Citation: S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, V5 N1 (2026)
Abstract This essay engages in two kinds of comparison involving divine women from three religious traditions: Judaism (Shekhinah), Hinduism (Kali) and nascent Christianity (the Woman Clothed with the Sun of Rev 12:1-6). Shekhinah as portrayed in Zohar I:223a-b has been juxtaposed by several scholars, both Jewish and Hindu, with the goddess Kali, using a form of illuminative comparison, and resulting in a novel description of Shekhinah as a fierce and forbidding image of the divine feminine. This comparative work has, however, has missed some major differences between the two, and overlooked several significant questions—is the unnamed Zoharic figure really Shekhinah? Is she really terrifying? Is her unnamed son meant to be Metatron? Next, I undertake a comparison that has not hitherto been made between the divine woman of the Zohar and the Woman Clothed with the Sun of Rev 12:1-6—two cosmic women who bear powerful sons. Using the criteria for determining intertextuality developed by Dennis R. MacDonald, an argument is made for a literary relationship between the hypotext (Rev 12:1-6) and the hypertext (Zohar I:223a-b), with particular reference to the prominence of the Woman of the Apocalypse (interpreted as both the Church and the Virgin Mary) in 13th century Spain, the date and location concurrent with the composition of the Zohar.
Keywords Shekhinah, Kali, Woman Clothed with the Sun, Mary, Zohar, Book of Revelation, Illuminative Comparison, Intertextuality, Thealogy
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