When God Was A Woman Essay
...Astarte? Did the worshippers of those ancient gods have any divine experiences? Or was it all along a political agenda? Every day children are born into a world full of influences. Whether it may be from parents, teachers, or peers, each child is affected by the things that they watch, feel, or hear and as they get older their influences develop their world view. For instance, a child may have been influenced by different belief systems such as Judaism, Christianity, or Islam and that everything was created by a male deity. Hence, these major world views teach that the supreme deity gave the authority to the first created human, the male, to rule over the second created human, the female. But is this true? Were these major world faiths inspired by a Heavenly Father? In the book When God Was a Woman, author Merlin Stone discusses incredible findings of ancient artifacts that traces from our earliest ancestors and that could prove that the original deity was not a male but a female. Stone does not stop there, she explains in full detail the history of early cultures that practiced goddess worship and how the status of women in those societies were much higher then the cultures who replaced them. In order to discuss the significance of ancient deity worship and how it is relevant to our society today, we must first: have an understanding of the author’s influence to write this book, the history of early cultures & societies, the author’s perception on the status of women in early societies, and critique the overview of the author’s perspective.
Merlin Stone explains that during her childhood, her Sunday school teachers taught that the Hebrew God Yahweh created the “heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1) and that the first created human being was a male named Adam, who was formed from “the dust of the ground” (Genesis 2:7). God placed Adam in a garden called Eden and...
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