THE NAMING OF ISAAC
©1998
34"x 30"
Private Collection
One of the roles that anthropologists and folklorists believe that women had in ancient Israel, was the naming of offspring, based on some experience of the mother and baby during conception, pregnancy, or birth. This quilt shows the birth of Isaac, which means laughter. I surmised that this name related to Sarah’s reaction of laughing disbelief, when she heard she was giving birth in her post-menopausal old age as described in Genesis 21:1-7.