Two husbands anyone? Priestesses as clergy? A God with a Vagina?!
Yes, this is what the world might have looked like 4000-8000 years ago.Do you ever wonder why women are subservient to men according to most of the "civilized world"? Do you hear references to Goddess worshiping cultures, only to have them dismissed as sex cults unworthy of intellectual discussion?
I will show you, through a brief summary of the chapters of the book When God Was A Woman, what I learned about how humanity REALLY developed (sorry, I am a spiritual person but I don't buy that Eve, was the mother of all women, and was foolish, disobedient, and responsible for the fall of all mankind)....Let's see what might have really happened according to archeological evidence....
(Disclaimer: Allowing for human error, I am not swearing by every fact presented in this book, however, I do think that some interesting questions are raised, and perspectives that need to be examined are put forth. And I still know and love the 'God' that I was raised with. I just wonder what His former identity might have looked like..)
A truly life-changing book for women! (and men)
When
God Was a Woman is a book that deserves a web presence. I can't believe that
there aren't lively, dynamic discussion groups all over the web about this
book! Maybe they've been deleted by 'the Man', who knows. In any case, I've
just read this book and my passion for it's message has inspired me to write
this summary for you.
When
God Was a Woman - by Merlin Stone
This
book was paradigm shifting and I highly recommend it for any woman who wants to
know who she is and where she comes from.
Chapters
1-3 Summarized
1.Tales
with a point of view
2.Who
was She?
3.Women-Where
Woman Was Deified
1-
Tales....The author speaks of her own history, skepticism about the Adam and
Eve origin of humanity and the subsequent oppression of women
2-
Who Was She?....The author gives some strong archeological evidence that in the
regions of the mediterranean and thereabout ancient cultures had thought of
Goddess as we think of God today
3-
Woman... Here she gives us an idea of what life was like for women in these
many matrilineal societies (where property and inheritance were passed down
through the female line). It seemed like opposite land as I read it, a land
where women had authority, and men stayed home. Women were economically
independent, sexually independent-they might have had 2 husbands or no husband,
but wedded or not they still had legitimate children that were respected by the
community! They were holders of the land, the religion, the family. Incredible.
Chapters
4-6
4.The
Northern Invaders
5.One
of Their Own Race
6.If
the King Did Not Weep
4.
The Invaders....This chapter explains the incredible evolution from female to
male Diety. It appears that historically, there were multiple invasions from
northern groups over time, and these groups aimed to take the property and rule
over the indigenous peoples. To do this, they asserted that their men had gods
of Light (they were lighter skinned than the indigenous peoples generally) and
these masculine god figures worked their way over time into the goddess
legends, at first as a younger brother/weaker consort of the Goddess (as in the
Isis and Horus/Osiris story), to an equal male figure, as in some of the Indian
God/Goddess legends, to then a stronger male- As Zeus dominates and cheats on
his Goddess yet less powerful wife, Hera, to finally the One and only Male God
that we now know.
5.
One... This chapter was honestly a little wordy for me.. some of these middle
chapters are heavy on the history and archeological derivations, where I am
more into the theory. This chapter goes into something about how the tribes of
Israel came about and follows from the previous chapter in it's questioning of
the monotheistic Male God of Light... was He created as part of a plot to kill
the goddess, the priestess, and her devotees, to kidnap the women of the
indigenous cultures, claim them as wives (as some of the sacred texts
encourage) and take their property and lives into male domination.. perhaps to
this day?
6.If
the King... This chapter explains how Queens ruled and were often allowed male
consorts for the propagation of the female line, however these men were put to
death in some cultures annually, or after impregnation. Eventually the
tradition evolved to be symbolic, with the king perhaps living but being
castrated, stripped of his robes for several days, or having someone sacrificed
in his place. Then the tradition evolved even further, such that Kings held
more power than Queens in many places.
Chapters
7-9
7.The
Sacred Sexual Customs
8.They
Offered Incense to the Queen of Heaven
9.And
the Men of the City Shall Stone Her with Stones
7.
The Sacred....Apparently historical evidence points to the fact that
priestesses and women could live in the temple, or visit the temple during
special holidays, or perhaps at other times, and have intercourse, or sacred
sex, with various men. They were considered pure, and it was a holy act that
had been given as a gift from the Goddess. She contrasts this with todays
religions often view sex as unclean, punishable, or punishment worthy in many
circumstances (esp. those involving free expression of female sexuality), and
shameful.
8.
They Offered Incense...This chapter was about how the Isrealites found
goddess-worshipping women still among them as evidenced from certain quotes in
the bible.
9.
And the Men... This chapter spoke of the punishments aimed at oppressing the
women who still worshipped the goddess and wanted sexual rituals or freedom-
this in turn threatened the patriarchical system that was trying to establish
itself where men ruled and owned the land, the religion, God, the women,
children, property etc.
Chapters
10-11
10.Unraveling
the Myth of Adam and Eve
11.The
Daughters of Eve
10.
Unraveling...This chapter goes deeply into the symbolism of the serpent,
explaining that the serpent had been used as a symbol of the goddess religions
of the past (thus the deception of woman by the serpent, in the Adam and Eve
creation story, symbolizing the old religions threatening the new order.)
11.
The author speaks of modern efforts (the past 200 yrs) by women to point out
and combat the gender inequalities purported by major religions. Women included
are abolishionists of slavery, Susan B Anthony, writers, scholars and others.
I hope this opened your minds- please leave comments! - I'm
particularly interested in ideas about what we can do with this knowledge....
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