this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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Fun fact, Minoan snake-goddess was one of the many female goddesses from 4000BC onward that were worshipped as a source of fertility for vegetation, animals, and humans. Other great goddesses for millennia were depicted surrounded by snakes, goats, birds, often amidst pillars of trees. And then in the christian story of the Fall the tree has become the tree of forbidden fruit. The power to give life is represented by the bearded patriarchal God, the Father. And the snake, long associated with the goddess, now becomes the tempter, and the first command to the woman is that there shall be enmity between her and the snake.
Honestly, so much of the Judeo-Christian (if not just most Abrahamic) beliefs seem centered around shitting on everything that came prior, as well as other peoples' beliefs. The Christian take on it in particular- notably the western, Latin-derived (Catholic/Protestant/etc) denominations strike me as having tendencies of being especially spiteful and mean-spirited in this regard.
I mean, the book of Genesis was essentially a collection of earlier Sumero-Babylonian, Canaanite, and Egyptian cultural materials. And it reflected the contemporary practices, laws, and customs of neighboring people in its narrative. The specific part I was referring to, the shift from the Mother-Goddess to God-the-Father, was also in line with it. It just happened to be that the cornerstone of western monotheistic religious thought was birthed in social setting and conditions that affirmed and reinforced patriarchy.
I guess my point is that what they shat on in the bible was what they were already shitting on as societies. And then they used it as a justification to keep doing just that.