The Birth Narrative as Female Counterpart to Covenant

Abstract

The concept of 'covenant', the dominant ideology describing Yahweh's relationship to humanity, ultimately fails to include Yahweh's association with women. However, some forms of covenantal behavior and language exist within the literary form associated with women known as the 'birth narrative'. Yahweh's relationship to Hagar in Genesis 16 is an example of this specific type of contractual relationship. In the Hebrew Bible and New Testament there are nine such narratives that follow a specific format and include six common elements. Yahweh's contractual connection with Hagar, formulated and established in Gen. 16.7-15, serves as the foundation for all future associations between Yahweh and potential child-bearing women which eventually culminates in the New Testament pericope of the impregnation of Mary.