Curious Christian

Reflections on culture, nature, and spirituality from a Christian perspective

Were Ancient Goddesses So Liberated?

Published by

Matt Stone

on

I was recently re-reading some of Rachael Kohn’s book, ‘The New Believers’ and made note of this comment:

“Ancient history is a double-edged sword. It is helpful in establishing the importance of women as respected dispensers of wisdom, but it is also cold comfort to the contemporary woman who does not wish to see herself as a fertility goddess, a sacred prostitute or the Lord’s plaything. The truth is that in the extremely diverse world of metaphysical ideas swirling around the Middle East of late antiquity, a large degree of selected reading is necessary if the feminist woman wishes to come out a as person respected for her intellect alone. Not even in Gnostic writings, a real favourite with feminist theologians, does Sophia escape her sexual wantonness.”

Think about this for a moment.

It suggests that even in the ancient goddess archetypes of Pagan fertility cults we find implicit patriarchy. This calls into question many of the Gnostic vs. Christian and Pagan vs. Christian dichotomies we hear bandied around these days.

To my mind, rather than engaging in retro-romanticism we need to take a long, hard look at all ancient cultures, monotheistic, pantheistic and polytheistic all included, and concede we probably wouldn’t want to live in any of them.

With that in perspective, consider that Jesus, who commended the contemplative Mary over her domestic over-achieving sister, is by far one of the most women respecting guys you’ll ever meet in any ancient literature, Polytheist or Monotheist, but he got crucified for his troubles, at the hands of both Polytheists and Monotheists.

Tags ,

2 responses to “Were Ancient Goddesses So Liberated?”

  1. Jem Avatar
    Jem

    I find this aside very helpful, since there’s so much bogus liberationist reading of scripture too which seeks to reclaim the text rather than accept the reality (albeit an unpleasant one) that much of the biblical corpus is inherently patriarchal. That doesn’t prevent the corpus from being a useful sacred text, not in the least, just as poetry isn’t rendered useless simply because it isn’t history.

    Like

    Reply
  2. Matt Stone Avatar
    Matt Stone

    I think we need to be wary of anachronistic readings from both ends of the political spectrum.
    Retro-romanticism by social progressives is unhelpful. There’s no denying that a people who regarded circumcision as one of the primary marks of religious affiliation and sealed oaths by grabing each other on the crotch (Genesis 24:2, 24:9, 47:29) didn’t have a penis fixation of sorts.
    Yet at the same time I am equally critical of modern day mysogenists that take this as some sort of Biblical justification for their repression of women today. Such a position can only be arrived at by (1) similarly anachronistic readings and (2) complete dismissal of the possibility that the unconventional attitudes of Christ should be considered somehow normative for Christians.
    What do I mean by similarly anachronistic readings? Well just this, that its worthwhile noting the cultural context, that women were treated even worse in many of the surrounding cultures, so comparatively speaking, while attrocious by today’s standards, the ancient Israelites were relatively progressive by theirs. And while few and far between it is also worth noting their were some women who were well regarded, like the Prophetess Deborah who led Israel for a time.
    So actually I think the situation is rather complex, and consequently my attitude is somewhat complex and culturally polymorphic. Would I condemn patriachal Christianity in cultures that are heavily patriarchal? Possibly not entirely, it depends. I would condemn female circumcision in Muslim cultures but probably not the hijab, or at least I wouldn’t make it a central issue. In our culture however, I am most certainly for full female equality in terms of authority in Christian communities.
    I guess you could say I am culturally relativistic on this issue, I think we sould be progressive for our cultural contexts but acknowledge contexts differ significantly. I think that’s a better approach than simplistic for or against based on romanticism.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

Let’s connect

follow us in feedly

Recent posts

Art Atheist Australian Bible Blogging Books Buddhist Celtic Christian Christmas Church Contextualisation Diversity Faith Gatherings God Hindu Humour Jesus Justice Leaders Love Magic Meditation Mission Money Movies Music Muslim Mystery Nature Pagan Peace Poetry Politics Prayer Psychology Revelation Seasons Sexuality Sin Symbols Technology Violence War