ReclaimJesus.net

We left off last time asking ourselves this question: Is the direction to multiply an invitation to do so responsibly, or is it an obligation to do so regardless of the consequences? Perhaps it would help to get to the answer to this question by looking at the historical times in which these particular words, “Be fruitful and multiply,” were crafted. To find out what its intended purpose was at the time.

The cosmological creation story of Genesis 1 is generally believed to have been penned by the so-called Priestly writers during a period of Jewish history known as the Exiles. The Jews were captives, deported to the Diaspora by their Babylonian captors. They dreamed one day or returning to their sacred land of Judah, but in order to do so, they felt they had to grow strong as a people. To reproduce and grow their tribal numbers so that one day that might be powerful enough to win their way back home was of paramount importance.

To have their Creator God command them “to be fruitful and multiply” was just what the doctor ordered, and the Priestly writers administered the medicine in the form of Gen 1: 26 – 31. It was a political agenda as much as it was anything else. It was a formula for the means of survival as a tribe. Ironically, today, it is a formula for genocide of the entire human race.

Let’s do some Math. Let’s take the story of Adam and Eve literally for a moment, since we are taking the words “Be Fruitful and multiply” literally. Let’s see where it takes us. If we assume every two parents give birth to two children, we grow the population of the earth exponentially by a power of two. Adam and Eve beget two children, making four; those four each beget two, making eight; those eight result in a total of sixteen and so on. Two to the second power is four; to the third power is eight; to the fourth power is sixteen; and so on.

Now, if we assume people have their children by the age of 30 and everybody is immortal (remember: the story of Adam and Eve assumes immortality until that fatal bite from the apple), here’s what we get. After 30 cycles – I can’t call them “generations” because we’re assuming, for the moment, that no one dies of 30 years – after 30 cycles (after 900 years), the population of the earth is 512 million. Admittedly, immortality is a silly assumption, but don’t worry, we’ll get to that in a second. Bear with me.

After 35 cycles of 30 years (1,050 years), we are at 16 Billion; 36 cylcles, 32 Billion, and so on. After 40 cycles, 512 Billion; 41 cycles, 1 Trillion plus. By the 46th cycle of 30 years (1380 years) we’re at whatever comes after Trillion – the number plus 12 zeroes. After the 50th cycle (1500 years), we’re up to whatever comes after whatever comes after trillions – the number plus 15 zeroes. In other words, a pretty crowded planet. (For a sense of perspective, our planet is presently populated by approximately 6 Billion.)

But my numbers assumed no one ever died, and everybody does die. So here are the facts, plugging in actual mortalities: human life is estimated to have begun between one and two million years ago. For our purposes, that’s a close enough estimate. It took until 1750 to reach one billion; just 180 years to reach the second billion in the 1930’s. By 1970 we had reached the third billion, and it has only taken us another 30+/- years to double to roughly six million. You get the point. Six becomes twelve in another 15 years; twelve becomes twenty-four in half that time, and all of a sudden it’s getting crowded around here.

And dominion and control keeps slipping away as global warming, and the hole in the ozone layer, and all sorts of other ecological disasters continue to plague our planet as we struggle to find ways to “subdue” – to “conquer,” to “defeat” this planet we have been abusing for so long.

That’s enough for now. More next time.

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