Continuing Book Studies: Comment and/or Quote
posted May 16th, 2007 at 10:41 am by Betty
The Friday group reading The Secrets of Mary Magdalene was lively in its study of Chapter 2. We want to include you in our conversation so below you will find quotes from the book we spontaneously selected to discuss. Also you will find some thoughts and questions that came up in our conversation. If you are keeping up with us in the reading, if not but have a view you want to express, I hope you will enter into our on-line conversation.
Our discussion from The Secrets of Mary Magdalene (Chapter 2 “Embracing the Traditions of Women and the Sacred”) centered upon the following:
From When God was a Woman by Merlin Stone:
Quote: ‘The archaeological artifacts suggest that in all the Neolithic and early Chalcolithic societies the Divine Ancestress, generally referred to by most writers as the Mother Goddess, was revered as the supreme deity.”
Discussion: There was doubt among members of the community as to the validity of this claim. More importantly it was felt that within our Magdalene Communty we are trying to avoid the exclusivity of one gender.
From “Sex n the Temple,” an interview with Nancy Qualis-Corbett:
Quote: “The sacred prostitue, perhaps an initiate, could experience the fullness of womanhood, her feminine nature awakened to life. The element of divine love now resided in her.”
Discussion: Questions came forth from the community such as
“Was the “sacred prostitute” a man-made concept?
Would an initiate or goddess even want to experience “the fullness of womanhood, her feminine nature awakened to life” this way?
Shouldn’t we stop including the name of Mary Magdalene when the word prostitution comes up?
What is the relationship between goddess worship and the worship of the Magdalene Community?
From : “Mary Magdalene and the Sacred Union,” an Interview with Margaret Starbird
Quote: “In Luke, the women seem to be demoted from active participants in the movement to “ministering to/providing for them out of their goods.”
Discussion: We centered our conversation about the meaning of “from their means” and although the gosepls seem to add that phrase causally, we might be looking at the backbone and strength of the survival of the movement.
Let us hear from you. Many blessings of peace for this week. 
margaret starbird
merlin stone
sacred prostitute
mary magdalene
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May 17th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Although it’s been a couple of years, at least, since I read Merlin Stone’s book, I do remember finding that her theories made a lot of sense to me. In the quote above, Stone has very deliberately used the term “suggest,” and this is the crux of her argument. Stone presents a theory that, to my mind, has just as much validity as the theories of male academics regarding the religious practices of prehistoric humankind. In prehistory, early humans did not connect the sexual act with the end result of procreation. They simply saw that women were the ones who gave birth, therefore, the supreme creator must be female. Stone’s futher theories and arguments state that it was when more aggressive hunter/warrior tribes moved from colder and harsher climates into the more temperate climates of the matrilineal and agrarian cultures that their male warrior god began to supercede the female creator goddess. This continues throughout history and includes the creation and ascent of the “Christian” religion. I do not believe that it is Stone’s arguement that we need to “throw out” the male deity in favor of the female deity. She is simply positing a theory that explains how the male warrior diety “killed” the female diety. Many of the “pagan” or earth-based religions honor the male AND female diety, believing that there should be a balance between the two…a union, if you will. For me, this makes a lot more sense than seeing the divine as ONLY male or ONLY female. Christianity pays lip service to the divine as being neither, but the imagery we are taught is that God is an old, white male.
For Qualis-Corbett and others who theorize that Mary Magdalene may have been a “temple prostitute”, the better term is “temple priestess,” although “prostitute” in that context does not share the same connotations that it does when applied by the patriarchal, “Christian” religions. The temple priestess was the Goddess’s representative on earth, and in order to connect with the divine, the male worshipper would have sex with the priestess. In this particular culture and to these worshippers, the physical and the body were no less holy than the spirit. In order to crush this “pagan” religion, Judaism and Christianity, those religions who worshipped a male god, had to demonize and “other” those who practiced sacred sex, “the hieros gamos.” And why wouldn’t an initiate want to practice what was, to them, an act of sacred creativity? This was a core of their beliefs. And by all means, we must stop labeling Mary Magdalene as a “prostitute”! This was, indeed “a man-made concept” designed to denigrate and demean a powerful leader in the emerging christian community.
Although Starbird is usually seen as less of an “academic” than others, I find her theories to be very heartfelt. I wonder, though, if “ministering to/providing for them out of their goods” would have been just as much a radical departure from the cultural norms of Jesus’s time as being active participants in the early Christian movement. Would this really be a demotion?
May 17th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Dear Bridgitt, I read your comment with great interest. I did read the Magdalene mystique but not the other texts referred to. I agree with Stone and you that it is more logical that the prehistoric religions saw Woman as the creator of life. Although we cannot be sure that this was the “most important” characteristic of the main God of that time (if there at all was such a thing as a main god?). Surely a creator of humans must be of greatest value - still it seems that it is something fairly common (I mean giving birth to babies) - I might be wrong, but it seems to me that a God in some specific way must be exceptionally rare. I believe many of the prehistoric religions have been occupied with the Sun as a main God. The Sun as the exceptional supporter/giver of life - and death. The Sun is in prehistoric times often (maybe invented by male historians, I do not know) seen as a male deity. The Moon was feminine. At least this is the case in prehistoric Scandinavian religions. All we can be sure of is that probably even the prehistoric people have been occupied with GENDER, just as we are now….
Another reflection that I got reading your comment, was of Christianity’s lip service of God as neither gender…I think of this as a great value of Christianity. I guess this from the beginning might be a heritage of the oldtimes greek belief that before humans came to earth, the human was divine and part male part female (attached back to back). With the “fall” to earth the parts were divided and woman and man are since then searching to unite again. Anyway, this notion of God as neither/both is challenging, since we do not have an understanding of What this would Be - since our focus is on the differences of gender. I want to refer to the previous discussion about wether gender really IS (which I personally have a hard time ignoring) or if gender is very subordinate to the fact that we are first of all human. This is important, since we according to the Bible have been made as Gods’ image (I do not know the right Biblical words in english) and if God is neither/both, then this should be the case for every individual as well.
Still….thinking about the notion of God as exceptional/rare (God as ONE = rare)….maybe this is the Gordic Knot: maybe it is the other way around…God IS represented by volume - God as ONE meaning many, that is: represented in many… =All of us? Should be.
Sorry, I might be walking in circles, does this make any sense?
Blessings from Anneli
May 17th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Anneli,
That is the problem with prehistory, isn’t it…we can only make guesses based on cave paintings and artifacts. Another work that addresses the same theories as Merlin Stone is “The Chalice and the Blade” by Riane Eisler. Both books have greatly influenced my thinking.
I love the Greek myth you refer to…and that may be what we’re trying to get to here…that we are first of all human and neither/both, as is God.
Your comments make perfect sense to me. Circles are good things; they are whole within themselves and represent the One.
Blessings to you as well,
Bridgitt