The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women's Rites
Publisher
Barnes and Noble
Publication date
1976
ISBN
0-15-696158-X
OCLC
3397068
Dewey Decimal
291.2/11
LC Class
BL458 .S76 1978
When God Was a Woman is the U.S. title of a 1976 book by sculptor and art historian Merlin Stone. It was published earlier in the United Kingdom as The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women's Rites. It has been translated into French as Quand Dieu était femme (SCE-Services Complets d'Edition, Québec, Canada) in 1978, into Dutch as Eens was God als Vrouw belichaamd – De onderdrukking van de riten van de vrouw in 1979, into German as Als Gott eine Frau war in 1989 and into Italian as Quando Dio era una donna in 2011.
Stone spent approximately ten years engaged in research of the lesser-known, sometimes hidden depictions of the Sacred Feminine, from European and Middle Eastern societies, in preparation to complete this work. In the book, she describes these archetypal reflections of women as leaders, sacred entities and benevolent matriarchs, and also weaves them into a larger picture of how our modern societies grew to the present imbalanced state. Possibly the most controversial/debated claim in the book is Stone's interpretation of how peaceful, benevolent matriarchal society and Goddess-reverent traditions (including Ancient Egypt) were attacked, undermined and ultimately destroyed almost completely, by the ancient tribes including Hebrews and later the early Christians. To do this they attempted to destroy any visible symbol of the sacred feminine, including artwork, sculpture, weavings and literature. The reason being that they wanted the Sacred Masculine to become the dominant power, and rule over women and Goddess energies. According to Stone, the Torah or Old Testament was in many ways a male attempt to re-write the story of human society, changing feminine symbolism to masculine.
The book is now seen as having been instrumental in the modern rise of feminist theology in the 1970s to 1980s, along with authors such as Elizabeth Gould Davis, Riane Eisler and Marija Gimbutas. Some have related it as well to the work of authors Margaret Murray and Robert Graves.
and 22 Related for: When God Was a Woman information
Woman of God, written by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro, is a stand-alone novel. The central character of this book is Brigid Fitzgerald, a physician...
Matriarchal religion Triple Goddess (Neopaganism) Triple goddesses WhenGodWasaWoman Graves, Robert (2013). The White Goddess (2 ed.). New York: Faber...
while the Indo-Europeans practiced a patriarchal system. An example of this view is found in Stone's WhenGodWasaWoman,[page needed] wherein she makes...
tune), "Blue Prelude" (with Joe Bishop), "This Is All I Ask", and "WhenaWoman Loves a Man". Jenkins also composed both the "Future" suite and the entire...
Awoman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, awoman is referred to as a girl (a female child or adolescent). Typically, women are of the female...
Gimbutas, and Merlin Stone's 1976 book WhenGodWasaWoman. The main theme of the film, composed by Loreena McKennitt, was released as the track "Ancient Pines"...
Their Eyes Were Watching God is a 1937 novel by American writer Zora Neale Hurston. It is considered a classic of the Harlem Renaissance, and Hurston's...
previous Wonder Woman series, in which Diana was made the Queen of the Amazons and the God of War, were in fact all an illusion created by a mysterious villain...
God Pan and it was published as a book alongside another story, "The Inmost Light", in 1894. The novella begins with an experiment to allow awoman named...
Greeks created images of their deities for many purposes. A temple would house the statue of agod or goddess, or multiple deities, and might be decorated...
all the animals there was not found a companion for him (Genesis 2:20). God causes a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and forms awoman (Genesis 2:21–22), and...
"Fallen woman" is an archaic term which was used to describe awoman who has "lost her innocence", and fallen from the grace of God. In 19th-century Britain...
the fall of man, God announces (in Genesis 3:15) that he will put an enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. In Christianity...
time, when there was nothing but chaos, the sun-god existed alone in the watery mass of Nun which filled the universe. The universe was enrapt by a vast...
feminism WhenGodWasaWoman Steven Goldberg Quoting Kwame Anthony Appiah, "The real political question ... as old as political philosophy ... [is] when we...
feminine imagery for God, comparing God to awoman in labor in multiple verses throughout the book. The book also refers to God as a nursing mother. Some...
at a "place prepared of God" for 1,260 days. This leads to a "War in Heaven" in which the angels cast out the dragon. The dragon attacks the woman, but...
with a dialogue between the woman and a serpent, identified in Genesis 3:1 as an animal that was more crafty than any other animal made by God, although...