Tracing the Steps of Hagar in Early Judaism: Ally, Queen Mother, Utility, and Covenant

This dissertation examines the character of Hagar across Jewish and early Christian texts, analyzing how her identity is reshaped to fit distinct ideological and theological frameworks. Beginning with her portrayal in Genesis, it explores how her character is constructed by direct and indirect characterization. It then traces her recharacterization in Jubilees, where she is refashioned as the mother of Israel’s ally, and in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, where she is adapted to align with Roman social norms regarding slavery and legitimacy, becoming a function of the moral logic of Josephus’s narrative. In Philo’s exegetical texts, Hagar is portrayed as the enkyklia education, a steppingstone toward true Wisdom while Paul’s use of Hagar in Galatians foregrounds her social and maternal identities within an argument about inheritance. It argues that Paul’s d?? d?a???a? should be understood as competing testamentary dispositions. Across these diverse texts, Hagar is never a static figure but a character in motion, repurposed to serve shifting narrative and theological aims.