Download When God Was A Woman Merlin Stone Pdf

When we remember that вЂњin the beginningвЂ¦God was a woman,вЂќ we can no longer hear or read the Genesis story as an innocent but flawed attempt on the part of вЂњearly manвЂќ to understand вЂњhisвЂќ origins. Once the story of Adam and Eve is understood as a polemical (and largely successful) вЂњtale with a point of viewвЂќ intended to discredit Goddess religion, any and all exegetical attempts to rescue the story from sexist interpretations by later scholars and theologians seem doomed to failure. StoneвЂ™s decoding of the way in which the Genesis story transformed the sacred symbols of Goddess religion into symbols of evil may be much ignored by scholars of the Bible to this day, but it cannot be refuted, because it is based on the вЂњgestaltвЂќ of the story, not the interpretation of the subtleties of the meanings of its words. Nor did I understand that the Genesis story which I had studied and taught took the sacred symbols of Goddess religionвЂ“ the snake, the tree and the fruit of the tree, the female body-and turned them upside down. I had written my undergraduate thesis on the prophets, studying their words in the original Hebrew, but I did not understand that their constant references to the Hebrew people вЂњwhoringвЂќ after вЂњidolsвЂќ and worshipping вЂњon every high hill and under every green treeвЂќ referred to the fact that many of the Hebrew people were choosing to worship Goddesses in sacred places in nature. I had not heard of the theories of Indo-European invasions of warlike patriarchal peoples into areas already settled by peaceful matrilineal, matrifocal cultures in Europe and India. in Religious Studies from Yale, I did not вЂњknowвЂќ that Goddesses were worshipped at the very dawn of religion. Though I could then and can now criticize details in the book, the amassing of information and the comprehensive perspective When God Was a Woman provided was news to me when I first read it. My copy of When God was a Woman is copiously underlined in red and blue ink, testimony to many readings. Do you remember?вЂќ As I type this phrase more than thirty-five years after first reading it, my body again reacts with chills of recognition of a knowledge that was stolen from me, a knowledge that I remembered in my body, a knowledge that re-membered my body. StoneвЂ™s words had the quality of revelation: вЂњIn the beginningвЂ¦God was a woman. The fact that I remember this viscerally underscores the impact that When God Was a Woman had on my mind and my body.

I can still remember reading the hardback copy of When God Was a Womanwhile lying on the bed in my bedroom overlooking the river in New York City early in 1977. Do you remember?вЂќ Feminst foremother and author of these words Merlin Stone died in Feburary last year. REMEMBERING MERLIN STONE, 1931-2011 by Carol P.В Christ Home вЂє Feminism вЂє REMEMBERING MERLIN STONE, 1931-2011 by Carol P.В Christ

Download When God Was A Woman Merlin Stone Pdf