The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner

Author:Gerda Lerner
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, pdf
Tags: Medical, Pediatrics
ISBN: 9780195051858
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1986-12-15T07:00:00+00:00

The answer to the question “Who creates life?” lies at the core of religious belief-systems. Generativity encompasses both creativity—the ability to create something out of nothing—and procreativity—the capacity to produce offspring. We have seen how religious explanations of generativity have shifted from the Mother-Goddess as the sole principle of universal fertility to the Mother-Goddess assisted in her fertility by male gods or human kings; then to the concept of symbolic creativity as expressed first in “the name,” then “the creative spirit.” We have seen, as well, the shift in the pantheon of gods from the all-powerful Mother-Goddess to the all-powerful Storm-God, whose female consort represents a domesticated version of the fertility goddess. It remains for the pantheon of gods to be replaced by one single powerful male God and for that God to incorporate the principle of generativity in both of its aspects. This shift, which occurs in many different forms in different cultures, occurs for Western civilization in the Book of Genesis.

The creation story in Genesis departs significantly from the creation stories of other peoples in the region. It is Yahweh who is the sole creator of the universe and all that exists in it. Unlike the chief gods of neighboring peoples, Yahweh is not allied with any female goddess nor does He have familial ties.1 There is no longer any maternal source for the creation of the Universe and for life on earth, nor is there any indication that creativity and procreativity are linked. Quite to the contrary. God’s act of creation is entirely unlike anything humans can experience.

The great advance in abstract thinking represented by the symbolification of creativity into “a concept,” a “name,” the “breath of life” is echoed in the opening words: “And God said ‘Let there be light,’ And there was light” (Gen. 1:3). God’s word, God’s breath creates. The metaphor of the divine breath as life-giving is elaborated in Genesis 2:7, “Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul.” Then God forms the beasts of the field and fowl of the air “and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof” (Gen. 2:19). Thus, the divine breath creates, but human naming gives meaning and order. And God gives the power of that kind of naming to Adam. If we read the Hebrew word “adam” as “humankind,” then we would expect God to give the power of naming both to the male and the female of the species. But in this instance, God granted that power specifically to the human male only.2 This might have been so simply because the female had not yet been created, but the pattern recurs after the creation of Eve, when Adam names her, as he had named the animals. “And the man said: ‘This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man’” (Gen.

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