Saturday 5 October 2013

WHEN GOD WAS A WOMAN 4

Rasa Von Werder is now building a major website, a continuation of the sensationally successful
www.WomanThouArtGod which will house many thousands of her photos, including erotic.  This website will educate regarding sex & male-female relationships.  It is a far cry from the celibacy Rasa  practiced for most of her life - she will now espouse the goodness of sex.  There will be shrines to the Lingam (penis), Yoni (vagina) & a shrine to Rasa as Guru.  There will be teachings on Tantra, the way to God by worship of the female body.
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CANAAN – "THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL POSITION OF AN ISRAELITE WIFE…"

I have saved the examination of the women in the two Hebrew nations of Judah and Israel for last, since we generally regard them as part of an isolated patriarchal society which worshipped the male deity alone.  At this point it will be clarifying to compare the position of Hebrew women not only with their contemporaries in Babylon and Egypt, cultures so intertwined with their own, but also with the other women of Canaan, where they finally settled.

In the city of Ugarit in northern Canaan of the fourteenth century BC, which was not a Hebrew community, there are records of a woman whose title was translated as "Important Lady of the Royal House."  She was known as the Adath (meaning Lady as the female counterpart of Adon meaning "Lord").  The Goddess in this area was known as Anath, which may be much the same word.  The texts of Ugarit (present-day Ras Shamra in Syria), where legend of Anath were unearthed, revealed that this "Important Lady" took an active part in political affairs.

Claude Schaeffer, co-director of the first excavation at Ugarit, wrote in 1939, "The social status of women, and particularly the mother of the family, thus appears to have been a high one in Ugarit."  Ugaritan documents of this same period reveal that upon divorce or widowhood a woman kept her own property.  Legal records read much like those of Elam, stating that husbands let their possessions to their wives rather than their children; these children are told not to quarrel but to respect and obey their mother.  As I shall explain in the following two chapters, at Ugarit there was a curious combination of the southern and northern cultures, reflected in their religious myths.  There are accounts of many Indo-Europeans living in that city by the fourteenth century, yet the status of women does not appear to have been greatly affected by it at that time.

Among the Ammonites of Canaan, a people with whom the Hebrews were in repeated conflict, women acted in official capacities.  In 1961 archaeologists G. Landes wrote of "the superior position of women being in agreement with nomadic practise."  He stated that queens, such as the Queen of Sheba (about 950), at the times led Arab states or tribes and that this was also attested in the eight and seventh centuries BC.

Rasa Von Werder is now building a major website, a continuation of the sensationally successful
www.WomanThouArtGod which will house many thousands of her photos, including erotic.  This website will educate regarding sex & male-female relationships.  It is a far cry from the celibacy Rasa  practiced for most of her life - she will now espouse the goodness of sex.  There will be shrines to the Lingam (penis), Yoni (vagina) & a shrine to Rasa as Guru.  There will be teachings on Tantra, the way to God by worship of the female body.
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In contrast to the economic, legal and social position of women all about them, the position of the Israelite women exhibits the effects of the almost total acceptance of the male deity Yahweh, and the patriarchal society that accompanied it.  According to the Bible, though no archaeological evidence has yet been found to confirm this, the Israelite laws date from the time of Moses (about 1300 – 1250 BC).  They continue as the law of the Hebrews of Canaan until the fall of the northern kingdom known as Israel in 722 BC and the fall of the southern kingdom known as Judah in 583 BC.  These same laws still appear in the Old Testament of the Judeo-Christian Bible to this day.

Through an intensive study of the Bible, archaeologist and priest Roland de Vaux made these observations about Hebrew women in his study of 1965, published as Ancient Israel:

The social and legal position of an Israelite wife was inferior to the position of a wife occupied in the great countries round about…all the texts show that Israelites wanted mainly sons, to perpetuate the family line and fortune, and to preserve the ancestral inheritance…A husband could divorce his wife…women on the other hand could not ask for divorce…the wife called her husband Ba'al or master; she also called him adon or lord; she addressed him in fact as a slave addressing he master or a subject, his king.  The Decalogue includes a man's wife among his possessions…all her life she remains a minor.  The wife does not inherit from her husband, nor daughters from their father, except when there is no male heir.  A vow made by a girl or married woman needs, to be valid, the consent of the father or husband and if this consent is withheld, the vow is null and void.  A man had the right to sell his daughter.  A women were excluded from the succession.

De Vaux asserted that, unlike all the other cultures of the Near East, there were no priestesses allowed in the Israelite faith.  He explained that:

…the suggestion that there were women among the clergy of the temple clashes with an important linguistic fact: there were priestesses in Assyria, priestesses and high priestesses in Phoenicia, where they are shown by the feminine of kohen; in the Minaean inscriptions there was a feminine form of lw' (priest) which some scholars would link with the Hebrew lewy, but Hebrew has no corresponding noun to kohen or lewy, no women ever held a place among the Israelite clergy.


Rasa Von Werder is now building a major website, a continuation of the sensationally successful
www.WomanThouArtGod which will house many thousands of her photos, including erotic.  This website will educate regarding sex & male-female relationships.  It is a far cry from the celibacy Rasa  practiced for most of her life - she will now espouse the goodness of sex.  There will be shrines to the Lingam (penis), Yoni (vagina) & a shrine to Rasa as Guru.  There will be teachings on Tantra, the way to God by worship of the female body.
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I might add that according to Hebrew law a woman had no right to money or property upon divorce and since her vow was invalid, presumably she could not engage in business.  Perhaps the most shocking laws of all were those that declared that a woman was to be stoned or burned to death for losing her virginity before marriage, a factor never mentioned in other law codes of the Near East, and that, upon being the victim of rape, a single woman was forced to marry the rapist; if she was already betrothed or married she was to be stoned to death for having been raped.

Perhaps the clearest explanation of the status of early Hebrew women was revealed by archaeologist D. Ussishkin in 1970.  He described an ancient Hebrew tomb recently unearthed in Israel in this way: "Thus it seems that one body, almost certainly that of the husband, was placed higher that the body of the wife, so that the women's inferior status was also demonstrated after her death."

Despite the lowly position of women decreed by the Hebrew laws and customs, there were two incidents that reveal a possible revival of the ancient Goddess religion, even within the royal house of Israel.  Their association with the ancient beliefs suggests that two queens may have gained power through the ancient matrilineal customs, which had perhaps slipped back into Israel along with other "pagan" patterns.  Both incidents involved women who were listed as Hebrew queens, on in Israel and the other in Judah.

The first concerns a woman known as Queen Maach, possibly a descendant of an Aramaean princess of the same name who was in the harem of Hebrew king David.  The second Maacah was listed in the Bible as the queen of Rehoboam, king of Israel from about 922 to 913 BC.  His mother was not Hebrew, but Ammonite princesses.  This king is recorded as having erected "pagan" golden calves.  Murray suggests that this name Queen Maacah was later the wife of the succeeding king, Abijam, who is listed as the son of Maacah and Reboboam.  Her suggestion is based upon the fact that some versions of the Bible list Maacah as the mother of Abijam's son Asa.  Other versions list Maacah as his grandmother, but place her name where the name of the mother would ordinary be listed and never mention who his mother was, a pattern quite unlike all other descriptions of a royal Hebrew sons.  Murray wrote, "They only say that Abijam and Asa could have had the same mother, was by marriage of Abijam with his own mother."

It was Asa who brought about many Hebrew reforms, suppressing the then very prevalent "heathen" practices, and who finally had Maacah dethroned.  In light of the curious discrepancies in Asa's genealogy, the reason given in the Bible for the dethronement is all the more interesting.  In I Kings 15:2-14 we read that Maacah had made a asherah, that is, a statue of the Goddess Asherah.  Considering the repeated evidence of "paganism" during this period, it seems quite likely that Israel had taken up the religious customs of old, at the time accepting the female religion and the female kinship succession to the throne.  If this was so, then Maacah would have been the royal heiress and held this position until Asa, possibly under the influence of Hebrew priests, once again established the religion of Yahweh.

The second incident is dated about 842 BC, when Athaliah, daughter of Queen Jezebel, claimed the throne of Judah as her own.  According to Hebrew law, women were not allowed to reign alone.  Yet it required a violent revolution to dethrone her.  Jezebel herself was closely identified with the ancient religion.  Jezebel's parents, Athaliah's grandparents , where the high priestess and priest of Ashtoreth and Baal in the Canaanite city of Sidon, reigning there as queen and king.  The murder of Jezebel, who had reigned alongside Ahab as queen in the northern kingdom of Israel, was actually a political assault upon the religion of the Goddess.  This is made clear in the events that followed her murder in the biblical account in Kings I and II.  So it is worth noting that it was Jezebel's daughter who ascended to the royal throne of Judah, the only women ever to rule the Hebrew nation alone.  Most significant is the fact that, once Athaliah secured her rights to the throne, she reigned for about six years, re-establishing the ancient "pagan" religion throughout the nation, must to the distress of the Hebrew priests.

Rasa Von Werder is now building a major website, a continuation of the sensationally successful
www.WomanThouArtGod which will house many thousands of her photos, including erotic.  This website will educate regarding sex & male-female relationships.  It is a far cry from the celibacy Rasa  practiced for most of her life - she will now espouse the goodness of sex.  There will be shrines to the Lingam (penis), Yoni (vagina) & a shrine to Rasa as Guru.  There will be teachings on Tantra, the way to God by worship of the female body.
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SUMMARY

Through cause and effect between matrilineal decent, high female status and the veneration of the Goddess are often confused, we cannot avoid the fact that repeated evidence attests that the religion of the Goddess and a female kinship system were closely intertwined in many parts of the Near East.  Though much of the material pertains to royalty, there is enough to suggest that matrilineal customs were practiced in many areas by the general population as well.  In examining the transition from the Goddess religion to the worship of the male deity as supreme and the subsequent effects upon the status of women, we find certain patterns emerging.

From the beginning of the second millennium, the Assyrians were in close political and commercial contact with the Indo-European Hittites.  Indo-European Hurrian princes appeared in various cities of northern Syria from that same time on.  By 1600 BC Babylon was controlled by the Indo-European-led Kassites.  By 1500 BC Assyria was completely under the control of the Hurrians who had formed the kingdom of Mitanni.

Accompanying these conquests was the introduction of the myth of Marduk, who, we are told, murdered the Goddess to gain his supreme position in Babylon.  In Assyria the same myth was told, the name of Ashur simply substituted for the name Marduk.  Throughout the second millennium, the Indo-Europeans made further inroads into the lands of Canaan and Mesopotamia and, as I Shall explain in the next two chapters, may have played an important role in the formation of the Hebrew religion and laws.

It may be helpful at this point to summarize the changes in the laws as they affected various aspects of the lives of women.  In Eshnunna (in Sumer) at about 2000 BC, if a man raped a woman he was put to death.  In the Old Babylonian period of Hammurabi, before the major incursions of the Indo-Europeans, though many of the northerners were in Babyonia even at that time, the same punishment was given.  In the laws of Assyria, which are dated between 1450 and 1250 BC (when Assyra was under Indo-European control), we read that if a man rapes a woman the husband of father of that woman should then rape the rapist's wife or daughter and/or marry his own daughter to the rapist.  The last part of the law was also the law of the Hebrews, who added that a raped woman must be put to death if she was already married or betrothed.  Assyrian laws appear to be the first to mention abortion, assigning the penalty of death.

The reforms of Urukagina (about 2300BC) refer to the fact that women used to take two husbands, though at the time of his reign that was no longer allowed.  In the laws of Eshnunna a man who took a second wife, after his wife had given birth to a child, was to be expelled from the house without any possessions.  In Eshnunna, if a woman had a child by another man while her husband was away at war, her husband was expected to take her back as his wife.  No punishment for adultery was mentioned.  In Hammurabi's laws, if a woman related to another man sexually she was expected to take an oath at the temple and return home to her husband.  The Assyrian and Hebrew laws give the husband the right to murder both the wife and lover.

It is somewhat difficult to make comparisons between the various places and periods since the laws seem to have been included to codify very specific incidents and refer to varying situations.  The major changes in the law concerning women affected their right to engage in economic activities, what they might or might not inherit, what they in turn were allowed to pass on to their children, the attitude towards rape, abortion, infidelity on the part of the husband or wife and, among the Hebrews only, the penalty of death – for women – for the loss of virginity before marriage.  These laws, since they primarily affected the economic and sexual activities of women, point to the likelihood that they were aimed at the matrilineal descent customs.  The very fact that so many of the laws concerned women suggests that both the economic and sexual position of women was continually changing all the time of the first attested northern invasions (about 2300 BC) until the laws of the Hebrews, probably written down between 1250 and 1000 BC – though, as I mentioned, none of the original Hebrew text have yet been discovered.

In questioning to what extent the female kinship customs and the reverence of the female deity affected the status of women, we may perhaps best judge by our observations of the women of the Hebrew tribes who had accepted the worship of the new male deity alone and the subsequent laws controlling their position and rights in the society in which they lived.

We might also want to consider the possibility that, in an even more personal way, just as the Hebrews prayed for sons and rejoiced when male heirs were born to carry on the family line (not so far removed from the attitudes of many families even today), in matrilineal societies the birth of daughters was likely to have been considered a special blessing.  Female children may have been especially cherished for the same reasons.  According to the curators of the Archaeological Museum of University of Cambridge in England, even today, "Among the matrilineal Asanti in Africa, female children are especially valued because of their power to transmit blood (mogya), to continue the matriline (abusua)."  In ancient times the Sun Goddess of Arinna in Anatolia was worshiped along with Her two daughters and a granddaughter.  The Khasis of Assam worshiped their Goddess along with Her three daughters and a wayward son.  What emotional effects this may have had upon the self-esteem and development of young girl at that time we can only guess.

A consciousness of the relationship of the veneration of the Goddess to the matrilineal descent of name, property and the rights to the throne is vital in understanding the suppression of the Goddess religion.  As I shall explain, it was probably the underlying reason for the resentment of the worship of the Goddess (and all this it represented) by the patriarchal invaders who arrived from the north.

Judged by the continued presence of the Goddess as supreme deity in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies of the Near and Middle East, Goddess worship, probably accompanied by the matrilineal customs, appears to have existed without challenge for thousands of years.  It is upon the appearance of the invading northerners, who from all accounts had established patrilineal, patriarchal customs and the worship of a supreme male deity sometimes before their arrival in the Goddess worshiping areas, that the greatest changes in religious beliefs and social customs appear to have taken place.  Who were these northern people?  And how were they able to gradually suppress and eventually destroy the ancient Goddess religions that had existed for so many thousands of years?

Rasa Von Werder is now building a major website, a continuation of the sensationally successful
www.WomanThouArtGod which will house many thousands of her photos, including erotic.  This website will educate regarding sex & male-female relationships.  It is a far cry from the celibacy Rasa  practiced for most of her life - she will now espouse the goodness of sex.  There will be shrines to the Lingam (penis), Yoni (vagina) & a shrine to Rasa as Guru.  There will be teachings on Tantra, the way to God by worship of the female body.


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