It has been argued that the episode involving the woman and the dragon in Revelation 12 is an earlier messianic-mythological tradition that John absorbed undigested into his book. That would make sense of many of the exegetical problems. The woman is the Jewish people. The baby is the messiah. The dragon is satan. But any connection with Jesus is a poor fit, because the tradition was originally about a generic messiah.
I don't have recent references or access to a library. But a century ago R. H. Charles explored the case in volume 1 of his International Critical Commentary on the Book of Revelation. You can read what he has to say by going to the section on chapter 12, starting on p. 298.
I think the basic concept is sound. I don't have a favorite version of the specifics.
I have noted previous posts in Phil's Book of Revelation series here and links.
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