| Hebrew Goddesses ?
Posted: 4/28/2008 7:30:36 AM | In some writings I've found there were Hebrew Goddesses. I won't go into a long drawn out list, here is a couple of articles that caught my attention, something I found interesting. Was there Hebrew Goddesses that were filtered out by a male dominated culture as claimed?
Meshel's excavations took place in 1975 and 1976 at Kuntillet Ajrud. He found a collection of ancient Hebrew and Phoenician inscriptions on walls and stone vessels, also drawings on two large jars. The site was dated to about the eighth century BCE. The inscriptions were found in the bench room and two adjoining side rooms. Including both the name EI and the name Jahweh, some of the inscriptions were written ont the jamb of the entrance. They blessed Jahweh and asked to be protected by him and this the key surprise by Asherato , mostly translated as his Asherah. Some contend it can be translated as naming Asherah in her own right. Beneath the words are drawings of a tree and of a cow with a ca1f. Near by a very clear tree of life flanked by two ibexes. Again, May you be blessed by Jahweh and Asherato is inscribed on a jar nearby.
A site called Khirbet-el-Qom which has been identified as the Biblical Makkedah. The inscription indicates that it was written by Uriyahu (the name includes a reference to God) who calls for a blessing from "Jahweh my guardian and his Asherah". The site dates similar to Kuntillet Ajrud.
There are other Goddess names listed, Sophia, Shekhinah, there may be more.
To List a few references, there are so many.
The Hebrew Goddess.
By Rapheal Patai
Goddess in Judaism.
Hebrew Goddesses and the origin of Judaism.
Jim B | |
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| Hebrew Goddesses ?
Posted: 4/28/2008 8:04:38 AM | I've read in various places before as well (never studied extensively however) that the ancient Hebrews did indeed have at least one main goddess who was the "consort" (as was usual in the pre-Christian world ) of their god Jehovah, or Yahweh. This is probable, given the fact that they emerge from a time and place where polytheism and goddess worship was positively everywhere. IMO it is more than likely that there (in reality) was no one man named Abraham who literally just decided one day to leave his home (in what is today southern Iraq) and wander away because he wanted so badly to be a monotheist. I feel it's relatively obvious that this sort of change in a people had to be gradual, probably various tribes leaving an original home area (it could have been Ur) and eventually placing one of their gods above the others. And clearly there would be some truth to the old tales of the Hebrews having "lapsed" repeatedly back into polytheism and idolatry, etc, goddess worship or what-have-you.
Even the (eventually monotheist) Arabs worshipped , IN Mecca in fact at (probably some sort of precursor structure of ) the Ka'aba (the large black cube structure which the Muslims pray towards today) a "triple goddess" known as Al'lat/al'Uzza/Manat. Al'lat basically means "the goddess", indicating she was *the* high goddess, and her other "aspects" (the other two) had to do with basically cycles of the moon (waxing or waning for example). Today Muslims still (though probably nearly none of them realize it) inadvertently "honor" Al'lat with one of the most recognized symbols of Islam; the star and crescent moon.
Muhammad at one time was "moved" (by god?? by an "evil genie"?? by personal political motives???) to say as one of his Qu'ranic revelations that these are exalted [these goddesses], whose "intercession" is surely to be hoped for. This greatly pleased the Meccan authorities at the time, who were persecuting the fledgling monotheist movement that was Islam. However, Muhammad later withdrew this revelation, claiming the devil had caused him to recite this part, rather than the angel Gabriel and therefore it was never ever to be considered a part of the Qu'ran (which insists vehemently on Jewish-style "oneness" of god).
The book in which a fictionalized Muhammad and the early Muslims are portrayed, and this incident is related at great length, was written by Salman Rushdie and caused him to have a death sentence (still never rescinded) placed on him by the Ayatollah Khomeini. | |
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| Hebrew Goddesses ?
Posted: 4/28/2008 10:52:41 AM | | The Hebrews were largely influenced by the ancient cultures around them, and their beliefs changed over time. Many Hebrews at one point believed in re-incarnation. The Hasidic Jews still believe in that as mystical Jews. The Hebrew language is itself a Canaanite or Phoenician language essentially. One of the words for G_d in Hebrew is Adonai which derives originally from a Phoenician god. The Hebrews moved from being polytheistic to having one main G_d who was often called El. In Phoenician culture, the main god was EL. He was over Ba'al even. In many ways the Greek religion was similar to the Canaanite one. | |
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| Hebrew Goddesses ?
Posted: 4/28/2008 6:55:08 PM | All religion started as a matriarchy's of workshipping female goddess since they are seen as nourishment and etc. Well, as time passed by, when male started to dominated, they changed the female tradition goddess form into a male for their own selfish purpose. | |
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| Hebrew Goddesses ?
Posted: 4/29/2008 1:04:18 PM | Being raised very religiously in a Jewish household, I never heard of any goddesses....
but as an adult and finding other spiritual paths, I have come across Uriel and Shekinah as Archangels and Shekinah is female, but not a goddess.
Sophia I have heard of as an archetype depicting the 'mother of awareness and clarity' -
and Raphael is also an Archangel, but male. | |
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| Hebrew Goddesses ?
Posted: 4/29/2008 7:57:59 PM | In the Nag Hammadi Library, the largest collection of Gnostic Christian scripts that were ever found, written in Coptic, there is a chapter called "The Pistis of Sophia". From Wikipedia:
"Pistis Sophia is an important Gnostic text. The five remaining copies, which scholars date c. 250–300 AD, relate the Gnostic teachings of the transfigured Jesus to the assembled disciples (including his mother Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Martha), when the risen Christ had accomplished eleven years speaking with his disciples. In it the complex structures and hierarchies of heaven familiar in Gnostic teachings are revealed.
The female divinity of gnosticism is Sophia, a being with many aspects and names. She is sometimes identified with the Holy Ghost itself but, according to her various capacities, is also the Universal Mother, the Mother of the Living or Resplendent Mother, the Power on High, She-of-the-left-hand (as opposed to Christ, understood as her husband and he of the Right Hand), as the Luxurious One, the Womb, the Virgin, the Wife of the Male, the Revealer of Perfect Mysteries, the Saint Columba of the Spirit, the Heavenly Mother, the Wandering One, or Elena (that is, Selene, the Moon). She was envisaged as the Psyche of the world and the female aspect of Logos."
Besides Lillith, this is supposively, "God the Mother". I am not familar with the others. I have studied the Gnostic scripts a bit. It is difficult without a dictionary. | |
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