It's the Maxwell Institute podcast.

I'm Blair Hodges.

Be fruitful and multiply.

According to the book of Genesis, these are the first words God speaks to humanity.

And over the centuries, people have understood these words as a commandment to procreate,

and the ability to bear and raise children has been understood as a divine blessing.

But what about people who can't bear children due to biology or circumstance?

Candid Amos, a New Testament scholar, and Joel Baden, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible,

teamed up to write a book about the different views on infertility and families that are found

throughout the Bible. From the apparently barren matriarchs of the Old Testament, like Sarah

and Rachel, to Paul's efforts in the New Testament to forge a new family in Christ,

biblical views on procreation and infertility are much more diverse than you might expect.

Moss and Baden tell the story in their book, Reconceiving Infertility, biblical perspectives on procreation and childlessness.

Not only do they clarify ancient perspectives on infertility, they also provide ways to create a more supportive religious environment for women and men experiencing infertility today.

We're talking about reconceiving infertility with Candida Moss and Joel Baden in this episode

of the Maxwell Institute podcast.

Questions and comments about this and other episodes of the Maxwell Institute podcast

can be sent to MI Podcast at BYU.edu.

You can also check out a transcript of this interview at m.b.b.edu.edu slash MI Podcast.

Candida Moss is a professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame.

Joel Baden is a professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School.

Together they're the authors of the book Reconceiving Infertility, Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness.

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