Interpreting Mothers and the Maternal Body in the Ashburnham Pentateuch

Abstract The Ashburnham Pentateuch (Paris, BnF, NAL 2334) contains the earliest known images of Eve breastfeeding (fol. 6r) and Rebecca giving birth (fol. 22v). These two images create a visual link between mothers and the actions of their sons through thoughtful composition and iconographic repetition. In this way, the images—although unique, since the next examples do not appear for centuries—reflect late antique physiological theories about the maternal body, as well as early Christian theological interpretations of Sin, the Covenant, and early Mariology, some of which incorporated the matriarch Rebecca into the dominant Eve/Mary dichotomy.