History+-+Polytheism+to+Monotheism

 Polytheism to Monotheism

  = =    Tracing religious cultures far away from and before the United States, we look to gender representation and the historic transition between female representation and even supremacy in polytheism and male-rule monotheism in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. 

When we think of the start of religion we have to remember that before technology and science breakthroughs there was no other explanation for natural disasters, illness, and evil. Thousands of years before us people created beings that praised or punished them. People of polytheistic religions even had beings of every day life like god of the sun, moon, dawn, and sunset. In Greek and Roman polytheistic religions we see an equal representation of gods (men) and goddesses (women). There are gods and goddesses that share responsibilities, for example twins Apollo and Artemis ruled the sun and the moon. Artemis was also known as the goddess of the hunt which may seem like a masculine responsibility. So what happened to the equal representation of men and women in monotheistic religion? Some argue that it is a reflection of patriarchal times, others argue that when Constantine declared that Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire he destroyed all evidence of equal female representation in Christianity. Regardless of theories somehow the representation of women was lost when the world converted to monotheistic religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.  In polytheistic religions such as Greek and Roman mythology, love, beauty, and reproduction are celebrated and each have a goddess representation. When we look at Christianity for example Ruether explains in an article //The Politics of God in Christian Tradition, "Femalenss is linked to sex, body and mortality and so alien to God who is sexless [celibate], disembodied, and immortal." (Ruether) In this statement the celebrations of the female have been lost in the transition to monotheism. In the book of Genesis, Eve, God's woman creation, is to blame for creating evil and when God questions Adam if he has eaten from the forbidden tree he says,// "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." (Genesis 3:12) Therefore, from the start of the Bible we blame women for Eve's weak and vulnerable reaction to the evil serpent.

The most famous woman in Christianity is the Holy Mary best known for the Immaculate Conception in which Jesus was conceived without Mary committing original sin. Where motherhood, birth, and sexuality is celebrated in the pagan religions of ancient Greece and Rome, women bore original sin for having sexual intercourse to reproduce. Therefore, women were seen as dirty or evil for have menstrual cycles each month which is essential to reproduction. Ruether also states, "In the Cult of Mary, Jesus’ mother, and of Mother Church, Christianity develops an asexual females consort of the male God who is simultaneously the bride and mother of God’s son, Christ, while remaining a virgin." (Ruether) This is where the value of virgins was born. Fifty years ago this was still quite prevalent when men are looking to marry; a young virgin female is more valuable, pure, and untouched in the eyes of men. Women with more experience were often out of the picture or looked down upon. Within the lines of communication, this becomes social influence to many girls except in today's world even though sexual appeal is valued greatly a woman with 'experience' can be degraded to a 'whore' or a 'slut' or to other slurs. Therefore, we are back to the valued virgin that appears with the Bible. What happened to the praise of goddesses and sexuality? In some versions of Greek mythology, men have no control when it comes to a women's sexuality. For example, in Ulysses journey back to his wife Penelope he stays longer than expected on an island under the seduction spell of Circe.

This is the story of one young woman's journey through identifying gender through religious representation. It is quite interesting and she brings in different views from different religion and a different view of the story of creation from the book of Genesis. (There are two parts).

 media type="youtube" key="KGbz0pXjX80" height="239" width="381" media type="youtube" key="Q2ICO3IPeGo" height="233" width="380" “Unlike many of his contemporaries among the deities of the ancient Near East, the God of Israel shares his power with no female divinity, nor is he the <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;">divine Husband or Lover of any. He scarcely can be characterized in any but masculine epithets: King, Lord, Master, Judge, and Father. Indeed, the absence of feminine symbolism of God marks Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in striking contrast to the world’s other religious traditions, whether in Egypt, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"><span style="font-size: 110%; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Babylonia, Greece, and Rome or Africa, Polynesia, India, and North America. Jewish, Christian and Islamic theologians, however, are quick to point out that God is not to be considered in sexual terms at all. Yet the actual language they use daily in worship and prayer conveys a different message and gives the distinct impression that God is thought of in exclusively //masculine// terms.” - Elaine Pagels, Professor and Author <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 110%; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> "There have been systems of religion where the mother is the prime parent, the source, and she's really a more immediate parent than the father, because one is born from the mother...so that the image of the woman is the image of the world." <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 110%;">- <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Joseph Campbell <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 110%; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Mythologist, Professor and Author <span style="font-size: 110%; font-family: Georgia,serif;">

[|The Venus of Willendorf], an early Goddess figurine

[|Goddess Remembered], a film by Donna Read (1989)

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',-webkit-fantasy; font-size: 24px; line-height: 36px;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 110%;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//When the system of thought called monotheism confers identity, it is typically an identity that carefully establishes boundaries, drawing lines to distinguish and separate one group from the other. (In the Bible, not only are peoples created as separate from each other, the cosmos itself is created, delineated, in acts of separation.) Even before what we do to one another, this act of identity formation--against the Other--is not simply "creative"; it is also the fundamental act of violence we commit. Identity forged against the Other demands perpetual policing of its fragile, provisional borders, a vicious cycle in which the outsider is believed to threaten the boundaries which are drawn to exclude him, the boundaries his very existence maintains. If the others are outside, by definition they are always threatening to get in, a delicate balance that is always off balance, with aggression and defense tipping the scales// (Schwartz).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">media type="youtube" key="1J3-vIfnfII" height="344" width="425"

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">References

<span style="font-size: 90%; font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Schwarts, Regina M. (1995). "Monotheism and the Violence of Identities." Raritan. Winter '95, Vol. 14, Issue 13. 119. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier Database. <span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ruether, R. (2009, May). The Politics of God in the Christian Tradition. Feminist Theology: The Journal of the Britain & Ireland School of Feminist Theology, 17(3), 329-338. Retrieved July 19, 2009, from Women's Studies International database.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); text-align: center; display: block;"> Main | Polytheism to Monotheism | Liberation & Oppression | <span class="wiki_link">Lingering Challenges | Shifts Toward Inclusion