A Biblical Account of the Destruction of a Goddess Culture

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A Biblical Account of the Destruction of a Goddess Culture


There is a story in the book of Jeremiah chp 44 beginning with v.17 which is an account of Goddess worship by the tribe of Judah. They spoke of burning incense, pouring libations, making cakes to celebrate Her (Queen of Heaven) There is no mention of sacrifice, excessive ritual or any other extreme forms of worship. They said as long as they worshipped their Goddess, they had plenty to eat and were at peace with their neighbors. But when they returned to the paternalistic religion's practises, all they had experienced since was war and dying by the sword. ( I believe this is because the Paternalistic rulers and priests' agenda was always kingdom building and subjugating the people around them-something few people take sitting down!) Judah declared they would return to their Goddess and the prophet told them they were suffering not for resuming the Paternalistic worship form but for their prior actions of honoring the Goddess! That Jehova God remembered what they did--and of course it mattered not a whit that they had returned to the male ordered practices--they had to pay--and pay--and pay. Apparently, turning away from those practices was not sufficient--no wonder they wanted to go back to following their gentle Goddess!

Some time later, the book of Ezekiel records the destruction of the Goddess religion in Israel--the old land of Canaan.

Ezekiel Chapter 23-24 (A very interesting and enlightening record of the Male Principle first subjecting, then removing entirely, the Female by force. ) If one reads this scripture remembering it was written and preserved by men and not by the hand of God, this is a horrific study of exactly what it took to destroy the tradition of Goddess worship in the area of Canaan. Note that under Goddess worship, other forms of religion were permitted. Not so in the practice of the totally male principle which came into being at this time. Since women and Goddess loving men would not willingly desert their beloved deity, the
harshest of measures were taken to expunge this religion. The Goddess, called by different names in the traditions of the various cultures that inhabited the land in what is Israel and Palestine today, had an ancient history in the area. Astarte, Ashtaroth, Ishtar are but some of the names given the Goddess in that locale. There were not dozens of goddesses--just as the Jewish male God was called by many names; El-Shaddia; Jehova; Yahweh; it is all the same Being. ( Satan has many different names, too-but that is a different study.) Goddess worship was a heavily ingrained tradition of many thousands of years duration and the people--especially the women--loved their feminine deity. When the prophets came to them this time with the message, as always beginning with "Thus saith the Lord," ordering the people to rid themselves of their"whoredoms" of worshipping other deities, this was a relatively new direction being taken.

The reason for this is found in verses 37-39; a clear record of human sacrifice, and not just any sacrifice but the sacrifice of their own sons by fire! What a dreadful pollution of the religion of the Goddess! Thinking to cover all their bases, they left the scene of this depravity and went to the Lord's temple to meet obligations there--thus defiling the Temple and the Sabbath both. Apparently the Goddess religion
had become polluted with the worship of Chemosh- a male fire deity (and a demon in my opinion.) Verse 40 states,

"....Ye have sent for men to come from far, unto
whom a messenger was sent; and lo, they came..."

The next several verses describes the spiritual adultery that was taught by these men, the new practice of child immolation and who knows what else. These followers of the Goddess are called adulterers--which at this point they were if they had accepted such evil as child
sacrifice. Please note the wording used here:

" And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is on their hands.
For thus saith the Lord God; I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them up to be removed and spoiled.
And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire. Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God."

I cannot believe for one moment ALL the groups of Goddess followers in the area had embraced the new, evil practices but this gave the priests of the Patriarchal religion an excuse to destroy the Matriarchal beliefs and enslave all the women. ( Note the wording used: "All women" ie, the Goddess followers were to be made an example of to put "the fear of God" into the rest of the women in the land. ) And it was done with such violence and hatred that it would never be forgotten. Fear would serve to keep the women in line forever after these horrendous events. A question that comes to mind is: Why is the stoning and slashing of women with swords, murdering of children, burning of homes and temples, and certainly rape (the term "Spoiled" means sexual violation) on a massive scale such as this "righteous" when Jehova's men are doing it to women? And do you really believe God told anyone to do such things? Many things were done ~ and still are done today ~ in the name of God that were never instituted by Him ~ but rather by self serving, greedy men who wanted total male domination. There has never been a better horse to carry this agenda forward than the steed known as religion. How difficult is it to say,
"Thus saith the Lord" ?

Verse 32-35 says:
"..thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision.." and "Thou shall be filled with drunkeness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation..." and lastly, "Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou has forgotten me, and cast me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thou lewdness and whoredoms."

The Goddess religion would be held in disrespect and scorn and in the doing, so would women, Her representatives in the earth. This is a clear example of the evolution of a religion and the repercussions such change brings to those in contact with it. Because of the fear of the Feminine Principle, customs would evolve that relegated women to a place of less worth than a cherished animal. By the time of Christ, Jewish men were forbidden by law even to speak to a woman who was not blood kin. Other people in the area followed similar practices. From these, the chador and attrocities on the female body such as FGM (female genital mutilation) evolved.

Amina Lowall--a 32 year old woman in Nigeria is awaiting her death by stoning--only the fact that she is nursing her baby girl has stayed the hands of her judges. Her crime? Having a child out of wedlock. My question: Where's the father? Isn't adultery an act that takes two? And this is not an ancient Bible story--it is happening right now in 2003! With what bittersweet love and nurturing must this young mother be nursing her little girl- knowing that the day of her child's weaning will bring about her own death in this horrible way?

This is an example of how lopsided a culture becomes when it is totally dominated by the Patriarchal mindset. And this is why the Female Principle must return to balance out the Male powers that rage in the Earth today... before they destroy us all in their arrogance and greed.

� Kathleen Hanna 2003

source:groups.msn.com...

The Hebrews also had a femine diety/principle early in their history named "Rauch" (the vessel). In some writings she was refered to as the wife of YHVH. This did not last and she went the way of all female deities under the male religious hemogoney that still controls orthodox spirituality. -93-

reply to post by Magickman I am surprised you only got one reply to this thread, it is an important issue which you have articulated well, change is indeed needed before its too late....

Originally posted by Magickman
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A Biblical Account of the Destruction of a Goddess Culture


There is a story in the book of Jeremiah chp 44 beginning with v.17 which is an account of Goddess worship by the tribe of Judah. They spoke of burning incense, pouring libations, making cakes to celebrate Her (Queen of Heaven) There is no mention of sacrifice, excessive ritual or any other extreme forms of worship. They said as long as they worshipped their Goddess, they had plenty to eat and were at peace with their neighbors. But when they returned to the paternalistic religion's practises, all they had experienced since was war and dying by the sword. ( I believe this is because the Paternalistic rulers and priests' agenda was always kingdom building and subjugating the people around them-something few people take sitting down!) Judah declared they would return to their Goddess and the prophet told them they were suffering not for resuming the Paternalistic worship form but for their prior actions of honoring the Goddess! That Jehova God remembered what they did--and of course it mattered not a whit that they had returned to the male ordered practices--they had to pay--and pay--and pay. Apparently, turning away from those practices was not sufficient--no wonder they wanted to go back to following their gentle Goddess!

It seems you dont quite understand what masculine and femine constitute.

In its purely archetypal sense, `masculine' refers to the dynamic of giving, acting, potential. In this respect, the masculine is responsible for Creation, Order, Good. Conversely, the feminine in its archetypal sense is recieving, developing and expressing. The feminine is also responsible for Destruction, Chaos, and Evil.

This is the most basic organization of the many opposites that manifest in reality.

YHVH,(whom you call 'jehova'), is from the Hebrew root 'to be'. Its 3 unique letters form the Hebrew verbs Was, Is, and Will be. He is the source of all reality, all existence is experienced in him. He is the place of the world yet the world is not his place is a popular Jewish axiom.

G-d, is the ultimate giver. He gives life, he provides the sprark of vitality, the potential needed to sustain all the various revealed creation.

Conversely, his Shekinah (a feminine name) is his divine presence imbued in all the various forms of life we percieve and all phenomena we experience. Nature is the `recipient' of the life force G-d gives to her. We likewise being recipients, are feminine relative to G-d. Thus. G-d the ultimate giver, and us the ultimate recipient.

Now - what is being suggested by worshipping the divine feminine? What sense is their in worshipping a vessel, as opposed to the source? This is what the bible means by idolatry. Focusing on the intermediary, and not the source, in whatever way that this principle can manfiest.

This is what the tower of babel incident was about. Casting off the yoke of heaven - of service to the source - to G-d, and serving the manifest, creation. The feminine. All paganism is fundamentally feminine in that emphasis is placed on the experiential reality, and not the transcendental. This means that states that are currently beyond my experience simply do not exist, or arent relevant. Thus, G-d in pagan socieites isnt relevant. They have the audacity, for instance in 120 BCE, to enter Jerusalem and place a statue of Zeus in the Holy Temple - forcing Jews to bow down to this idol. The 'idol' is the fact that Zeus, or Dyeus (as he was called in the indus valley civilization) is a HUMAN construct. It isnt G-d as he actually is, but a IDOL - a construct of human imagination. That G-d the creator is simply an ARCHETYPE and not the source of all reality. In Hellenistic thought, Zeus is the power of judgement, order etc. G-d, is reduced to some pagan archetype, and not being the source of all reality as hes understood in Judaism and Torah.

This is paganism.

The Jews who worshipped Ashera or Ashatorth (as she is called in teh bible) were people influenced by the pagan nations around them. They like you lacked the necessary faith needed to approach the creator. The idea of faith is an inherent recognition of human futility. How can a created being approach the entity, source of all reality, the creator of the notion of creation, do so without an irrational function liike faith - to atleast some degree? Unlike what most people think, Judaism does not endorse blind faith, - sure, there is an element of that, but this faith itself based on the wisdom in the Torah. The Torah proves G-ds truth when studied from a kabbalistic perspective - when the language used to convey Torah - Hebrew, is understood in its myriad ways as the vehicle by which G-d created the universe. So, 'emuna' popularly translated as faith, more exactly means faithfulness. Loyalty to the truth. We all know how hard that can be. When you know something yet another part of you wants something else. To be righteous is to be faithful to that knowledge that you have.

Of course, G-d being beyond human comprehension is only properly contacted through simple faith and trust in his presence. The Divine feminine separates G-d. The divine feminine is materialistic, sensual, liberal. These are all qualities that arise ONLY when the masculine, G-d, is rejected.

When one instead pursues G-d as Torah dictates. The feminine, the divine presence in creation, is united with her spouse, her source, G-d. Shes 'trapped' in matter when human beings dont release her by binding their thoughts to their source. By doing so, Man, who in microcosm contains the whole, effects the whole. Mankind possesses the ability to drastically change the face of reality only when he realizes that hes inherently above it. The feminine is only to be understood as a 'helper' - as eve was created by G-d for this purpose. Ishah, woman, is from Ish, man. We see this in most languages, including english. Both the male and female are equally important. there is no shame in submitting, which is the purpose of the feminine. When the feminine doesnt submit, wat happens? Look at history. Mankind - the feminine, didnt submit to G-d. Has our history not been full of war and strife? this is the result of the blemish in th divine form (or dynamic) that G-d created. We are meant to imitate this form and his divine attributes in order to unify creation.

I cannot emphasize this anymore. The feminine is a necessary, absolutely crucial element. But her importance is understood only relative to her masculine counterpart. Just like undifferentiated thought - the potential, or conceptualization, needs to impregnate the conscious mind in order to reveal differentiated thought. Or a man, needs to give of his seed, his potential, to a women in order that she reveal it. Or the rain gives its lfe giving potenacy to the earth who can then bring forth multitudes of creations. I can go on naming this all day. This is why, historically, Men go out into the world (outside, just like potential, the seed of man, rain, is intrinsically outside before it begins to interact with the feminine) to provide the raw sustenace needed to sustain his family. The women takes this vitality, this power, and expresses it through raising their children, taking care of the house, encouraging her husband etc. This can be discerned in so many different forms. For instance, a man never truly discovers who he is until he meets his wife, his other half. Likewise, a women feels a need to give expression to her half when they meet. Its the natural proclivity of both parts. The women helps reveal greater levels in her husbands personality, and liekwise, the husband cherishes his wife as his greatest possession.

this is a beautiful, completely natural dynamic.

This is what service to YHVH is about. Its an emphasis on the complimentarity in creation. G-d and man, man and women etc.

i sincerely hope that the 2012 awakening, paradigm shift in culture...forecast by the Maya long count
is about the reemergence of the Goddess culture as a cornerstone of humanities inate spirituality

And paganism is pure vanity, pageantry, self worship.

Dionysus (Bachhus or Liber) is the archetype of this attitude. Hes total ignorance that than revels in a world of boundlessness.

He disdains order and seeks to usurp it.

So. Mankind begins to worship his own designs, his own inventions.

Im not saying all pagans are like this. There are many righteous among the nations in every religion who serve G-d in a proper way. But the overall attitude in their religions is antinomian.

Look at kali for instance in hindusim. Could there be a more repugnant image or idol? This is the same thing that ancient goddess worship is about. Evil, darkness, essentially transcending the moral universe of the lower self.

This is why many people who think this way have a moral relativistic philosophy. Theyll act when they find it appropriate, or relevant to their overall spiritual health. This attitude is renown for its rejection of social responsiblity.

It really is a complete disassociation from reality, and complete submission to the goddes, to the great and terrifying mother.

Originally posted by St Udio

i sincerely hope that the 2012 awakening, paradigm shift in culture...forecast by the Maya long count
is about the reemergence of the Goddess culture as a cornerstone of humanities inate spirituality

Thats cute.

Did you know thw movie avatar was all about that?

In fact, the name of their goddess, eywa is a permutation of the divine name. In kabbalah, the divine name, YHVH has 12 possible unique permutations (different arrangement of letters) each one constituing a different energy coming to the world. The permutation Heh, Yod, Waw, Heh, which can be pronounded EYWA, corresponds to the month of Shevat, which is dli, Aquarius.

Is this coincidence? or was this an obvious use of kabbalistic formula by james cameron?. Aqurius is the age new agers are feaking out about - so much so that a virtual aquarian religion has been built.

Unfortunately for you, i truly believe the opposite will happen

The point of the catholic churches dismal and pathetic history is about mocking the divine masculine, and Judaisms original attitude of a pure patriarchial religion. Christianity failed the world. Not G-d or Judaism.

The future messianic age, which is well beyond the year 2012 (though i could see ww3 beginning around that time, and so the 'birth pains' of the new age - making relevant the mayan prediction) will be built around G-d. This is what the propehets prophesied about. Surely not the pagan, new age culture being ploliferated by the power barons. The aristocracy are pagans. What makes you think this culture is good?

reply to post by Magickman


I stated in one thread before that although I choose to follow the teachings of the Christ Jesus, I do fell through my studies that there were multiple Christ. Being raised baptist, we only knew of ONE way. But even that one way has proven to be corrupted by man. The foundation of the bible is the Truth, unfortunately that truth has been distorted with all of these add-ons and subtrations. Love ye one another is the simplist truth left. Even the God of the bible, whatever you may call him, stated that there were other Gods, but none above him. The Goddess has been removed from most major religions, out of primarily fear. And lack of Knowledge. They want to keep us dumb and obidient. I feel it may have been for good intentions at first, but through time, those intentions have been lost to perversions. What ever happen to Isis, or Lilith, Ma'at, Nut. Mankind has lost its balance. But I do feel the restoration is coming. And the absolute truth is on its way. It is just up to us to be patient, continue to love one another, and continue to learn about our past as much as we can.

reply to post by Magickman


My guess is that this is simply one more reference to the war the Yahwehists waged upon the more established polytheistic religion of the region and time; headed by Baal and Ashtoreth. This conflict lasted at least decades if not longer. I feel it probably culminates with the Jezabel/Elijah conflict. In short, Ashtoreths priestess lost and history is written by the winners.

Baal was associated with sacrifice, including the sacrifice of children. Ashtoreth was not, but she was associated with Baal. (Please note that Baal was called many things and at the end of the day 'Baal' simply means 'lord'.) However, those temples and priestesshoods of Ashtoreth were also very powerful politically and financially, and it has been argued by some scholars that the misogynistic pall throughout the bible that starts in genesis and just keeps going (and going...) began primarily as a propaganda campaign against Ashtoreth and her followers; it is a simple matter to discredit a goddess that empowers women by claiming all women are evil. (Stupid apple.) Very slick though.

At any rate, my thoughts on the matter. For what it is worth. Interesting thread.