Reverend Mother and Tamar (Gn 38) trapped between ‘artificial’ barrenness and ‘normative’ motherhood: Any fitting biblical hermeneutic?

Reverend Mother’s entry into ordained ministry did not quench her maternal instinct to experience the fruit of her own body. Her craving was thus not for a man as a husband but for a baby, the fruit of her own womb. As a result of her unconventional choice to fulfil her desire technologically, the church ‘[…] stripped her of her authority, position, and title’ (Henry 2010 ). In many a family-oriented, communal, hetero-patriarchal (African) Christian setting, a setting in which many a woman, persuaded by a specific biblical hermeneutic, finds herself trapped between ‘artificial’ infertility and a deep desire to have a baby, what kind of hermeneutic may emerge if Genesis 38 is read side by side with Reverend Mother’s narrative? The present article is an attempt to engage the preceding question critically.