. 53. See also Miles, “From Rape to
Resurrection,” p. 80. See also Elliott, Bride of Christ, p. 58, regarding Livy’s tell-
ing of Lucretia’s tale, though I think in the case of that text, discerning which
voice is the more “traditional” is particularly difficult. From the point of view of
a fourth-century Latin Christian, however, it remains perfectly clear what the
dominant voice on this question would be.
61. See Gaddis, There Is No Crime, p. 168, n. 53; as well as Trout, “Re-Textualizing
Lucretia”; Schulenberg, Forgetful of Their Sex, pp. 132–133; and Burrus, Saving
Shame, pp. 128–133.
62. I thus disagree with Kelly’s formulation that “Western Christianity’s attitudes
towards ascertaining virginity remained fairly consistent from late antiquity,
when they were first formulated by the Church, through the Middle Ages”
(Performing Virginity, pp. 2–3). This disagreement, however, is far less thorough-
going than it might at first appear, since the picture that I have drawn here is,
intentionally, too neat, too linear. After all, as I have noted several times already
in the foregoing, Cyprian and Ambrose, in the end, are indeed not so different
from each other. Both of these churchmen want their readers to appreciate the
significance of bearing and behavior for attesting to virginity while acknowl-
edging, and even reinscribing, a form of the Deuteronomic claim that (at least
some) evidence of virginity resides in the body. They disagree only with regard
to the relative weights of these two kinds of proof. My disagreement with Kelly’s
description of a basically consistent Western Christian view is thus decidedly
partial, limited to one specific figure in this history: only Augustine truly stands
outside of the paradigm of trying to value at one and the same time both forensic
and spiritual evidences of virginity.
63. The difference between Augustine and traditional Roman views on suicide also
likely has to do with the theological battles in which Augustine was engaged
with the dissident “Donatist” Church in Africa. See Shaw, Sacred Violence, esp.
pp. 727–730, on the revolutionary nature of Augustine’s stance on suicide gen-
erally (and the brief bibliography on the topic on p. 727, n. 26), and pp. 627–628,
and 737–738, where he notes the important differences specifically between
Ambrose’s and Augustine’s relationship to martyrdom and suicide. I am thank-
ful to Paula Fredriksen for first encouraging me to consider this particular con-
text. But Augustine’s resistance to an increased emphasis on martyrdom among
these dissident Christians can only explain his opposition to suicide in City of
God (and even that, I think, only partly): it does not take account of his opinion—
contrary to that of Leo I—that these raped virgins are not only innocent but that
they also maintain the status of consecrated virgins. As Shaw writes, “Augustine’s
284
new concept of self-killing began to coalesce with other ideas into a mutually
reinforcing structure of new values” (Sacred Violence, p. 728). I am arguing here
that one of those values that coalesces with Augustine’s resistance to all sui-
cide is his dismissal of the body as a/the site of virginity. Note that Shaw there
includes a reinterpretation of the value of “patience or endurance” as one of
these values as well, a reinterpretation that—as I discussed in the introduction—
was intimately related with resisting classical Roman gender norms. See Shaw,
“Passions of the Martyrs.”
64. Augustine, Holy Virginity (CSEL 41), p. 237, trans. McQuade, Treatises on
Marriage, p. 146.
65. So McQuade in his notes to Augustine, Holy Virginity, p. 237, n. 1.
66. Doyle, “Mary, Mother of God,” p. 543.
67. I do not mean to make too stark a differentiation here; Ambrose’s ecclesiastical por-
trayal of Mary’s virginity certainly features prominently in Augustine as well; see,
for example, Holy Virginity 2, p. 236). But for Augustine, this aspect of Mary’s vir-
ginity is both less pervasive and often comes coupled with other concerns as well.
69. Indeed, see Gillian Clark, Women in Late Antiquity, pp. 74–75, on the seemingly
physical notion of virginity in this passage.
70. Burrus, Saving Shame, p. 132.
71. See also Sawyer, “Celibate Pleasures,” p. 15.
72. It is not surprising, and probably not coincidental, that a Christian author shifts
us from physical to spiritual definitions of virginity, while the Rabbinic authors,
even as they innovate, remain firmly in the realm of the physical. See Boyarin,
Carnal Israel, as well as Unheroic Conduct, p. 25, n. 76.
73. See, for example, Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, p. 173.
74. Augustine, City of God 6.9, trans. Dyson, pp. 258–259. The name Pertunda
derives from the Latin pertundere—to perforate.
75. On the relationship between Christian condemnations of polytheism and their
vituperation against classical Roman sexual norms, see Kuefler, The Manly
Eunuch, pp. 168–169.
76. See City of God, preface, trans. Dyson, p. 3; 1.31, trans. Dyson, p. 45; 3.14, trans.
Dyson, pp. 109–113; 5.12, trans. Dyson, pp. 207–212; 5.13, trans. Dyson, pp.
212–213; 5.19, trans. Dyson, pp. 224–225.
77. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, pp. 89, 93–94.
78. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, p. 93.
79. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, pp. 93–94. Boyarin goes on to point to a similar
valorization of evasion rather than confrontation in the Palestinian Talmud
and, though he acknowledges that this attitude may be “more pronounced in
Babylonia than in Palestine of the talmudic period,” he nonetheless maintains
that “this distinction is only relative” (ibid.). As I wrote in the introduction, the
difference in attitudes toward masculinity between Palestinian and Babylonian
285
Rabbinic corpora is beyond striking. Though scattered evidence of what I have

called the distinctly Babylonian Rabbinic attitude certainly appears in Palestinian
Rabbinic texts as well, I have tried to show—both in the introduction regarding
the narrative texts that Boyarin analyzes, and in c hapters 6 and 7 in the context
of legal material—that the Rabbinic derision for “manly” men who fight and
conquer is a decidedly Babylonian phenomenon.
80. For more detail, see Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, pp. 90–93.
81. Miles, Augustine on the Body, p. 68.
82. Miles, Augustine on the Body, p. 73.
83. Augustine, City of God 5.19, trans. Dyson, pp. 224–225.
84. The particular word here translated as “unmanly” (molle) can also mean “soft,”
perhaps effecting a sexual double entendre that would be particularly relevant to
the question of male penetration and female genital rupture.
85. See Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, pp. 41, 100–101, 167.
86. See on this point Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch, pp. 107–109. It is worth noting that
this resistance in both Augustine and the Babylonian Talmud manifests itself as
well through the appropriation of military imagery for decidedly nonmasculine
(in the Roman sense of “masculine”) ideas. See Sawyer, “Celibate Pleasures,”
esp. pp. 3, 6, 13, for the case regarding Augustine, and my critique in the intro-
duction of this book of Michael Satlow’s treatment of martial images in Rabbinic
literature for the case in the Babylonian Talmud.
E p ilo g ue
1. Leo I, Letters, trans. Hunt, p. 48, n. 1.

2. Leo I, Letters, 12.8, PL 54.653, trans. Feltoe, NPNF, vol. 12, p. 15.
3. Leo I, Letters, 12.11, PL 54.655, trans. Feltoe, NPNF, vol. 12, pp. 15–16.
4. See Schulenberg’s brief treatment of this letter at Forgetful of Their Sex, p. 133, as
well as that of Elliott in Bride of Christ, pp. 61–62.
5. See the discussion of Aldhelm in Schulenberg, Forgetful of Their Sex, pp. 134–135.
6. Elliott, Bride of Christ, p. 108. See also Meltzer’s description of the increasing
importance of the hymen in twelfth-and thirteenth-century Europe (For Fear of
the Fire), pp. 89–91.
7. Cited and discussed in Meltzer, For Fear of the Fire, p. 68.
8. Ibid., p. 69.
9. For some recent treatments of Joan, in addition to Meltzer’s work, see Taylor, The
Virgin Warrior, and Castor, Joan of Arc (I am thankful to Allan Tulchin for bibli-
ographical help regarding Joan). With regard to virginity testing specifically, see
also Kelly, Performing Virginity, pp. 17–18 and 38–41.
10. Meltzer, For Fear of the Fire, pp. 91–93; Taylor, The Virgin Warrior, pp. 70, 130–131.
11. Kayara, Halakhot Gedolot 36, ed. Hildesheimer, vol. 2, p. 226. See Langer, “Birkat
Betulim,” p. 53, n. 2, as well as p. 72, regarding the difficulty in dating this
286
passage precisely, including possibilities both of understanding it as a later addi-

tion to the text of Halakhot Gedolot as well as of assigning it to a significantly
earlier—though still posttalmudic—date. For my purposes here, however, these
differences are not significant, since the blessing, at the very latest, appears in
the work of the tenth-/e leventh-century Rav Hai Gaon and becomes nearly uni-
versal in medieval Jewish communities. Langer also argues for a Palestinian
origin for the blessing (ibid., pp. 67–71), an argument that strikes me as com-
pelling. But what is important is not so much where the blessing was written,
but that it became accepted in Babylonian Rabbinic communities in the early
medieval period. That Rabbinic Jews outside of the immediate circles of the
Babylonian Talmud would further raise the status of postcoital bleeding is, in
light of my argument in this book, unsurprising; that Babylonian Rabbinic Jews
would accept and codify such a practice is far more significant. See Langer’s arti-
cle more generally for both a literary analysis of the blessing and regarding its
reception history.
12. Langer, “Birkat Betulim,” p. 54.
13. Langer also points out the ways in which the language of the blessing alludes to
Song of Songs, similar to its use regarding female virginity by Christian authors
such as Ambrose (“Birkat Betulim,” p. 59).
14. Shulhan ‘Arukh, Even Ha‘ezer 63:2. Perhaps Karo’s “some say” reflects the vit-
riolic refusal of Maimonides to accept the blessing as valid; on Maimonides’s
stance, see Langer, “Birkat Betulim,” pp. 81–84; and To Worship God Properly,
pp. 64–66.
15. Langer, “Birkat Betulim,” p. 56.
16. The most straightforward place to see a generally representative sampling of
these medieval views is the commentary of Rabbi Joseph Karo in the Bet Yosef,
Even Ha‘ezer 68. Note in particular that most commentators, at least from the
time of Maimonides on, follow the view of Rashi that the “open door” claim is
relevant only to young brides, while blood claims are relevant to all brides—
this contra the evidence from manuscripts and the early testimonia of Rabbenu
Hananel and the Alfasi. Even Maimonides, who very often follows the opinions
of Rabbenu Hananel and Alfasi, in this case sides with the other view (Mishneh
Torah, Laws of Marriage 11:12). In other words, despite good reason to read the
texts differently, most medieval authorities claim that “open door” claims are
only rarely relevant, while blood claims are the constant.
17. Margulies, ed., Differences #6.
18. The reference to desire also alludes to a passage from the Babylonian Talmud—
bNid 66a—though this concern about desire leading to menstruation in the Bavli
is about menstrual impurity preceding the wedding night rather than following
it. However, this may simply be similar to an explanation for the Babylonian
postwedding stringency offered by Rav Natronai Gaon connecting the onset
of menstruation to the physical vigor of sex (“shema ‘im torah dam betulim ’i
287
efshar lavo’ dam betulim belo’ tzihtzhuhei zivah”); see Teshuvot Hageonim #67, ed.
Harkavi, p. 31a.
19. See Margulies’s analysis; Differences, pp. 99–102.
20. Margulies, ed., Differences #40, p. 160.
21. See Margulies’s comments on this passage for other evidence of the particularly
Palestinian interest in seeing postcoital bleeding (ibid., pp. 160–161).
22. Kelly, Performing Virginity, p. 15, and also pp. 9–10.
23. Kelly, Performing Virginity, chapter 5.
24. Recent scholarship showing the surprising influence of texts and ideas from the
Roman East on the Babylonian Talmud, authored outside of the Roman Empire,
played an important role throughout my arguments about that Talmud; see, once
more, Kalmin, Jewish Babylonia and Migrating Tales. Daniel Boyarin makes a dif-
ferent but related argument that the Rabbinic Jews of Babylonia functioned with
a kind of doubled consciousness, living and thinking both in their local setting
of Sasanian-controlled Babylonia as well as in the translocal setting of their spir-
itual kinfolk in Roman-controlled Palestine, in his recent A Traveling Homeland;
see also his article “Hellenism in Jewish Babylonia,” which gets across similar
ideas, if in an earlier form. All of which is to say that placing some particular
cultural and/or legal element “in Sasanian Persia” must not mean ignoring what
is going on in the Roman East; rather, I mean that we must pay attention to the
striking phenomenon of this development manifesting only in texts produced
there. In other words, even if we conceptualize both Palestinian Rabbinic com-
munities and Babylonian ones as living in a shared diaspora culture, as Boyarin
argues in A Traveling Homeland, we should not think that the experience of that
diaspora culture was the same in both locales.
25. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, p. 84. The importance of this reminder is such that
it appears throughout Unheroic Conduct; see, for example, pp. xxi, 17, 91, 123,
and most acutely for me in this project, the following from p. 18: “the question
of how focusing on the historical constructions of masculinity, a project in which
both the subject and object of discourse is male, can remain feminist and not be
a more sophisticated reinstatement of androcentrism remains for me a problem
and an open question.”
28
289
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304
305
Index
Abaye 122–123, 129–131, 135, 170–172, 176, 211, 212, 213, 215n2, 215n8, 217n26,
178–179, 257n16, 262n38, 264n49, 217n27, 218n28, 219n38, 240n74,
274n56, 274n57, 275n60, 275n61 241n81, 279n28, 285n86, 287n24
Aelian 26, 224n28, 224n29 Balzac, Honoré de 29, 225n45
Aldhelm 209, 285n5, Be‘ilat mitzvah 150, 155, 271n29
Alexandria 23, 83–85, 218n28, Bereshit Rabbah 70–75
245n26, 266n72 “Betulah,” meaning of 12–13, 32,
Ambrose of Milan 3, 7, 12, 17, 116, 220n43, 226n10, 228n32
182, 186–188, 189, 190–199, 200, Betulim 36–37, 60, 226n10, 227n25,
201, 209, 219n41, 277n2, 277n3, 228n32, 238n60,
278n11, 286n13 Birkat betulim 210
An Ethiopian Story 26, 224n32 Bitter waters test 92, 93–94, 106, 108,
Anal intercourse 33, 64, 68–70, 75, 109, 112, 248n13, 248n14, 248n15
184, 277n8 Bogeret 66, 155, 157, 164, 240n79,
“Angling” 130–131, 136–137, 171 253n55, 260n31, 263n38,
Aquinas, Thomas 209 Boyarin, Daniel 7–10, 204–205, 213,
Artificial insemination 223n23 216n23, 217n24, 217n26, 217n27,
Aseneth 218n28, 245n25 219n39, 231n50, 231n55, 231n56,
Augustine of Hippo 1–3, 11–12, 17–18, 29, 247n1, 267n77, 284n79, 287n24,
30, 182, 186, 188–190, 192–194, 195, 287n25,
197–201, 201–206, 207, 208, 209, Brown, Raymond 88, 246n34, 246n35
212–213, 219n41, 220n42, 222n14, Burrus, Virginia 6–7, 200
252n53, 269n95, 276n1, 277n2,
278n11, Caldwell, Lauren 222n14, 225n39
Castration 217n24
Babylonian Talmud 1–2, 8–10, 11–12, 15, Chrysostom, John 116, 277n3, 278n9,
17–18, 25, 27, 30, 52, 53, 68, 70, 279n24, 281n44
119–181, 182, 201–206, 207, 210, Circumcision 72–73, 173–175
306
306 Index
Clement of Alexandria 242n93 Hymen, as a cultural construction

Cyprian of Carthage 17, 73–75, 116, 182, 13–14, 30, 59–60, 63–64, 167, 194,
183–186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 220n53, 222n14, 230n47, 238n60,
194, 199, 208, 209, 277n2, 277n3, 273n50, 281n42
279n25, 283n62
Ilan, Tal 143, 144, 266n70
Daphnis and Chloe 4, 28–29
Dead Sea Scrolls 17, 44–54, 75, 95, 209, Jacob of Serug 107–108
221n9, 248n18, 250n33, Jerome 190, 191, 198, 209,
Diaspora 206, 217n26, 287n24 279n29, 281n39
Dorketi family 134, 140–142, 238n61, Joan of Arc 22, 209, 221n9, 248n17
266n74, 275n63 Joseph and Aseneth (see “Aseneth”)
Dover, Kenneth 4–5, 216n10 Josephus 16–17, 79, 80–83, 101, 245n22
Drink test (see “bitter waters test”) Jovinian 12, 191, 280n36, 281n41
Elliott, Dyan 193, 209, 277n5, 278n15, Kalir, Eleazar 152,

281n42, 283n60 Kalmin, Richard 263n42, 266n72,
Ephrem the Syian 107–108 274n57, 287n24
Karo, Joseph 210, 259n24,
Fonrobert, Charlotte 145, 259n24, 269n2 286n14, 286n16
Forensic evidence, admissibility in Kelly, Kathleen Coyne 22, 25, 27–28, 94,
Rabbinic law 56–57 212, 221n5, 221n9, 222n14, 223n23,
Foskett, Mary 92, 98, 248n15 223n25, 242n92, 248n14, 277n8,
Foucault, Michel 4–5, 11, 216n10 278n11, 283n62
Frymer-Kensky, Tikva 13, 35, 38, 220n43 Kosher slaughter 64–65
Kuefler, Matthew 217n24
Genealogy 33–36, 65, 67–68, 83 Kulp, Joshua 128, 129, 135, 143, 236n40,
Glancy, Jennifer 108, 113 249n33, 252n48, 254n57, 256n3,
Goldhill, Simon 14, 178, 216n12, 225n41, 257n12, 258n21, 259n29, 261n35,
225n43, 245n25 262n38, 264n49, 265n65,
Gospel of Matthew 17, 79–80, 86–89, 267n78, 268n89
90, 93, 115–116, 223n23
Gregory IX, Pope 209 Leo I, Pope 207–208, 283n63
Leucippe and Clitophon 23, 26, 85,
Halakhot Gedolot 209–210 248n13, 248n15
Halberstam, Chaya 56–57 Libido dominandi 204–205
Halbertal, Moshe 55, 228n31, 229n36, Libson, Ayelet 146, 179
235n30, 244n11 Lillis, Julia Kelto 14, 249n22
Hanson, Ann Ellis 14, 25, 273n50 Lucretia 197–198
Herodotus 25, 28
Horner, Timothy 92 Macrobius 225n43
Hunter, David 191 Male virginity 84–85, 245n25
307
Index 307
Manicheanism 12, 219n41 Plaskow, Judith 251n41, 270n6

Margaret of Antioch 209 Plutarch 225n39, 225n43
Mary, Mother of Jesus 86–89, 92–99, Pregnancy 25, 35, 63, 65, 67–68,
107–116, 188, 190–192, 199–200, 87, 113, 187, 223n23, 227n18,
221n9, 223n23, 240n80, 259n26 228n32, 279n20
Megillat Ta‘anit 58–59 Priests 27, 33–36, 38, 48, 80, 83–84,
Meltzer, Françoise 97, 98, 106 93–94, 100, 109, 240n77, 241n85,
Menstrual purity, and postcoital 249n20
bleeding 140, 145, 149–161 Propertius 224n28, 224n29
Mesopotamian virginity testing Protevangelium of James 12, 17, 47,
(see “oaths”) 90, 91–99, 107–112, 191, 199,
Midwives (see also “vaginal 221n9, 247n1, 259n26, 279n28,
examinations”) 23, 27, 74, 87, 281n42,
95, 110–111, 114, 122, 125, 183–189, Jewish character 17, 91–92
191, 192–195, 196, 209, 221n2,
221n9, 222n11, 222n14, 223n20, Qumran (see “Dead Sea Scrolls”)
237n47, 249n20
Miles, Margaret 205, 280n33 Rabbi Meir 66, 71, 100, 101–105, 140,
Mishnah 91–92, 99–107 151, 230n48
Rape 4, 16, 29, 42, 59, 69, 175–176, 178,
Nero Caesar 205–206 186, 188–190, 197–199, 201,
Neusner, Jacob 15–16, 260n30 208–209, 213, 234n24, 245n15,
Niddah (see “menstrual purity”) 252n52, 252n53, 253n55, 280n29,
Ninus 245n25 280n33,
Rav (Babylonian amora) 8, 155–158,
Oaths, as virginity test 23, 27, 94, 163–166, 168–172, 259n27, 262n38
Ordeals, as virginity test 21, 25–27, 86,
88, 94–96, 98, 108 Sabbath
Origen of Alexandria 242n93, and first-time sexual
266n72, 280n35 relations 161–173,
and unintended consequences 168,
Palestinian Talmud 57, 59–70, 153–155, 169–170
160, 163–166 Sack of Rome 188–190
Parthenos 12–13, 215n6, 225n1 Salome 92, 94, 95–99, 106, 109–113,
Perkins, Judith 5, 6 221n9, 281n42
Perpetual virginity 91, 92, 96, 97, 107, Salzberg, Alieza 264n56, 266n72,
186, 188, 190–192, 194, 197, 267n80, 267n86
199–201, 249n22, 279n20, 281n38 Samuel (Babylonian amora) 8, 15,
Pesik reisheih 161, 170–172 126–127, 131–133, 135, 153–158, 163,
Philo 16–17, 79, 80–82, 83–85, 166, 168–169, 175, 203, 215n3
218n28, 227n15, 232n4, 242n1, Satlow, Michael 10–11, 217n27, 218n29,
244n11, 266n72 243n5, 285n86
308
308 Index
Secunda, Shai 159, 160 Vaginal examination 17, 22–24, 46–54,

Seidman, Naomi 97, 98, 106, 247n7 73–74, 92–93, 94–99, 101, 106,
Septuagint (search also for LXX) 109–112, 183–189, 191–196, 207–209,
243n6, 243n9 221n2, 221n8
Shaw, Brent 5–6, 223n26, 283n63 Valer, Shulamit 143, 258n19,
Shemesh, Aharon 50, 101, 233n20, 265n64, 267n83
237n47, 251n46 Valerius Maximus 26
Shulhan ‘Arukh (see “Karo, Joseph”) Virginitas in partu (see “perpetual
Sifrei Devarim 54–58, 219n36, virginity”)
222n12, 230n38, 244n11, 251n46, Vuong, Lily 91, 92, 97, 98, 247n3,
269n5, 282n45 247n4, 248n11, 248n12
Sissa, Giulia 13–14, 167, 194–196,
273n50, 277n2, 281n42 Wassen, Cecilia 49, 50–51, 54,
Sophrosyne 5, 10, 11, 219n34, 233n20, 234n22
Soranus of Ephesus 13–14, 139, 222n14, Wedding night consummation (see
266n72, 273n50, “be‘ilat mitzvah”)
Subjectivity 7, 25, 125, 129, 134, 138–140, Wenham, Gordon 36, 220n43,
143–146, 177, 179, 267n86 227n25, 228n32
Winkler, John 5, 29, 178–179, 216n12,
Tertullian of Carthage 191 225n41, 248n16
Tosefta 105, 150, 162, 166, 252n48,
253n56, 254n57 Zoroastrianism 148, 159–160, 180,
Troketei (see “Dorketi”) 206, 272n39
309
Index of Primary Sources
Hebrew Bible Judg. 21:12 224n36

Gen. 19:4–11 41–43, 52, 67 1 Kgs. 1:2 225n2
Gen. 24:16 32–33, 36, 41, 48, 71, 2 Kgs. 19:21 226n3
242n93 Isa. 37:22 226n3
Exod. 22:15–17 38, 226n4, 229n33, Isa. 47:1 226n3
229n36, Jer. 14:17 226n3
Exod. 22:18 245n24 Ezek. 16:25 176
Lev. 12 269n1 Ezek. 22:10 269n1
Lev. 12:4–5 270n11 Ezek. 44:22 34–36
Lev. 15:19–30 269n1 Joel 1:8 220n43
Lev. 15:19 149 Esth. 2:2 225n2
Lev. 18:19 149, 269n1
Lev. 20:18 149, 269n1 Dead Sea Scrolls
Lev. 21 34–36, 41, 65, 67, 240n77 4Q159 (“4QOrdinances”) 2–4 46–47,
Lev. 21:7 34, 36, 43 50–54, 101, 243n10
Lev. 21:13 36–37, 48 4Q271 (“Damascus Document”) 3
Lev. 21:13–15 33–36 47–54, 237n47, 243n10, 251n46
Num. 5:11–31 86, 92, 248n13, 248n14 11Q19 (“Temple Scroll”), LXV,
Deut. 22:13–21 1, 30, 31, 36, 37–41, 43, 7–15 45–46
45–54, 56, 80–81, 86, 88, 101,
150, 159, 231n57, 232n4, 257n12, New Testament
261n34, 274n52 Matthew 1:18–25 86–89, 93,
Deut. 22:19–29 230n38 Matthew 1:19 87–88, 114
Deut. 22:25–29 38
Deut. 22:28–29 226n4, 229n33 Other Second Temple Literature
Deut. 23:18 85, 245n24 Josephus
Deut. 25:5–10 250n39 Antiquities 2.42–44 245n22
Judg. 19 231n50 Antiquities 4.246–248 80–83
310
310 Index of Primary Sources
Philo Sanhedrin 12:3 56–57, 236n43

De Josepho 42–44 84–85 Yevamot 11:10 240n76
On the Cherubim 42–52 246n29
On the Posterity of Cain and His Exile Midrash
132–134 246n29 Bereshit Rabbah 71–75
Special Laws 1.108 227n15 Vayikra Rabbah 22:10 151–152
Special Laws 3.74 245n15 Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, Nezikin #6
Special Laws 3.80–82 80–81, 83 236n33, 236n43
Sifrei Devarim #152 269n5
Apocryphal literature Sifrei Devarim #235 54, 55, 230n38,
Ascension of Isaiah 11.7–9 97, 109 241n81, 242n90
Odes of Solomon 19.7–10 97 Sifrei Devarim #236 54
Protevangelium of James 13–20 93–99 Sifrei Devarim #237 54–55, 57, 58,
63, 235n30
Mishnah Sifrei Devarim #239 54, 241n81, 242n90
Bekhorot 7:5 259n28 Sifrei Devarim #240 235n30, 236n38
Berakhot 2:6 272n42, 274n55, 275n60
Eduyot 2:5 274n55 Palestinian Talmud
Gittin 9:10 226n13 Berakhot 2:6 (5b) 153–155,
Ketubot 1:1–5 59, 99–103 163–166, 269n5
Ketubot 1:1 123, 129 Berakhot 9:3 (14a) 240n74
Ketubot 1:3 68–70, 71, 103–106, 165 Ketubot 1:1 (24d) 60, 140, 163,
Ketubot 1:6 250n34, 261n35 260n31, 273n43
Ketubot 3:2 253n55 Ketubot 1:1 (25a) 60, 61, 62–63,
Ketubot 3:4 175 261n31, 264n52
Ketubot 3:8 262n38 Ketubot 1:2 (25b) 59–60
Kiddushin 3:10 121, 129, 256n3 Ketubot 1:3 (25b) 59–60, 63–68
Niddah 1:7 150, 269n4 Ketubot 1:6 (25c) 261n35
Niddah 9:11 140 Ketubot 3:4 (28c) 57
Niddah 10:1 150, 154–155, 157–158, 175, Ketubot 3:5 (28c) 276n71
271n29, 272n41, 273n42, 274n55 Mo‘ed Katan 2:3 (81b) 217n26
Shabbat 22:3 163 Mo‘ed Katan 3:5 (82d) 219n32
Sanhedrin 8:2 (26b) 217n26
Tosefta Sanhedrin 11:3 (30a) 269n5
Eduyot 1:8 274n55
Ketubot 1:1 162, 167, 175, 270n7, 273n43 Babylonian Talmud
Ketubot 1:2 253n56 Bava Kama 59a 276n65
Ketubot 1:3 240n79, 251n45 Bava Metzia 83b 204
Ketubot 1:4 248n63, 251n42 Bava Metzia 88a 267n77
Ketubot 3:5 253n55 Bekhorot 44b 259n28
Ketubot 3:6 151, 276n71 Hagigah 15a 215n3, 223n23
Niddah 9:6 150 Hullin 9a 240n74
Sanhedrin 10:9 69 Hullin 21a 240n74
31
Index of Primary Sources 311
Hullin 28a 240n74 Sanhedrin 86b 269n5

Hullin 45a 240n74 Shabbat 63b 238n59
Hullin 53b–54a 240n74 Shabbat 133b 173, 175, 274n54
Hullin 109b 152 Yevamot 60b 27, 139
Ketubot 3b Yevamot 68a 240n76
Ketubot 4a 162 Zevahim 65b 240n74
Ketubot 5a 275n64
Ketubot 5b 230n46 Patristic authors
Ketubot 5b–7b 175 Ambrose
Ketubot 6b 130, 272n42 De viduis 4.26 196
Ketubot 8a 174–175 De virginibus 3.7.32–35 198
Ketubot 8b–10b 120–147 Epistle #5 186–188, 193–196
Ketubot 8b–9a 120–121 Epistle #42 191
Ketubot 9a 121–122 Exhortatio virginitatis 6.35 197
Ketubot 9b 122–123, 131–132 Augustine
Ketubot 10a 132–133 City of God, preface 284n76
Ketubot 10a–b 123–124, 133–146 City of God 1.16–19 199, 201
Ketubot 12a 61 City of God 1.16 189–190
Ketubot 36a–b 262n38 City of God 1.18 188–190, 200, 282n51
Ketubot 39a–b 180, 270n8, 276n67 City of God 1.19 197–198
Ketubot 46a 241n81 City of God 1.31 284n76
Kiddushin 9b 69 City of God 3.14 284n76
Kiddushin 19a 240n76 City of God 5.12 284n76
Niddah 64b 141, 215n3, 259n26, City of God 5.13 284n76
262n38, 267n76 City of God 5.19 205–206, 284n76
Niddah 64b–65b 271n28 City of God 6.9 203–204, 215n5
Niddah 66a 286n18 City of God 14.26 200–201, 202–203
Pesahim 33b 275n63 Holy Virginity 199–200, 284n67
Sanhedrin 22b 215n2 Cyprian
Sanhedrin 66b 69 Epistle #4 73–74, 183–186
Sanhedrin 69b 240n76 Epistle #62 185–186, 208
312

Signs of Virginity Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity

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Signs of Virginity Testing Virgins and Making Men in Late Antiquity

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i

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

For my father, Joshua Baruch Rosenberg, of blessed memory.

This is not the book that he wanted to write, but I think

Introduction: Defining Virginity, Making Men 1

PART I. Testing Virginity in the Body

1. Virginity and Violence in Cross-​Cultural Perspective 21

2. Bloodied Sheets: The Biblical Nuptial Bed as Rape Scene 31

PART II. Testing Virginity through Faith

4. Doubts and Faith: Possible Alternatives in

5. Struck by Wood, Struck by God: Virginity Beyond/​Despite

PART III. Subjecting Virginity

6. Open Doors and Accused Brides: Subjectivity and

7. Impure Nuptials and Sex as Work: The Bavli’s Attempted

in Israel. My colleagues Aryeh Bernstein and Ethan Tucker were incredi-

more work for her—​and my colleagues—​to pick up the slack, a sacrifice

References to editions of early Christian works make use of the following

Since I am a gynê [wife/​woman-​not-​maiden] I did not suffer now.

Rav Samuel b. Oniya said in the name of Rav: “A woman forms a

For Samuel said: “I can penetrate many virgins [betulot] without

My seed [semen] is a hundred times more fertile.4

notion that virginity is something physical, something that can be read in

Masculinity and Aggression in Late Antiquity

of penile penetration in Greek and Roman culture. To be a proper man,

What is stated here is so ordinary that it might escape notice—​so

Whether pre-​Constantinian Christian authors similarly blur the dominant

at the same time assign to themselves classically male powers. Consider

To state the thesis in general terms: post-​Constantinian Christianity

In considering Christian authors of late antiquity, I will highlight a related

Rabbinic Masculinity: An Imperial Divide

means to be a (Jewish) man. As Boyarin usefully puts it, “The Talmud,

then transformed. But in truth, the pathways of traditions between these

“the main question is not . . . the problem of penetration: it is the prob-

Two Overdetermined Terms:

In truth, this ambiguity is far from unique to the Hebrew betulah

from the Deuteronomic paradigm in the case of Josephus; by contrast,

radically departs from his predecessors, thoroughly removing female vir-

Testing Virginity in the Body

Virginity and Violence in

Although the diversity of forms that it has taken is wide-​ranging, the

The Surprisingly Biblical Nature

22 Testing Virginity in the Body

rare or nonexistent outside of cultures influenced by biblical texts is

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 23

In light of the widespread use of both bloodied sheets and midwives’

24 Testing Virginity in the Body

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 25

26 Testing Virginity in the Body

genitalia nor any other aspect of her anatomy is significant in determining

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 27

managing of an ordeal. This phenomenon is consistent with Greek and

Virginity Tests, Symbolic Violence, and

28 Testing Virginity in the Body

consideration of the Protevangelium of James in ­chapter 5. But I now want

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 29

if slain.”40 Furthermore, Daphnis should bring her to the secluded spot in

30 Testing Virginity in the Body

view this violence as nearly inevitable, bemoaning the typical wedding

32 Testing Virginity in the Body

Rebecca the Betulah (Gen. 24:16)

1. Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 21

5. Struck by Wood, Struck by God: Virginity Beyond/Despite

more work for her—and my colleagues—to pick up the slack, a sacrifice

Since I am a gynê [wife/woman-not-maiden] I did not suffer now.

What is stated here is so ordinary that it might escape notice—so

Whether pre-Constantinian Christian authors similarly blur the dominant

To state the thesis in general terms: post-Constantinian Christianity

Although the diversity of forms that it has taken is wide-ranging, the

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 23

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 25

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 27

consideration of the Protevangelium of James in chapter 5. But I now want

Virginity and Violence in Cross-Cultural Perspective 29

Virginity and Violence (Deut. 22:13–21)

Genesis 19:4–11: Female Virginity

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 45

Deuteronomy 22:13–21 in the Temple Scroll

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 47

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 49

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 51

after the bride and groom have presumably engaged in penile-vaginal

thus implicitly encouraged by a legal text such as 4Q159 2–4 to penetrate

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 53

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 55

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 57

of similar provenance, dating, and genre to the Mishnah—Rabbi Akiva

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 59

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 61

The baraita describes an intense effort— at least in Judea— to estab-

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 63

"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 65

Only in this light—blood as the defining characteristic of why men, in

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"Trustworthy Women" and Other Witnesses 69