When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of When God Was a Woman
Book Review: Important book
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book when it was first published. This time, I wanted to own it. Merlin Stone's eye-opening research and well-reasoned position makes for good reading and thought provoking discourse.
I bought the book used, from one of the Amazon vendors, had to wait a bit for delivery but didn't mind. The book is too important!
Amazon is my preferred source for o.o.p. books of all sorts.
Book Review: Important book
Summary: 5 Stars
Merlin Stone died in February of this year so this is the perfect time to renew interest in this important work. Stone used the oldest relics and writing to prove that the original supreme being was a woman.Book Review: In The Beginning...God Was A Woman
Summary: 5 Stars
Merlin Stone's groundbreaking work must have turned heads when this book was published in the 70's. By then, the feminist movement for Women's Liberation begun in the late 60's was already established. Merlin Stone exhausted herself searching for the historic sources, all accurate, to present the actual reality of the suppression of the female principle as God. For fundamental and conservative Christians, Jews and Muslims, the idea of God being a woman or a male god having woman functions is blasphemous. But is it ? Merlin Stone makes a strong point, stating her case with sufficient evidence. The Bible was written by men. The early patriarchs of the Jews wrote in masculine terms, convinced that there had never been a Goddess and that God had always been male. This was advantageous for men politically as well as socially. Empowered by the belief that a male God favored men as the superior creation, they abolished any female worship.
The Old Testament is chalk full of prophets and king-warriors destroying the idols of Asherah and Astarte. The women of ancient Israel were obligated to live a life of subjugation to a man- first, her father and then a husband. She was condemned to death by stoning for a single act of adultery but the man could have as many wives and concubines and sex with other women eventhough he himself was married. There are very few strong heroines in the Bible, and even Queen Esther used her "sex appeal" not her brains to win the heart of the Assyrian king and save her endangered people from a holocaust. Jezebel, simply for worshipping foreign gods, was brought to a terrible death. The truth of the matter is that originally the Mother Goddess (Creatress of the world, taking forms of birds (later to become in Gnostic tradition as the Holy Spirit Chokmah or Sophia in the form of the dove) was once revered and worshipped as one deity who ran the world. The Paleolithic people traced lineage and provided inheritence from the female line- the mother's line. Matriarchy was suppressed when men, mostly powerful warriors and hunters of the Indo-European race, suppressed worship of the Goddess (or goddesses plural) and brought about political change, empowering men.
This still holds true today. The Indo-European men may long be gone, but they planted the seeds that have grown to this day. It seems there will never be a female President. When a woman is powerful, a man feels threatened when he should feel so. He should share the power equally with able women. Martha Stewart for example, after the scandal of her fraudulent business dealings, was completely crushed by a media frenzy, men eager to see her in jail simply because she was a powerful woman in the world of business. There are many men who resent the Iron Maiden, Margaret Thatcher, former Prime Minister of England. And let's not forget what happened to Joan of Arc. When a woman is empowered as much as a man, whether it be in athletics, military, politics, etc. she is dubbed a witch, a harlot, a number of things simply because women are not treated as equals to men. To this day, men like to think that women are "almost" as good as they are, but never equally as good. When the male and the female principle lovingly hold hands in equality and fairness and the two forces are balanced, perhaps the world will be a better place. This books should reawaken the spirit of Women's Liberation and bring about a new consciousness to religion worldwide. Remember... women are not superior to men, but they are not inferior in any way either. We are equals..equals in the forming of a better world.
Book Review: It is the truth about how all civilization began by women.
Summary: 5 Stars
It should be a viewed as a bible by all women, passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter to granddaughter. It is the truth about women. The real truth. It is documented and researched with biographies and references right in the book. Each fact can be looked up. Every women on the face of this earth should read this book. I am giving this book to each of my daughters and my granddaughter for Christmas presents. I could not give them a greater gift. Merlin Stone is wonderful, she will answer every question that has been left in the dark far too long. If you are a woman, you owe it to yourself to know the truth. For the truth will set you free. Read this book or perish in the dark. Thank you with all my heart Merlin Stone.Book Review: Journey to Reality--The Importance of Knowing History
Summary: 5 Stars
As a Christian woman I felt a void in my soul that couldn't be answered through the Biblical scriptures. Why were the teachings so vile and violent towards women? Why was society demeaning and oppressive to the mothers of humanity? How did our culture develope into such a divided state that men were dominate and women submissive? Why weren't women revered for their life giving nature and soul healing abilities? The first book I read that brought some understanding was G. James Stewart's Immorality of Christianity. This opened the door for me to challenge social and theological beliefs that have devalued women (and men)as well as Western civilization as a whole. I read Jean M. Auel's Earth Children series (Clan of the Cave Bear)and was given a glimpse of pre-historical beliefs and customs. This caused me to ask the question: When did it all change? When did the Mother Goddess get replaced by the Judeo-Christian God? This book by Merlin Stone lept off the shelf with her all encompassing title. From page one to the end she develops a sound scientific histography of the age before God worship and the powerful infulence of women in a culture which honored fertility, prosperity, and peace for thousands of years. My identity as a women has found peace and comfort in the knowing that womanhood was once revered--and can be again, as the source of life. My beliefs have changed dramatically and never will I see the patriarchial Judeo-Christian dogma as anything but usurpation of woman as divine...