Despite what Jews and Christians--and indeed most people--believe, the ancient Israelites venerated several deities besides the Old Testament god Yahweh, including the goddess Asherah, Yahweh’s wife, who was worshipped openly in the Jerusalem Temple. After the reforms of King Josiah and Prophet Jeremiah, the religion recognized Yahweh alone, and history was rewritten to make it appear that it had always been that way. The worship of Asherah and other goddesses was now heresy, and so the status of women was downgraded and they were blamed for God’s wrath.
However, as Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince reveal, the spiritual legacy of the Jewish goddesses and the Sacred Feminine lives on. Drawing on historical research, they examine how goddess worship thrived in early Judaism and included a pantheon of goddesses. They share new evidence for an earlier form of Hebrew worship that prayed to both male and female gods, including a 20th-century archaeological discovery of a Hebrew temple dedicated to both Yahweh and the goddess Anat. Uncovering the Sacred Feminine in early Christianity, the authors show how, in the first century AD, both Jesus and his great rival, Simon Magus, were attempting to restore the goddess-worshipping religion of the Israelites. The authors reveal how both men accorded great honor to the women they adored and who traveled with them as priestesses, Jesus’s Mary Magdalene and Simon’s Helen. But, as had happened centuries before, the Church rewrote history to erase the feminine side of the faith, deliberately ignoring Jesus’s real message and again condemning women to marginalization and worse.
Providing all the necessary evidence to restore the goddess to both Judaism and Christianity, Picknett and Prince expose the disastrous consequences of the suppression of the feminine from these two great religions and reveal how we have been collectively and instinctively craving the return of the Sacred Feminine for millennia.
About the Authors
Since 1989, Lynn Picknett has researched historical and religious mysteries. Together with coauthor Clive Prince, she has written such bestsellers as The Stargate Conspiracy and The Templar Revelation, which directly inspired The Da Vinci Code. A frequent speaker at conferences around the world, she regularly appears on TV series such as Forbidden History, History’s Ultimate Spies, and Medieval Murder Mysteries. She lives in Surrey, UK.
Since 1989, Clive Prince has researched historical and religious mysteries. Together with coauthor Lynn Picknett, he has written such bestsellers as The Stargate Conspiracy and The Templar Revelation, which directly inspired The Da Vinci Code. A frequent speaker at conferences around the world, he regularly appears on TV series such as Forbidden History, History’s Ultimate Spies, and Medieval Murder Mysteries. He lives in London.
Industry Reviews
“A book that blows the lid off one of the most ancient cover-ups in the world--the existence of a feminine deity every bit as important as the masculine Yahweh. This is a book that all should read--it is powerful, thought-provoking, and wonderfully contentious. The scholarship of the writers is evident on every page. So read on and be prepared to be astounded and diverted. Your world may never look the same again.”
