This lovely post appeared on the wonderful and far ranging Religion and Feminism Blog. Judith Shaw kindly gave me permission to repost it. I am posting the beginning of the article below (notice her spectacular artwork) with a link to the rest of it (and more of Judith’s art): …
The serpent in the Bible is treated as Eve’s partner in crime, a malevolent seducer who is responsible for humankind’s expulsion from paradise. But did you know there are serpents who figure positively in the Bible? There are serpent priests, a feathered serpent and a healing serpent. Check out this …
The way that the serpent is best known in the Bible is as the cunning traitor who convinces Eve to eat the “forbidden fruit.” But there are other representations that are less well known. There are serpent priests, a feathered serpent, a healing serpent and a wise serpent. (Chapter 13 …
Last week the Supreme Court legalized marriage for gay couples with all the rights of hetero couples. HOO-RAH! It is well past time. In some “religious” strongholds people are resisting saying that the tradition of marriage between one man and one woman goes back to the Bible. Adam and Eve, …
The serpent is probably one of the most complicated and difficult spiritual symbols to understand and incorporate into one’s own spiritual life in all its multi-faceted elements. In some stories a serpent – say a behemoth or a leviathan – is a monster which needs to be slain. In …
The world tree always has a bird in the branches and a serpent at the roots. Look at these two images. The serpent goddess above from the 2nd century CE, perhaps an early image of a mermaid, shows the goddess and the serpent as one. The familiar image of Isis …
This post is a partial review of my last several posts: It is a passage from my book ONE GODS: The Mystic Pagan’s Guide to the Bible Now that we’ve seen goddesses inhabiting trees in the two cultures closest to ancient Israel, wouldn’t it make sense for there to be a …
What are the mysteries that Moses and Aaron perform “in the sight of the people?” According to Exodus Chapter 4, they are three bits of magic; throwing his staff on the ground which turns into a serpent and then back again to a staff, turning his hand leprous and healing …
