Thinking with Clay: Procreation and the Ceramic Paradigm in Israelite Religion

Abstract

The cross-cultural connection between ceramic production and the creation of humans in the ancient Near East offers a new lens through which to examine biblical discourse about procreation and subject formation. The physical properties of clay make it an effective discursive tool in ancient Near Eastern texts, including the Hebrew Bible, for conceptualizing the processes that form and shape the human. Adopting a materialist approach, this article argues that biblical writers are not simply thinking about clay in relation to procreation and subject formation, but are thinking with it – that the raw materials, technologies, and objects of ceramic production helped to generate the ideologies and ritual processes that shape the human from gestation to birth and into early childhood. Material culture from ancient Israel supports this assessment. The manufacture of Judean Pillar Figurines out of clay and their apparent association with childbirth and the nurture of young children further suggest the prevalence of the ceramic paradigm in ancient religious ideology and ritual.