When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone
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Book Reviews of When God Was a Woman
Book Review: Great
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an amazingly good book. Buy it, read it. You'll be glad you did.Book Review: "where you stand obviously determines what you see"
Summary: 4 Stars
_When God Was a Woman_ was groundbreaking and important when it was first published, but much has been done on the topic since its initial publication over 30 years ago. Essentially Stone argues that Neolithic peoples and many early civilizations in the Near East were much more egalitarian in terms of gender relations, and in many instances women held positions of religious (and by extension) political power. In fact, Stone provides a super-abundance of evidence (historical, liturgical, archeological and artistic) to support that for much of humankind's early history, the primary diety was female rather than male.
You'll find no argument from me on this point, and most historians familar with the Neolithic age (and early Mesopotamian and Egyptian society) would agree with Stone's conclusions on this, to the point that (thirty-odd years later) it is moot. Still, the evidence is compelling and fascinating, the construction of her argument interesting, as Stone traces the origins of "Goddess worship" from early man's lack of understanding of conception to the numerous neolithic "Venus" statuettes (as in "Venus of Willendorf"), to the establishment of female dieties as Isis, Ashtoreth, Hathor, Ua Zit, Inanna, Diana, Cybele ... and so forth. Her thesis of how "goddess worship" was gradually supplanted (one may use stronger words depending on one's attitude) by a patrilineal, male-dominated religions is similarly compelling, particularly with her interpretation of Biblical (both from Torah and the New Testament) evidence.
Yet I deducted a star because I had issues with her inferences and claims regarding Indo-European origins and influences with the Hebrews. Stone argues that the Indo-Europeans were patrilineal and mysogynistic (my words here, not hers) - there is much to support this idea, and Stone does a marvelous job of showing these influences in India, Persia, Anatolia and Greece. However I am hesitant to agree with her conclusions that the Hebrews (particularly the Levites, who along with the Cohens were the priestly class) were Indo-Europeans. The material wasn't enough to convince me. And while I am not an expert on the ancient Near East, to my knowledge, there is little scholarship in the intervening decades to support this as well. This may seem to be "nit-picking," but the patriarchal influence of the Indo-Europeans (via the Levites) is central to her conclusion regarding why the Hebrews (and from them the Christians and Muslims, and therefore much of the Western and a large portion of west Africa and the Near East) became male-dominated societies.
Even with this critcism, this is excellent work. The bibliography is extensive (if a bit dated, even from its original publication date, many of Stone's sources are old), her ideas, at the time, were revolutionary. Regardless of one's religious beliefs, this will certainly give you pause to consider not only why the monotheistic religions are patriarchal, but also prompts thought regarding the broader and deeper implications of gender in society. Highly recommended.
Book Review: This is a BLISTERING critique of the Levite Priesthood
Summary: 4 Stars
A better title of this book would read: "Before the Bible, God was a Woman." While I have a slight problem with this authors title of her work matching up her actual subject matter, never have I read anything so well describing the problems I have always had with the Judeo-Christian Bible.
While there were undisputed Indo-European invasions into southern lands for thousands of years, their influence on the conquered peoples' religions is not as easy to determine. Indeed, how can we really know how thought changed between 6000-4000 years ago in the ancient Middle and Near East? Marilyn Stone certainly has her very plausible theories about the consequences of these invasions. While this part of the book is enlightening it isn't as blistering a critique as later in the book. At least the Goddess, and women in general, retained some status and legal rights in cultures around Israeli occupied Canaan.
Once Ms Stone sets her sights on the biblical account of creation and of the subjugation of Canaan, she doesn't hold back. The amount of barbarous acts that the Bible documents against the native Canaanites is amazing. Read Joshua and Kings I and II if you don't believe Ms Stone. Why did this genocide take place? For the simple reason that the native people didn't believe in the "real" God. I felt no man-bashing, as some other reviewers read in her book. I only took away religious extremism at its worst, and women and the Goddess were the victims of this "young upstart" religion of only about 3000 years old called Judaism. This isn't Ms Stone making these numbers up, many biblical scholars believe the Pentateuch was only written between 1200 to 1000 BC.
The absolutely most interesting part of Ms Stones work was the deconstruction of the Genesis creation story. She cites not only how each and every event was carefully constructed to denounce the Goddess religion, and make its practitioners sin against God by every major rite of the old religion, but to also condemn women for all of history afterward to be men's "helpers."
If you ever wondered what bothered you about Patriarchial religion, this book captures the epitome of monotheisms' dark side.
Book Review: All About Eve......
Summary: 4 Stars
WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN by Merlin Stone explores the controversy surrounding Eve by examining the links between the Old Testament text and archeological and linguistics research conducted in the 20th century. Although you may not agree with Stone's premise, interpretation of the Old Testament text, or conclusions, if you are one of Eve's daughters you owe it to yourself to learn more about her and how she may have been maligned by the ancient Levite priests when they constructed text such as Genesis, Deuteronomy, and other Old Testament books. Stone's work has been referenced by feminist writers Margaret Starbird, Sue Monk Kidd, and Lynn Picknett, and her chapter "Unraveling the Myth of Adam and Eve" presents a compelling argument and an interesting perspective, especially when contrasted with Elaine Pagels' ADAM AND EVE AND THE SERPENT, and Joseph Campbell's mythology works.
I enjoyed this book very much. As one who studied the Bible many years and found the murder and mayhem in the Old Testament quite disturbing, I was intrigued by Stone's insights which caused me to reflect on the folks the Hebrews fought. Perhaps they were not nearly so wicked as we were taught to believe ages ago. On top of that, the criticism of women in the Old Testament may be totally unjustified as it was directed towards non-Hebrew women who were forced marry the male Hebrew victors after they had killed their kinsman. In other words, when the walls of Jericho fell, who died?
This book is so stunning, I am amazed that Stone had the courage to write it, let alone that a publishing house published it. If nothing else thia book is an example of having the intellectual courage to address a verboten subject that could lead to a Christian fatwah if Christians did such things. Think of Merlin Stone as Christianity's answer to Salmon Rushdie. Only this is not a work of fiction, however speculative it may be.
The only complaint I have concerns the sourcing of statements. As it happen, I know a bit about the Bible so I could follow Stone's arguments. Unfortunately, she offers direct quotes in some cases, but does not in others. One unfamiliar with the Old Testament might find Stone's book challenging.
Book Review: An insightful look into our spiritual origins
Summary: 4 Stars
What a wonderful book! As a woman, this book was such an eye-opener, a breath of fresh air, and provided me confirmation for many of the sneaking suspicions and problems I had with Christianity.I am a former Evangelical Christian, who has since left and is walking the Witch's path. I had so many problems reconciling my feminist values--my values as a *human*--with the misogyny that left its gross stink seemingly everywhere in Christendom, from the Old Testament to the "megachurch". This feeling grew even deeper as I read more and more of the Bible.The repression of the Feminine Principle in every way shape and form was so clear, so blatant, that I *knew* something was up.
Well, thanks to Ms. Stone, the jig is up! Her research is painstakingly thorough, and although it can get "heavy" at times (thus the reason for 4 and not 5 stars), if you can hang in there through those parts you are well rewarded. Everything flows so seamlessly together, and she makes a very compelling case. I never looked at the Bible the same way after reading this book, it opened my eyes in so many ways.
If there is one problem I have with this book, it's one that actually isn't Ms. Stone's fault. Her work was groundbreaking, revolutionary even, and unfortunately a slew of quack pseudo-scholars have followed in her wake, *poisoning* Wicca and the feminist spirituality movement with theories parading as fact pulled straight out of their arses. So many flaky New Agey sunshine-and-moonbeam twits have taken her well-grounded research and twisted it into all kinds of half-baked "truths", like how ancient Europe was supposedly some granola-eating free-love Earth mama-lovin hippie commune (yes Z. Budapest, DJ Conway et al. my finger is aimed *right at you*).
Tangents aside, this book is critical not only to understanding the origins of Judeo-Christian misogyny, but is also quite helpful in understanding the views espoused by the modern Religious Reich as represented by Robertson, Falwell, Dobson, etc. I highly recommend it, especially to women with fundimentalist backgrounds similar to myself. It was an intergral part of my own healing process.