Judaism[edit]

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Further information: The Hebrew Goddess and Shekhinah
According to Zohar, Lilith is the name of Adam's first wife, who was created at the
same time as Adam. She left Adam and refused to return to the Garden of Eden after she
mated with archangel Samael.[13] Her story was greatly developed, during the Middle
Ages, in the tradition of Aggadic midrashim, the Zohar and Jewish mysticism.[14]
The Zohar tradition has influenced Jewish folkore, which postulates God created Adam
to marry a woman named Lilith. Outside of Jewish tradition, Lilith was associated with
the Mother Goddess, Inanna later known as both Ishtar and Asherah. In The Epic of
Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh was said to have destroyed a tree that was in a sacred grove
dedicated to the goddess Ishtar/Inanna/Asherah. Lilith ran into the wilderness in despair.
She then is depicted in the Talmud and Kabbalah as first wife to God's first creation of
man, Adam. In time, as stated in the Old Testament, the Hebrew followers continued to
worship "False Idols", like Asherah, as being as powerful as God. Jeremiah speaks of
his (and God's) displeasure at this behavior to the Hebrew people about the worship of
the goddess in the Old Testament. Lilith is banished from Adam and God's presence
when she is discovered to be a "demon" and Eve becomes Adam's wife. Lilith then takes
the form of the serpent in her jealous rage at being displaced as Adam's wife. Lilith as
serpent then proceeds to trick Eve into eating the fruit from the tree of knowledge and in
this way is responsible for the downfall of all of mankind. It is worthwhile to note here
that in religions pre-dating Judaism, the serpent was known to be associated with
wisdom and rebirth (with the shedding of its skin).
The following female deities are mentioned in prominent Hebrew texts:

Agrat Bat Mahlat

Anath

Asherah

Ashima

Astarte

Eisheth

Christianity[edit]
Main articles: Marian veneration and Sophia (wisdom)

In Christianity, worship of any other deity besides the Trinity was deemed heretical, but
veneration for Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, as an especially privileged saint
though not as a deity has continued since the beginning of the Catholic faith.[citation needed]
Mary is venerated as the Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Mother of the Church, Our
Lady, Star of the Sea, and other lofty titles. Marian devotion similar to this kind is also
found in Eastern Orthodoxy and sometimes in Anglicanism, though not in the majority
of denominations of Protestantism.

Virgin Sophia design on a Harmony Society doorway in Harmony, Pennsylvania, carved

by Frederick Reichert Rapp (17751834).
In some Christian traditions (like the Orthodox tradition), Sophia is the personification
of either divine wisdom (or of an archangel) which takes female form. She is mentioned
in the first chapter of the Book of Proverbs.
Sophia is identified by some as the wisdom imparting Holy Spirit of the Christian
Trinity, whose names in Hebrew - Ruach and Shekhinah - are both feminine, and whose
symbol of the dove was commonly associated in the Ancient Near East with the figure
of the Mother Goddess. In 13th century Milan, Italy, the heretical female Saint
Guglielma was believed by her followers to be an incarnation of the Holy Spirit. In
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's book The Woman's Bible, she replaces the figure of the Holy
Spirit with a "Heavenly Mother" within the Trinity.
In Mysticism, Gnosticism, as well as some Hellenistic religions, there is a female spirit
or goddess named Sophia who is said to embody wisdom and who is sometimes
described as a virgin. In Roman Catholic mysticism, Hildegard of Bingen celebrated
Sophia as a cosmic figure both in her writing and art. Within the Protestant tradition in
England, 17th century Mystic, Universalist and founder of the Philadelphian Society
Jane Leade wrote copious descriptions of her visions and dialogues with the "Virgin
Sophia" who, she said, revealed to her the spiritual workings of the universe. Leade was
hugely influenced by the theosophical writings of 16th century German Christian mystic
Jakob Bhme, who also speaks of the Sophia in works such as The Way to Christ.[15]
Jakob Bhme was very influential to a number of Christian mystics and religious
leaders, including George Rapp and the Harmony Society.

Feminism and neopaganism[edit]

Main articles: Feminist theology and Goddess movement

Goddess movement[edit]
Main articles: Feminist theology and Goddess movement
At least since first-wave feminism in the United States, there has been interest in
analyzing religion to see if and how doctrines and practices treat women unfairly, as in
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Woman's Bible. Again in second-wave feminism in the
U.S., as well as in many European and other countries, religion became the focus of
some feminist analysis in Judaism, Christianity, and other religions, and some women
turned to ancient goddess religions as an alternative to Abrahamic religions
(Womanspirit Rising 1979; Weaving the Visions 1989). Today both women and men
continue to be involved in the Goddess movement (Christ 1997). The popularity of
organizations such as the Fellowship of Isis attest to the continuing growth of the
religion of the Goddess throughout the world.
While much of the attempt at gender equity in mainstream Christianity (Judaism never
recognized any gender for God) is aimed at reinterpreting scripture and degenderizing
language used to name and describe the divine (Ruether, 1984; Plaskow, 1991), there
are a growing number of people who identify as Christians or Jews who are trying to
integrate goddess imagery into their religions (Kien, 2000; Kidd 1996,"Goddess
Christians Yahoogroup").

Sacred feminine[edit]
Main article: Theology
The term "sacred feminine" was first coined in the 1970s, in New Age popularizations
of the Hindu Shakti. It was further popularized during the 1990s by Andrew Harvey and
others, and entered mainstream pop culture in 2003 with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci
Code.[citation needed]

Wicca[edit]
Further information: Goddess (Wicca) and Triple Goddess (Neopaganism)
In Wicca "the Goddess" is a deity of prime importance, along with her consort the
Horned God. Within many forms of Wicca the Goddess has come to be considered as a
universal deity, more in line with her description in the Charge of the Goddess, a key
Wiccan text. In this guise she is the "Queen of Heaven", similar to Isis; she also
encompasses and conceives all life, much like Gaia. Much like Isis and certain late
Classical conceptions of Selene, she is held to be the summation of all other goddesses,
who represent her different names and aspects across the different cultures. The
Goddess is often portrayed with strong lunar symbolism, drawing on various cultures
and deities such as Diana, Hecate, and Isis, and is often depicted as the Maiden, Mother
and Crone triad popularised by Robert Graves (see Triple Goddess below). Many
depictions of her also draw strongly on Celtic goddesses. Some Wiccans believe there
are many goddesses, and in some forms of Wicca, notably Dianic Wicca, the Goddess
alone is worshipped, and the God plays very little part in their worship and ritual.

The lunar Triple Goddess symbol.

Goddesses or demi-goddesses appear in sets of three in a number of ancient European
pagan mythologies; these include the Greek Erinyes (Furies) and Moirai (Fates); the
Norse Norns; Brighid and her two sisters, also called Brighid, from Irish or Celtic
mythology.
Robert Graves popularised the triad of "Maiden" (or "Virgin"), "Mother" and "Crone",
and while this idea did not rest on sound scholarship, his poetic inspiration has gained a
tenacious hold. Considerable variation in the precise conceptions of these figures exists,
as typically occurs in Neopaganism and indeed in pagan religions in general. Some
choose to interpret them as three stages in a woman's life, separated by menarche and
menopause. Others find this too biologically based and rigid, and prefer a freer
interpretation, with the Maiden as birth (independent, self-centred, seeking), the Mother
as giving birth (interrelated, compassionate nurturing, creating), and the Crone as death
and renewal (holistic, remote, unknowable) and all three erotic and wise.

Metaphorical use[edit]
The term "goddess" has also been adapted to poetic and secular use as a complimentary
description of a non-mythological woman.[16] The OED notes 1579 as the date of the
earliest attestation of such figurative use, in Lauretta the diuine Petrarches Goddesse.
Shakespeare had several of his male characters address female characters as goddesses,
including Demetrius to Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream ("O Helen, goddess,
nymph, perfect, divine!"), Berowne to Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost ("A woman I
forswore; but I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee"), and Bertram to
Diana in All's Well That Ends Well. Pisanio also compares Imogen to a goddess to
describe her composure under duress in Cymbeline.

See also[edit]
Religion portal

Anima (Jung)

Gender of God

Gingira

Goddess movement

Mother goddess

Heavenly Mother

Sophia

Ochre

Tree deity

Venus figurines

Matriarchy

The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory

The White Goddess

Succubus

Notes[edit]
1.

Jump up ^ The Encyclopedia of World Religions, p. 181.

2.

Jump up ^ Introduction to Pagan Studies (2007), p. 222.

3.

Jump up ^ Barnhart (1995:323).

4.

Jump up ^ first broadcast on PBS in 1988 as a documentary, The Power of

Myth was also released in the same year as a book created under the direction of the late
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

5.

Jump up ^ Chapter 6, "The Gift of the Goddess" and Episode 5, "Love and the
Goddess" [1]

6.

Jump up ^ p. 165, 1988, first edition

7.

Jump up ^ pp.1667, (1988, first edition)

8.

Jump up ^ p. 176, 1988, first edition

9.

Jump up ^ http://www.balaams-ass.com/alhaj/page15.htm

10.
11.

Jump up ^ Wood, Juliette (1998). The Celts: Life. Myth, and Art. London, UK:
Duncan Publishers Ltd. p. 42.
Jump up ^ Mbiti, J.S., Introduction to African Religion, Oxford, 1975, p. 53.

12.
13.

Jump up ^ Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, New York:
Touchstone, 2003, reprint, GlobalFlair, 1991, p. 429. Retrieved 2 Nov 2009
Jump up ^ Samael & Lilith

14.

Jump up ^ Tree of souls: the mythology of Judaism, By Howard Schwartz,

page 218

15.

Jump up ^ Bhme, Jacob; William Law, trans. (1622 (1764)). The Way to
Christ. Pater-noster Row, London: M. Richardson. Check date values in: |date=
(help)

16.

Jump up ^ OED: "Applied to a woman. one's goddess: the woman whom one
worships or devotedly admires."

References[edit]

Dexter, Miriam Robbins, and Victor Mair (2010). Sacred Display: Divine and
Magical Female Figures of Eurasia. Cambria Press.

Barnhart, Robert K (1995). The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology: the

Origins of American English Words. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-270084-7

Gorshunova . Olga V.(2008), Svjashennye derevja Khodzhi Barora, ( Sacred

Trees of Khodzhi Baror: Phytolatry and the Cult of Female Deity in Central
Asia) in Etnoragraficheskoe Obozrenie, n 1, pp. 7182. ISSN 0869-5415.
(Russian).

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