“What else might we expect in a society that for centuries has taught young children, both male and female, that a MALE deity created the universe and all that is in it, produced MAN in his own image divine image and then as an afterthought, created woman to obediently help man in his endeavors? The image of Eve, created for her husband, from her husband, the woman who was supposed to have brought about the downfall of humankind, in many ways has become the image of all women. How did this come into being?” p. xi Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman.
This blog post will cover in more detail the devastating effects of the Adam and Eve story on the status of the Feminine Principle and women, courtesy of Merlin Stone.
The story tells us that the act of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil caused Adam and Eve to be expelled from a garden of bliss and contentment. And because of this act, we are told that God decreed, “that woman must submit to the dominance of man-- who was at the time divinely presented with the right to rule over from that moment until now.” p xii
This is where my “Question Authority” banner starts flashing like a neon light and I start asking…”Who wrote these words, told this story, and what was their ulterior motive for doing so? The question then arises, “Do I need to uncritically believe and follow the rules of this story? ” Is this one supportive of my belief in the equality of men and women? The answer to the latter is NO! We are free to choose what we believe and follow rules that are supportive to us.
“Few contemporary happenings have affected women of today any more directly than this story. We struggle to achieve equal status for women in a society still permeated by the values and moralities of Judeo-Christian beliefs (which have penetrated deeply into even the most secular aspects of our contemporary civilization…” p. xii
“Examining this creation legend allows us to comprehend the role that contemporary religions have played in the initial and continued oppression and subjugation of women.” p. xii
Merlin encourages the reader to imagine “what life would be like for women who lived in a society that venerated and wise and valiant female Creator?” She urges the reader to ask, “what has been left out in this deeply rooted story?” Is Eve a woman’s image of a woman?
“...becoming aware of the historical and political origins of the Bible and the role played over the centuries by the Judeo-Christian theologies in formulating the attitudes toward women and men today, may lead to greater understanding, cooperation and mutual respect between men and women that has heretofore been possible. For men interested in achieving this goal, exploring the past offers a deeper and more realistic understanding of oday’s sexual stereotypes by placing them in the perspective of their historical evolution.” p. xxvi. I have often wondered why the history the Catholic Church is not taught in their educational systems. We would learn a lot about where our beliefs originated if they did.
My very favorite chapter in Merlin’s book is Chapter 10, “Unraveling the myth of Adam and Eve.” I will try and do it justice in a summary but it is a chapter well worth reading.
In ancient history, as previously presented by Stone, “The female faith was a complex theological structure, affecting many aspects of the lives of those who paid Her homage. It had developed over thousands of years and its symbolism was rich and intricate.” p.198.
Symbols such as serpents, sacred fruit trees, etc., were understood to be the familiar presence of the ancient goddess. The tale of Adam and Eve was created to “reframe” and suppress the female, goddess-based religion. For example: the snake in female energy religion was linked to wisdom and prophetic council. In masculine energy religion, the snake was portrayed as a “sexual source of evil”.
In contrast, for Egyptians, the cobra was the hieroglyphic sign for the word Goddess. In early Greece, the Minoan/Mycenean cultures (before 1400 BCE), the python ”Pythia” was unearthed as the Goddess at Delphi who gave divine revelations through her priestesses. Aeschylus recorded that at this holiest of shrines, the Goddess (and the snake, as her symbol) was extolled as the primeval Prophetess. In later times, the priests of the male Apollo took over the goddess shrines and in legends it was told that the python was “murdered” by Apollo.
The snake, revered and then “taken over” in many cultures follow this pattern. In Crete and Greece, her presence as a source of wisdom and prophecy is undeniable. Merlin gives copious examples of the snake deity symbol and its presence all the way to Caanan when Moses takes over the “brazen serpent”. Under Hezekiah the snake was seen as a “pagan abomination”.
Thus the Snake, venerated symbol of the goddess went from being the symbol of oracular divination by priestesses who were “understood to be in direct communication with the deity who possessed the wisdom of the universe.” to being a reviled “abomination.’
A second example of this “reframing” involves the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and its forbidden fruit. “There are legends from classical Greece about the golden apple tree of the Goddess Hera which was said to be given to her by the “serpent Ladon coiled.”
In Egypt the tree was sometimes perceived as the living body of the goddess Hathor on Earth. “To eat of its fruit was to eat of the flesh and fluid of the Goddess.” In contrast, the tree mentioned in the Bible as the Asherah, was considered to be a symbol of great sin and idolatry with grave warnings that the ‘sprigs of foreign gods’ would bring “a harvest of grief and desperate sorrow.”
It is quite easy, with Merlin’s guidance to see how once positive, life-giving, wisdom-giving symbols became negatively reframed and labeled sinful, shameful and dangerous, imbued with fear rather than wonder and joy. It is also easy to see how fear of snakes has taken over cultural consciousness!
The third example of a “reframing” tale involves the tree, serpents and sexuality.
In the areas where the Goddess was known and revered, “She was extolled not only as the prophetess of great wisdom, closely identified with the serpent, but also as the original Creatress, and patroness of sexual pleasures and reproduction as well.” p. 217.
The Hebrews, however, held considerable hatred towards the Asherah or Asherim tree, “a major symbol of the female religion. It would not be too surprising if the symbolism of the tree of forbidden fruit,.....clearly represented in the myth as provider of sexual consciousness, was included in the creation story to warn that eating the fruit had caused the downfall of all humanity. Eating from the tree of the Goddess, a tree that once stood by sacred altars of the goddess, was dangerously ‘pagan’ as were Her sexual customs and Her oracular serpents.” p. 217.
The advocates of Yahweh wrote their “spin” on the creation story by placing “the advisory serpent and the woman who accepted counsel, by eating of the tree, she/he would be given what ‘only the gods knew’--the secret of sex--how to create life.” And this was presented as evil.
Stone concludes, “The myth of Adam and Eve in which male domination was explained and justified, informed women and men alike that male ownership and control of submissively obedient women was to be regarded as the divine and natural state of the human species.” p. 218
And it is this “box” that women have worked hard to get out of ever since. Dogma was then created....to convince themselves and try to convince their congregations that sex, the very means of pro-creating life was immoral, the “original sin.” In the development of the Christian and Judaic religions thereafter, the process of conception was presented as shameful or sinful which planted the seeds of discomfort and guilt just for being human.
In contrast to this patriarchal story, in Sumerian times, a matrifocal/matrilineal culture, “the theological story was that humans were originally “created from clay” by the great mother goddess and it was the goddess Nammu who gave birth to heaven and earth.” p. 219.
In Egypt, the story was “In the beginning there was Isis, Oldest of the Old. She was the Goddess from whom all becoming arose,” p. 219.
And finally, according to legends of Sumer and Babylon, women and men had been created in pairs - by the Goddess.
“Yet the worship of Yahweh, perhaps thousands of years later, asserted that it was the male who initially created the world. It was the first claim to male kinship--that maleness was primal.” In the new masculine energy religion, “.. ..it was of ultimate importance that male was made first, in the image of his creator, and from an insignificant rib, woman was formed.” It was at this point that theology became political.
In short, the fruit of the tree of knowledge was the knowing of the Goddess and her acts of procreation. The tree was the familiar, Asherah, the Goddess tree. Eve ate from it and then tempted Adam to eat of it as well, following the advice and counsel of the serpent, another symbol of the Goddess.
Merlin Stone very skillfully and cogently interprets all of the political meanings of this particular myth that still resides in the Judeo/Christian consciousness today. If you aren’t interested in the entire book, just reading Chapter 10, “Unraveling the Myth of Adam and Eve,” raises awareness of the power that this story has exerted on men and women under patriarchy.
Any comments or thoughts?