Embodied

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Lee Ann M. Pomrenke. Embodied

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EMBODIED

CLERGY WOMEN AND

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Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them: male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Procreation is necessary to a creation story, to explain how there got to be so many people from presumably two. God says, “Be fruitful and multiply,” and it sounds like a command for human beings to act upon. Yet God does not say, “. . . if I decide to bless you with fertility.” Our creation stories tell us who we are, establishing our identity in relation to the rest of creation and to God. There is nothing in there implying “procreation is the major indication of the quality of relationship between God and humankind” or “disregard caring for creation as long as you make babies.” In fact, “being fruitful” and “multiplying” are two different verbs, so in addition to making human beings, having lives that produce good fruit in the world carries just as much weight as the other verb. In any case, even if one is determined to take this creation story as historical, there is still no mention that God is going to be involved in conception or the lack thereof. Eve offers an interpretation with the naming of her first child, since the word for “produced” in Hebrew is similar to “Cain”: “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen. 4:1b).

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