Review of Goddesses and the Divine Feminine: A Western Religious History by Rosemary Radford Ruether
Oren Martin and Barak Tjader
This book review appears in the Annotated Bibliography for Gender-Related Books in 2005, JBMW Volume 11 No. 2.
Category: Non-Evangelical - important secular works and books that addrss the subject of biblical gender issues from a religious, albeit, non-evangelical point of view. This category also serves as our classification for liberal scholars wanting to retain some sort of Christian identity.
Ruether traces the history of goddesses and divine female imagery from prehistoric society to modern-day Wiccan goddess worship. Ruether explores goddess worship and religious life in the ancient Mediterranean, arguing that priestly duties were carried out in a fairly egalitarian manner. She also discusses biblical wisdom literature, arguing that Wisdom is a female personification of God—a Hebrew goddess. Ruether also details ancient and Medieval Mariology in addition to modern Wiccan and neopagan ecofeminists with a goal of restoring the "feminine life principle" and resisting patriarchal destruction.
