Merlin Stone
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Merlin Stone is a sculptor and professor of art and art history who became interested, in adulthood, in archaeology and ancient religions from her study of ancient art.
She spent a decade on research before writing the book published in the UK as The Paradise Papers and then in the U.S. as When God Was a Woman (1976). It describes her theory of how the Hebrews suppressed allegedly goddess-based religions practiced in Canaan and how their reaction to what she asserts as being the existing matriarchial and matrilineal societal structures shaped Judaism and, thus, Christianity. Her other major work, Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood (ISBN# 0-8070-6751-2) collects stories, myths, and prayers involving goddess-figures from many, many world religions, ancient and otherwise. It has been criticized for Stone's use of re-imagined history - new myths from Stone's imagination - as opposed to accepted or (new) original translations of ancient texts[citation needed]. Stone's hypotheses are radical and challenging to the accepted views of antiquity, and as such they remain controversial.
 This biography of an academic is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
