Reproductive Salvation and Slavery: Reading 1 Timothy 2:15 with Hagar and Mary

Using the tool of intersectionality, this article discusses gender and class issues related to salvation in early Christian discourse. The complex discourse of 1 Timothy 2:15, that women will be saved through childbirth, generates several questions: What about women who could not deliver? Could they be saved although stigmatised? If we take the Hebrew Bible case of Sarah and Hagar, also mentioned in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, would a woman like Sarah be saved since she forced her slave to give birth for her? Did surrogacy count? Or was a female slave, whose reproductive capital belonged to her owner, considered saved since she gave birth? In order to answer these questions, the article looks at Old and New Testament material that connects female characters to slavery and childbirth, from the Genesis narratives about Hagar, Bilhah and Zilpah to the Gospel of Luke that relates how Mary, when offering her reproductive body in the service of the Lord, calls herself a slave of God.