Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity PDF Author: Marguerite Rigoglioso
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This study of various female deities of Graeco-Roman antiquity is the first to provide evidence that primary goddesses were conceived of as virgin mothers in the earliest layers of their cults. By taking feminist analysis of divinities further, this book provides a fresh angle on our understanding of these deities.

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity PDF Author: Marguerite Rigoglioso
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
This study of various female deities of Graeco-Roman antiquity is the first to provide evidence that primary goddesses were conceived of as virgin mothers in the earliest layers of their cults. By taking feminist analysis of divinities further, this book provides a fresh angle on our understanding of these deities.

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity PDF Author: M. Rigoglioso
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781349381593
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This study of various female deities of Graeco-Roman antiquity is the first to provide evidence that primary goddesses were conceived of as virgin mothers in the earliest layers of their cults. By taking feminist analysis of divinities further, this book provides a fresh angle on our understanding of these deities.

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity

Virgin Mother Goddesses of Antiquity PDF Author: M. Rigoglioso
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230113125
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 477

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Book Description
This study of various female deities of Graeco-Roman antiquity is the first to provide evidence that primary goddesses were conceived of as virgin mothers in the earliest layers of their cults. By taking feminist analysis of divinities further, this book provides a fresh angle on our understanding of these deities.

The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece

The Cult of Divine Birth in Ancient Greece PDF Author: M. Rigoglioso
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230620914
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Greek religion is filled with strange sexual artifacts - stories of mortal women's couplings with gods; rituals like the basilinna's "marriage" to Dionysus; beliefs in the impregnating power of snakes and deities; the unusual birth stories of Pythagoras, Plato, and Alexander; and more. In this provocative study, Marguerite Rigoglioso suggests such details are remnants of an early Greek cult of divine birth, not unlike that of Egypt. Scouring myth, legend, and history from a female-oriented perspective, she argues that many in the highest echelons of Greek civilization believed non-ordinary conception was the only means possible of bringing forth individuals who could serve as leaders, and that special cadres of virgin priestesses were dedicated to this practice. Her book adds a unique perspective to our understanding of antiquity, and has significant implications for the study of Christianity and other religions in which divine birth claims are central. The book's stunning insights provide fascinating reading for those interested in female-inclusive approaches to ancient religion.

Mother of the Gods

Mother of the Gods PDF Author: Philippe Borgeaud
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 080187985X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Worshiped throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, the "Mother of the Gods" was known by a variety of names. Among peoples of Asia Minor, where her cult first began, she often shared the names of local mountains. The Greeks commonly called her Cybele, the name given to her by the Phrygians of Asia Minor, and identified her with their own mother goddesses Rhea, Gaia, and Demeter. The Romans adopted her worship at the end of the Second Punic War and called her Mater Magna, Great Mother. Her cult became one of the three most important mystery cults in the Roman Empire, along with those of Mithras and Isis. And as Christianity took hold in the Roman world, ritual elements of her cult were incorporated into the burgeoning cult of the Virgin Mary. In Mother of the Gods, Philippe Borgeaud traces the journey of this divine figure through Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome between the sixth century B.C. and the fourth century A.D. He examines how the Mother of the Gods was integrated into specific cultures, what she represented to those who worshiped her, and how she was used as a symbol in art, myth, and even politics. The Mother of the Gods was often seen as a dualistic figure: ancestral and foreign, aristocratic and disreputable, nurturing and dangerous. Borgeaud's challenging and nuanced portrait opens new windows on the ancient world's sophisticated religious beliefs and shifting cultural identities.

The Goddess

The Goddess PDF Author: David Leeming
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780235380
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
For as long as we have sought god, we have found the goddess. Ruling over the imaginations of humankind’s earliest agricultural civilizations, she played a critical spiritual role as a keeper of nature’s fertile powers and an assurance of the next sustaining harvest. In The Goddess, David Leeming and Christopher Fee take us all the way back into prehistory, tracing the goddess across vast spans of time to tell the epic story of the transformation of belief and what it says about who we are. Leeming and Fee use the goddess to gaze into the lives and souls of the people who worshipped her. They chart the development of traditional Western gender roles through an understanding of the transformation of concepts of the Goddess from her earliest roots in India and Iran to her more familiar faces in Ireland and Iceland. They examine the subordination of the goddess to the god as human civilizations became mobile and began to look upon masculine deities for assurances of survival in movement and battle. And they show how, despite this history, the goddess has remained alive in our spiritual imaginations, in figures such as the Christian Virgin Mother and, in contemporary times, the new-age resurrection of figures such as Gaia. The Goddess explores this central aspect of ancient spiritual thought as a window into human history and the deepest roots of our beliefs.

Goddess of the North

Goddess of the North PDF Author: Lynda C. Welch
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 9781578631704
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
A thorough, academic look at the past, present, and future of Norse polytheism. Welch highlights many Norse goddesses as well as other divine females of the Norse pantheon - Valkyries, Norns, Giantesses, Disir - and in a straightforward manner, makes a definitive case for the primordial goddess.

When God Was A Woman

When God Was A Woman PDF Author: Merlin Stone
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307816850
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
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.

Goddess

Goddess PDF Author: David Adams Leeming
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195104622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
David Leeming and Jake Page gather some seventy-five of the most potent and meaningful of these tales in an extraordinary rich and readable introduction of this divine figure as she has emerged from prehistory to the present.

The Cult of the Black Virgin

The Cult of the Black Virgin PDF Author: Ean Begg
Publisher: Chiron Publications
ISBN: 1630514411
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description