HUM 105 - Male and Female Divine

THE MALE AND
FEMALE DIVINE
WORLD MYTHOLOGY
HUM/105
Prof. Francisco Pesante

THE MALE AND FEMALE DIVINE
Objectives:
1. Describe divine characteristics of male
and female divinities.
2. Compare divine female and male
characters in ancient myths with similar
roles found in contemporary culture

I. The Great Goddess
A. Was There a Great Goddess?
Archeological findings of prehistoric
artifacts in places extending from France to
Siberia, depicts females figures of cultures
dating back from 30,000 to 5,000 b.C.E.

Over the last 30 years, a growing number
of scholars, have seen in these artifacts
proof that human societies worshiped an
all-powerful Great Goddess from whom the
many goddesses of the historical period are
descended.

Among the statuettes, a
significant number are abstract
representations of the female
form, featuring exaggerated
buttocks, breasts, vulvas,
and bellies, associated to
fertility and life-giving forms.
Venus of Wilendorf, Alemania
(20,000 b.C.E.)

• Marija Gimbutas, (1982) The Goddesses
and Gods of Old Europe. Connected the
discourses of archaeology and the 1960-
1970’s women’s movement.

• Matriarchal
– woman-dominated

• Matrifocal
– woman-centered,
– they enjoyed greater gender equality,
freedom from violence, and harmony with
nature.

• A goddess worship and earth-magic,
gives way for a new woman-centered
vocabulary with which to discuss
women’s lives and relationships.

• Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries,
several disciplines took for granted the
existence of a Primal Mother or Great
Goddess and further assumed that man had
happily escaped through the logocentric
power of intellect, from the dark, primitive
past.

• Archaeologists such as Lucy Goodison and
Christine Morris, argued that members of the
Goddess Movement weren’t being
scientific—or even completely honest about
all that the archaeological record includes.

• The cultures that produced the various
figurines upon which the Goddess Movement
has based its assumptions never developed
writing. There will be no eyewitness
accounts, no histories to which modern
scholars can refer their hypotheses about the
objects they unearth.

• These objects do not speak for themselves
but become meaningful only when an
interpretation explains them. Without
knowing who produced them and for what
purposes, we cannot hope to discover
unequivocal answers to the many questions
the archaeological record raises.

• Gimbutas’s interpretation is that the female
principle was the focus of social and religious
life until the centuries between 4500 and
2500 bCE, when Old European social and
religious systems began to fuse with the
beliefs and customs of patrifocal (i.e., male-
oriented) Indo-European invaders and
settlers.

• To test Gimbutas’s claims, she applies it to
part of Hesiod’s Theogony. Specifically to
that of Pandora’s Box .

• Our conception of ancient Goddess are
assumptions inherited from of 19th century
scholars associations:
Women -> nature, primitive
Men -> civilization, rational

II. Archetypal Psychology
• Psychologists have resurrected the Great
Goddess and put her to work in the
therapist’s office.

• The powerful archetypal forces shaping
women’s lives can be represented “in the
guise of Greek goddesses.
• Archetype: the original pattern or model;
an inherited idea or mode of thought
(Merriam-Webster).

Type of woman who most values her:
• monogamy, marriage, or children
bearing,
• independent, goal oriented
• emotional intensity and new experiences
and
• woman seeks solitude and finds that her
spirituality means the most to her.

• What is fulfilling to one type of woman
may be meaningless to another,
depending on which “goddess” is active.

The Goddess Within
• Athena: Warrior Woman in
the World (independent and
goal oriented). The goddess
of such civilized pursuits as
technology, warfare,
politics, education,
priestcraft, and statecraft.
Gustav Klimt (1898). Pallas
Atenea

The Goddess Within
• Artemis: Heart of the
Lonely Huntress (woman
seeks solitude and
spirituality). Goddess of
nature, virgin wilderness,
animals, the moon, and
instinct.

The Goddess Within
• Hera: Queen and Partner in
Power (monogamy,
marriage). Pursues power
into the sociopolitical
sphere. Preserves traditional
social and moral
institutions.

The Goddess Within
• Persephone: Medium,
Mystic, and Mistress of the
Dead (emotional intensity
and new experiences).
Pursues power inwardly and
rules in women intensely
interested in the mystical,
magical, and spiritual
possibilities withi
themselves and others.

The Goddess Within
• Aphrodite: Golden Goddess
of Love (emotional intensity
and new experiences).
Purseus beauty, emotional
intensity, and self-
knowledge through a variety
of artistic endeavors and
sexual encounters.

The Goddess Within
• Demeter: Mother of us
(children bearing). Reserves
her love for her children,
serving as a selfless
container for all her loved
ones both physically and
spiritually.

III. Goddesses as Literary Character Types
• Scholars have argued that the literary
character types that anyone can observe
in stories about goddesses, reveals itself
in three areas of influence corresponding
to stages in a woman’s life cycle:
– Life,
– Death, and
– Regeneration

• Life Goddesses. Female divinities like
Mothers Earth, Gea, Demeter or
Pachamama, have been the ground from
which we derive sustenance and the
creation of all life upon each. They all
are Goddeses who transcends even the
limits of space and time.

• In human affairs, life goddesses oversee
the institutions that create the conditions
for security and contentment, prosperity
and growth, creativity and artistry.

• Like Greek Hera and Hestia, some life
goddesses are depicted as encouraging
and protecting the fundamental
institutions of civilization—marriage and
family.

• Sometimes life goddesses combine
several qualities. In Greece, Athena was
depicted as a virginal military strategist,
but she was less associated with
sexuality. Instead, the “grey-eyed
goddess” of ancient Athens was thought
to be a sponsor of domestic industry,
particularly weaving.

Goddesses of Death. They frequently
appear in the world’s myths as ancient wise
women, witches, and mediums. often
depicted as portals through which humans,
bound by the limitations of our space-time.

Goddesses of Death. In human affairs,
goddesses of Death often operate as Fates,
apportioning to each his and her share of
light and life, illness and health, prosperity
and poverty.
Ex. Persephones abduction by Hades.

Goddesses of Death. Persephones abduction by
Hades (cont.).
In ancient Greece, Persephone was abducted by Hades
and became Queen of the Underworld, an event that so
angered her mother, Demeter, that the elder goddess of
life refused to let anything grow or breed upon the earth
until her daughter was restored.

Goddesses of Death. Persephones abduction by
Hades.
Zeus, anxious to ensure that the people of earth had
enough food and wine to offer the gods their customary
sacrifices, brokered a deal with his brother Hades that
allowed Persephone to visit her mother for half the
year, and thus the earth is fertile for half the year and
sterile for the other half.

III. Goddesses as Literary Character
Types

In esoteric Judaism it
is believed that Lilith
was Adam’s first
wife, coeval and
coequal with him.
He later rejected
Adam and was
expelled from Eden.
(Is 34:14)

Lilith Fair
A concert tour and travelling music festival, founded by
Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan, Nettwerk Music
Group's Dan Fraser and Terry McBride, and New York
talent agent Marty Diamond. It took place during the
summers of 1997 to 1999, and was revived in the
summer of 2010. It consisted solely of female solo
artists and female-led bands.
Source: http://www.facebook.com/lilithfairtour/info

Goddesses of Regeneration.
• Appear as virgins and nymphs, as objects
or embodiments of sexual desire, and as
sponsors of and the inspiration for
everything beautiful.

• Their representation as irresistible erotic
power and feminine allure. As powers of
regeneration and constant renewal,
• But over their “fertility” symbolism, they
honor female sexual power.

• Examples from classical Greek and Latin
sources, are Aphrodite/Venus.

• Represented the power of women to
excite, attract, and inspire men. In a
patriarchal world that premium
rationality, this Goddesses were sources
of raw power of sexual allure to tame.
Ex. Aphrodite or Helene of Troy.

Male Divine

IV. Male Gods
• Gods are usually described in terms of
the various cosmic order and
sociopolitical roles that they fulfill.
• The following five broad categories
through which we can approach the vast
number of gods and heroes populating
the world’s myths:

IV. Male Gods
• Fathers and sons,
• kings and judges,
• saviors and sages,
• shamans and tricksters,
• and lords of destruction and the
underworld.

IV. Male Gods
Fathers and sons
• Embodies the male principle of fertility.
Their life-giving seed energizes and
organizes the life potential of womb and
soil.

IV. Male Gods
Fathers and sons
• Unlike many of their female
counterparts, however, father-gods often
do not remain intimate with their
offspring.

IV. Male Gods
Fathers and sons
• Fequently in the father-god in myth, the
later his son to the earth as an
ambassador of his will.

IV. Male Gods
Fathers and sons
• The unknown and terrifying authority of
the father God, sometimes is the base for
a conflict where the hero must deal
before he can fully realize his divine
nature. Or as a battle for the father’s love
and approval.
(zeus, odin)

IV. Male Gods
Kings and Judges
• Frequently, there is little distinction to be
made between father-gods and kings. But
the emphasis shifts away from the duties
and responsibilities of familial relations,
toward the duties and advantages of
monarchical power.

IV. Male Gods
King and Judges
• The logic of the king archetype: safety,
peace, and prosperity come from the
power to ensure stability and order.

IV. Male Gods
Kings and Judges
• Linked to the need for a firm heavenly
power to create and preserve celestial
order and thus the general well-being of
mortals is the importance of justice. The
divine judge enforces order by rewarding
those whose deeds conform to his will
and by punishing those whose deeds do
not.

IV. Male Gods
Kings and Judges
The Ancient Egypt Book of Death

IV. Male Gods
Savior and Sages
• Saviors bridge the gulf that yawns
between the father-god and his human
children.

IV. Male Gods
Savior and Sages
• Although the messenger may be human,
he has so completely submerged his will
and identity into that of the Divine that
he is, in essence, the humanized voice of
the Father.
• Example: Padmasambhava in Buddism,
or Mohammed in Islamism.

IV. Male Gods
Trickters and Shamans
• Shaman, a human being capable of
traveling between the natural and
supernatural worlds. They cross the
frontiers of the material realm.
• Source: http://www.godchecker.com

IV. Male Gods
• The Greek Hermes represents many
features of the archetype. Being the
messenger of the gods, he transmited to
earth and the underworld the will of
heaven.

IV. Male Gods
Trick·ster (ˈtrik-stər): a cunning or
deceptive character appearing in various
forms in the folklore of many cultures.
Source: Trickster. (2012) Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from: www.m-w.com

IV. Male Gods
• Elegua, Niño de atoche
Childlike trickster God in Yoruba myth.
God of crossroads, beginnings and
opportunities.

IV. Male Gods
Lords of Destruction and the Underworld
• Held responsible for that which humans
fear most: death, disease, misfortune, and
supernatural malevolence.

IV. Male Gods
• Many ancient cultures identified the
kingdoms of the dead the west, other
believed the dead follow a path toward
the setting sun into the Afterlife.

IV. Male Gods
• To some cultures a number of Lords of
the Underworld were linked to fertility
and renewal (Ex. Pluto or Osiris).

REFERENCE
• Leonard, S., & McClure, M. (2004).
Myth & knowing: An introduction to
world mythology. New York, NY:
McGraw-Hill.

HUM 105 - Male and Female Divine

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