In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth [Paperback]

Tikva Frymer-Kensky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 10, 1993

The current return to spiritual values has spawned a surge of interest in the ancient goddess-based religions as a remedy to a long tradition of misogyny in the Western religions.

But how accurate are these current representations of the goddess in polytheism? And did Judeo-Christian religion really turn its back on women? These are some of the questions that scholar and feminist Tivka Frymer-Kensky sets out to answer in this iconoclastic study of gender in religions past and present. Her argument, illustrated with fascinating accounts of myth and ritual dating back to the early days of Sumer, Assyria, and Greece, is that although polytheism did accord females an important role, the strict division between male and female actually served to keep women in a subordinate position. The goddesses were progressively "ghettoized": their sphere was eventually relegated to home and hearth, while male gods took over as patrons of wisdom and learning. This dualism was displaced by the Bible, which embraced a surprisingly egalitarian view of human nature in which women were not considered to be inherently inferior.

In a provocative work of biblical scholarship on gender and sexuality, Frymer-Kensky shows that the ideal of monotheism may offer far more to us today than a return to the gender-based worldview of the goddess religions.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This book, by a professor of Near Eastern religion, begins with the world of goddesses of Mesopotamia. Frymer-Kensky then traces their marginalization and explains how biblical monotheism developed there. Her careful scholarship arrives at some surprising conclusions, especially that gender/role divisions in polytheism kept women in subordinate positions. She also reports that although monotheism removed the theoretical male-female dualism and asserted the essential sameness of humanity, women were nevertheless considered socially unequal. Hellenistic misogyny, she further asserts, contributed to the lowering of women in Jewish and Christian tradition because the Bible does not deal adequately with gender and sexual expression. Highly recommended for academic, seminary, and large public libraries.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Offers a more complicated and more interesting and more accurate view of the role of female divinities in human life."

The New Republic



"A deeply thought-through radical critique of sexism underlies this analysis, matched by a profound respect for the Bible and the tradition honoring it."

Penny Gill, Ph.D.

Emily Dickinson Professor of Humanities

Mount Holyoke College

"Presents many marvelous insights into biblical theology, sexuality, and anthropology that will surely claim the attention of scholars and students of biblical religion and culture for years to come."

Walter Harrelson, Ph.D.

Professor of Religion emeritus

Vanderbilt University

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1St Edition edition (February 10, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0449907465
• ISBN-13: 978-0449907467
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,681 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, Accessible Scholarship in Goddess Studies, July 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Paperback)

I found this book invaluable while researching sacred prostitution and Goddess religions in the ancient Near East for my Masters degree. Frymer-Kensky's articulate discussion of the texts from which we gain our (limited) knowledge of ancient religions exposes the frequently romantic or naive interpretations which have become accepted as history in too many Pagan or Goddess spirituality circles. Her work is scholarly but is definitely accessible to a reader who is interested in this topic. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Goddess religion, Biblical studies, or women's studies.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars history on spin-cycle, November 1, 2009

By 

E. Worth (Melbourne, Aus) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Paperback)

Frymer-Kensky is a feminist who also happens to be Jewish and feels that she is therefore obligated to defend what on the face of it is a collection of some of the world's most misogynistic writings. Her sense of loyalty is misplaced. Her thesis, such as it is, seeks to demonstrate that 'pagan' religions are bad for women, while Judaism is good. She does this by redefining 'pagan' as 'the civilized city-states of Sumer-Akkad', rather than 'the folk-beliefs of rural, agricultural or hunter-gatherer peoples', as scholars define it. She then defines Judaism exclusively by reference to the folktales contained in the early books of Genesis and Exodus. These stories depict strong women operating outside of rigid gender-roles precisely because they are 'pagan' folktales similar to such tales found all over the world, where gender roles like those we are familiar with from the monotheistic religions are virtually unknown. They were not written by the early Judaic reformers who codified the Judaic religion. These people's beliefs can be found in the added theological material that the folktales provided the background for and in the law-codes, which are frighteningly misogynistic and which have influenced all the major religions that have followed Judaism.
The deities worshipped by powerful city-states like Sumer-Akkad cannot by any stretch of the imagination be defined as 'pagan', since these were precisely the cultures that most profoundly influenced the development of Judaism. Nor can pagan folktales found in every culture on earth be defined as a novel proto-feminist religion created spontaneously in the seventh century BCE, however much Frymer-Kensky may wish for her ancestors to have shared her twentieth-century beliefs. Strangely, she acknowledges that the disappearance of female deities in Sumer-Akkadian religion was associated with the lowering of women's status, but does not follow through on the implications of this for a religion that banishes female participation in the divine altogether and forces women to approach god through male priests. She accounts for the misogyny in later historically attested phases of Judaism on the assumption that these were bad habits picked up from Hellenistic culture, but the halcyonic period of gender equality she envisages for the earliest phases of Judaism is simply the normal worldview of the folktales the Biblical compilers added to give body to their theological teachings.
All in all, this is a personal religious apologetic rather than a considered scholarly study.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for students of Ancient Near East, April 10, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Paperback)

This is an outstanding work for anyone interested in the goddess mythology of the Ancient Near East and how this was transformed, reinterpreted, and attempted to be eradicated by the Biblical authors. I have used this text as an undergrad, a doctoral student, and in teaching. Invaluable scholarship with excellent footnotes.