The Paradise Papers: The Suppression of Women's Rites

By Merlin Stone

Book Overview

Here, archaeologically documented, is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Under her, women's roles were far more prominent than in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Stone describes this ancient system and, with its disintegration, the decline in women's status. Index; maps and illustrations.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0084DAB04
• ISBN13: 9780156961585
• Release Date: May 1978
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

I was sceptical at first.....

This is a really good book. ... having read quite a bit of other stuff on proto-Jewish, pre-monotheistic religions, I confirm that the author does stick to pretty well-known facts. She bases her arguement primarily on a few (pretty-well established) facts, namely: - that (visibly female) goddess images are *the* oldest religious imagery to have been discovered, - that animistic religions with large local pantheons abounded for most of human history, - that the Jewish pentatuch was written in the context of other contemporary religions, and - that it is an easy jump to believe that prior to the advent of animal domestication/husbandry the relationship between men and pregnancy was probably not well understood/known.She uses these main pieces of evidence as well as scholorship on pre-historic religions to build a (very convincing) argument that once upon a time when people thought women possessed some magic ability that allowed them to reproduce alone (via parthenogenesis and sans l'homme), femaleness was worshipped. So, people had no clue where babies came from, men were seen as pretty much useless and inheritance was a purely matrilineal affaire. Then, ta da, a big bad monotheistic religion (proto-judaism) came along and said "Forget this stuff about men being useless! No,in fact, the Man is the creator of ALL!And what's more, the woman is born of the man -- contrary to all appearances. And we've got proof, just read this book we wrote called Genesis!"So, her book is about this; how did we get to this impasse? How did men manage to turn the common sense of the preceding millenea on its head? And how has this situation managed to persist for thousands of years (3 thousand to be exact)? Where did monotheism come from? Where did the notion of male gods come from, for that matter? Were there some groups worshiping male gods and others worshiping female gods which existed concurrently? How did a major female figure of divinity manage to acquire, first, a son, then a consort, then a husband/father? And after she acquired all of these celestial relatives, how did they manage to metaphysically dominate and eventually eclipse her entirely -- making feminity utterly un-associable with divinity until well into the 10TH century (with the cult of Mary)?So, those sound like pretty good questions, huh? I have read quite a bit on religions, but I would say that this is one of those rare books, where you don't actually have to know anything about the subject to be able to be consistently engaged by the authors reasoning. If you really think the author is totally off the wall, as far as historical facts, then read some other stuff too. But as an arguement, this book is up there with any plausible historical theory.