Abstract

KEBANEILWE, Mmapula Diana. The good creation: An ecowomanist reading of Genesis 1-2. Old testam. essays [online]. 2015, vol.28, n.3, pp.694-703. ISSN 2312-3621.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2015/v28n3a8.

In his creative activity recorded in Gen 1-2, God interacts with a formless, chaotic, space. It is stated that God began to speak things into being and that at the completion of everything he created; God saw that it was ""all" good. As a Motswana woman, I see in God's concluding remarks a hope for the future. In a world characterized by panic due to the impending ecological decline and crisis, it is necessary to go back to the beginning of all things. One can safely conclude that God loves all his creation, human, animate and inanimate. However due to the patriarchal structures of our world, there has been domination over women and the natural world. The structures of suppression and abuse of the women by men have modelled into those of humans over non-humans. In this paper I endeavour to show that there is an interconnection between the oppression of women, in particular black women and the subjugation of the ecosystem leading to its depletion. My argument is that there is need to re-visit the idea of an "overall" good creation. Domination over women, land and animals is against the creator's vision of a good world. An appreciation of women across all cultures, classes, races, sexual orientations etcetera, as part of the good creation can be a starting point for an appreciation and care of all God has created.

Keywords : Creation; Genesis; Ecowomanist; Ecological; Patriarchal and Domination.

        · text in English     · English ( pdf )