THE GODDESS PROJECT: Made in Her Image
Biblical Series #3
EVE
“Eve’s not a Goddess”, you might think. Oh, but isn’t She?
In Genesis 1:26 it says that GOD made humankind in THEIR image, male & female. Eve is the Divine Feminine in human form- for the first time.
The translation was confused and the word for “COUNTERPART” or “PARTNER” was translated incorrectly into “RIB” and from that the Abrahamic religions have been bashing Eve as the disobedient wife. And all of Her daughters since, have been the SECOND SEX. (If Adam was more important than Eve, that would make the birds and beasts more important than him!)
Dr. Kendra Weddle Irons, co-author of the book “IF EVE ONLY KNEW” shared with Free Sophia that:
“The most important thing about Eve is that she has been maligned for taking initiative, and made into the mother of all that is evil. Instead, I think she should be heralded for her reasoning skills (she had good reasons for eating the fruit), for trusting herself, and for making a decision. In any other situation, people would see these as positive traits.”
The stint with the snake became the foundation for thousands of years of misogyny that is still firmly in place. This misinterpretation of Genesis and resulting patriarchal doctrines have been accepted by Christian, Muslim and Jewish followers and therefore the foundation of patriarchy is built on the back of the feminine. But what if She rises up? What if She IS rising? What if we have made it to the point where there are enough educated people who can research and find the truth in books and in their hearts, that THIS IS THE TIPPING POINT? The Women’s March was the largest and most peaceful protest of recorded history (Herstory!) MAYBE WE ARE AWAKENING AND STANDING UP.
Gina, our brave and beautiful model you might remember as our muse, THE ART GODDESS: http://freesophia.com/art-goddess/ and more recently as FLORA, the Flower Goddess: http://freesophia.com/the-goddess-project-made-in-her-image-14/ . This is what Gina had to say about portraying Eve:
“I have such compassion for Eve and feel deeply for her. It really is a tragedy that She has been given this bad reputation. She is the embodiment of Mother Goddess in all her glory. I admire her love of knowledge and her strength. She is a personal inspiration to me.
I believe the story of Adam, Eve, and the serpent has been terribly misinterpreted. Maybe even deliberately, to suppress the goddess and her followers. Icons around the world show the Great Goddess offering life to her worshipers, in the form of an apple with the tree and its serpent in the background.” Thank you, Gina!
Lady Eve
First Woman
Superordinate to man
Where did you come from
Your blood runs through our veins
Do you know your children’s strife
Can you bring our Glory back to life
Breathe breath into our resistance
Keep us valiant in our persistence
To spread your message
Until your truth
Is told.
Thanks once again for our fun and fearless, photographer and computer graphic extraordinaire David Clanton. For the rest of our Goddesses, see our Free Sophia blog on Freesophia.com or our Free Sophia Facebook page!
This excerpt from “PEOPLE OF THE SEA: A Novel of The Promised Land” (2017 by Jack Dempsey) retells the pre-Biblical Canaanite creation-story including Eve as we have it from original clay tablets from the Syrian city of Ugarit. A very different universe!
…”In the very beginning El, Beneficent Bull who reigned from his mighty horned mountain, looked down on the sublimity and dewy freshness of the world. Turning his gaze in every direction, El basked in what he alone had created and accomplished. Yet, among all the green and gray distances surrounding him, half of what El saw was blue, in a place and a way that was not the sky. So did El descend his mountain, to see what this different blue was.
“When El for the first time stood beside the ocean, he wondered at so vast a living thing, as it tossed and sighed and glimmered. Now, El saw two immaculate creatures at play in the waters and the waves, sporting and flashing and enjoying themselves. They seemed to be waiting for him. Their flashing eyes and solemn looks reached down into El’s great root, and stretched his being from one horizon to the other.
“El cried out to them, and said they might call him father, or husband, as they pleased. They gave El one laughing answer—Husband!—and El knew that his being and doing had never been alone. These wonders in the waters were the handiwork of Asherah, El’s one wife older than stars, the walker in the sea, who had made all things beside him. Horny old fool, how had he forgotten? El’s laughter at himself shook the universe awake. And together they named these immortal younglings, Shachar the dawn, and Shalim, dusk: children of the sea, Elohim, the first divine offspring.
“There were more than seventy powers like these consecrated from the harbors to the inland mountains of this land, with names and temples and confused crossings-over to make your head swim—each the patron of a family or a guild or some profession. Dagon and Belatu, mother and father of nourishing dew, were raisers of the grain. Their son was Baal Hadad of thunder and storm, like his father with a wish to rule alone: his mate was Baalat. Anat, ever-virgin of a million copulations, slaughterer on battlefields, was a match for Reshef her crazy kinsman of the desert, who brought plague or skillful healing at his whim. Yam ruled the oceans and rivers, Kotharat was comfort to a woman with child. Nikal filled men’s orchards with succulence, Yarikh was her husband of the moon: Kothar a craftsman, and Shapshu the living sun. Hawwah and Adham, wife and husband tending vineyards on the mountain, lived like all of the Elohim forever. And the crown of their realm was the world’s great Tree of Life.
“Mot was the name of death in these Canaani lands and towns. He alone received no worship and no offerings. After all, every day, the hand of Mot took for itself. And why was that?
“El had forgotten himself in vanity. Baal Hadad had done likewise. So had another of the Elohim, Horon—a guardian of men against the desert’s wild beasts, as cunning as snakes at magic and in places underground. Horon took his chance to challenge El. With a single toss of one horn, El sent Horon head-over-backwards down the mountain. But Horon, raging, resolved on a hopeless revenge. In a flash he was a snake, and he sank his fangs into The Tree of Life. It changed into a hideous Tree of Death, and Horon cast around it a sickly fog, a mist that choked and dimmed the world.
“From the Elohim, El sent Adham of the vineyards to fight Horon. So, they grappled up and down the thundering mountain. But Horon coiled up his vicious spite, and struck his fangs into Adham. As Adham felt this bite, and took this poison, he knew that he lived no more among his undying sisters and brothers.
“This was the beginning of Mot. No greater grief could Adham suffer. Yet, to his comfort came Shapshu, the living sun, to be mistress of the dead and light the way. Adham the new creature, she called man, Adam. And because for him, there was no life without Hawwah, Shapshu gently folded her hand into Adam’s.
“But this was not the deathless hand of his companion from their vineyards on the mountain. This mortal, woman, she called Eve, Life, The Mother of All Living to be born. Henceforth, said Shapshu, their immortality would be their children.
“The Elohim together, moved by these wrongs and kindnesses, turned in wrath against Horon. The Elohim forced Horon to rip his Tree of Death up by the roots, and to restore The Tree of Life, that man and woman never want for its fruit; nor shall they want who are mujomena, mystis, or understanding.
“Yet, for this undoing, Mot was not to be be undone. Shapshu the sun, for her part, never shone so bright. She burned away the last of Horon’s sickly fog, and the land and living things were fresh as dew again….”
]]>How glorious is that!? WOW, thank you- brought me to tears. What a gift!
]]>This is an awesome creative post, Colette, and a fascinating response!
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