The Womb as Agent of the God of Life: Female Fertility Imagery in the Letter to the Romans

Abstract When read through an apocalyptic lens, the letter to the Romans contains many pairs of antitheses: the law versus πίστις Χριστοῦ, Adam versus Christ, death versus life. This article proposes an additional pair: Where circumcision is presented as bodily imagery of the law that brings death, the child-bearing womb is presented as imagery of the God of life. Investigating four pericopes where Paul specifically makes reference to female fertility, and one place where he conspicuously does not, I intend to show that Paul uses imagery of the womb to highlight the lifegiving character of God.