Or the God- idea of the Ancients by Gamble, Eliza Bert
is a book most of us should read, that is, the god people and the heathens who are headed the other way as Dickens would say. It is a book, for lack of a better word, I will call thorough. The author has managed to convince me, this was not hard though, that Christianity and to an extent Judaism represent a degeneration in man’s idea of god. That the idea of a male only deity represented by christian trinity is a far cry from the intellect of early antiquity where the woman was worshiped as a creative deity.
In this book, the author advances the thesis that a triunion god is not unique to Christianity but that this has always been known through the ages. That early man always worshiped a trinity in mother earth. She argues that in Nature- worship, deity had always been represented as mother and son and creator deity. That the representation of a mother- virgin mother- holding a son is not unique to Christians. Further of interest is, which is now known to most of us, is that Christianity is an extension of Pagan worship. The christian would not like to hear this, but any honest study of Pagan religion will dissuade even a blockhead who believes Christianity is an original invention.
The other thesis advanced in this book is the idea of sun worship which is also seen in Christianity. That Jesus myth is about a sun-god who dies and rises. That the sun is both a destroyer and re-generator is an obvious fact. That nature worship has always been about creation or rather about destruction or regeneration will become apparent to any student of antiquity.
The story of flood and ark is seen as a retelling of older stories and is associated also with the different sun cycles after which there has been a new beginning or prophet so to speak. That Noah had three sons in the ark is analogous to the idea of the trinity.
Another interesting thesis in this book is the idea that there has always been a conflict between the worshippers of woman as a creative deity and those who have exulted man above her. That the deification of the male above the woman is a recent occurrence starting with the ignorant Greeks and adopted by the Jews. It is this conflict that results in woman being sin as the harbinger of evil in Genesis 3.
Go read the book, am certain you shall all find it enlightening and it is a short book.
Zoroaster, Buddha, Confucius all get favourable mentions in this book. Am off to reading the Analects of Confucius.
Good post. I’ve only recently been becoming aware of just how UN-unique christianity is. It borrowed from many other existing faiths of its time. I want to read this book, too. The abusive nature of the Judo-Christian gods towards women is deplorable, inexcusable, and insulting. The bible is anti-humanistic in its teachings on morality. Any holy book that is filled with such misogynistic, homophobic tripe is a stain on the collective consciousness of humanity and should be purged ASAP from existence. I’ll get a copy of this to read and send the Holy Golden Boot your way to help you kick the asses of those choosing to be idiots of their own will. $Amen$
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You should read it, am almost certain you will love it. And your comment about the bible is spot on. You missed to add that it is anti-intellectualism. There is no page in it in support of free thought and doubt.
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Very true.
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Thank you for the review, my Nairobi brother! I need to add this to my reading list for the winter holidays away from the classroom. As you noted, it isn’t a new concept but one worth exploring further. I trust you are well and rested from your travels. Much love and naked hugs, friend! 😉
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I hope am not being a bad friend by adding so many books to your reading list.
I am well and very well rested too. Hope you too are well.
Many hugs
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Great stuff. As you read Confucius, jot down what passages you find that mirror stuff Jesus (allegedly) later said. I’m starting to slowly compile the germ sources of all the ideas contained in Christianity. Helps to make the point that J didn’t say anything new or useful, which is odd, considering the god-head claim.
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I sure will. Interesting thing I found out while reading this book and that has driven me to read Confucius is that the Analects could most likely have predated him and neither do their authors claim divine inspiration.
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I wouldn’t doubt that. The seeds of all philosophical/social thought must be as ancient as language itself with each successive generation expounding on the themes first scratched at by our deepest forebears. In this respect, we can trace the thoughts lineage in much the same way biologists trace genetics back down to a common ancestor. This raises the question: how much transferal of information was possible the further we back through the centuries? Did the Chinese interact with the Indians, and did the Indians interact with the Indo-Iranians?
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You bet they did. The thesis of the book is one can find elements of Buddhism from Persia.
The only group of people who qualify to the epithet ignorant were the Jews who said the world was a few days old when Adam was created
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V. interesting post, Noel. As a one-time Prehistorian I can confirm that the bringers of Christianity for one, frequently commandeered the sacred places (as well as the festivals) of older belief systems. It appears to have been a kind of religious cannibalism – deriving power from the old as a means of imposing the new. In France there are Christian churches atop Neolithic chambered tombs. In the Americas the Conquistadores deliberately built Catholic churches on top of Mayan pyramids, and only fairly recently have the Maya been allowed to return to their sacred places, often in the crypts of RC churches. Also the notion of mother goddess appears to go back to at least the Paleolithic – 15-40,000 years ago, with the carving of the so-called Venus figurines. The idea of Mother Earth, Sky father, and their offspring – which also includes the immaterial such as the origin of language – feature in very different cultures across the world. These cosmologies often include quite complex observations about the universe (thinking of the Dogon in Mali here). These belief systems may well date back to our hunter gatherer days. Their primary concern appears to have been with how to live well and respectfully on the earth. We could maybe do with a few reminders on this front, and less of the ‘them and us’ self-righteous dogma.
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Tish you know this can’t be true, the earth is just about 10K years old 😛
On a serious note however, you really are right and your last line is spot on.
And true nature worship was really about Mother Earth or Gaia as they called it at some point in our evolution and the sun as the destroyer and re-generator.
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Just a side-comment:
Fria, or Freyja (from whom we get TGIF, or thank goodness it’s Fria’s Day – just as Thursday is Thors), was a Norse goddess, associated with love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death.
She was a cat person, and usually pictured in the company of a cat.
When Christian missionaries followed Rome into Europe, they tried to neutralize Freyja-worship by demonizing her – Freyja became a witch, and her cat, her familiar.
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Thanks for the info. That woman has been vilified in Christianity is evident in those teachings of Paul that you should not suffer a woman to teach
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Thanks Noel for this reference, and reflections on patriarchal societies.
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You are most welcome Maria
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You always give us …. who are too lazy to read for ourselves ….. a good read. 🙂
From one of those heathens who headed the other way.
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You are most welcome, It was quite a good read
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[…] Source: Sex in religion […]
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Look into Professor Ken Kuntz, Phyllis Trible, Ilana Pardes, and Elisabeth Moltmann Wendel
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