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  • When God Had a Wife

  • The Fall and Rise of the Sacred Feminine in the Judeo-Christian Tradition
  • By: Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince
  • Narrated by: Theresa Windmann
  • Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

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When God Had a Wife

By: Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince
Narrated by: Theresa Windmann
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Publisher's Summary

Reveals the tradition of goddess worship in early Judaism and how Jesus attempted to restore the feminine side of the faith

  • Provides historical and archaeological evidence for an earlier form of Hebrew worship with both male and female gods, including a 20th-century discovery of a Hebrew temple dedicated to both Yahweh and the warrior goddess Anat
  • Explores the Hebrew pantheon of goddesses, including Yahweh’s wife, Asherah, goddess of fertility and childbirth
  • Shows how both Jesus and his great rival Simon Magus were attempting to restore the ancient, goddess-worshipping religion of the Israelites

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.

©2019 by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince. All Rights Reserved. (P)2020 Inner Traditions Audio. All Rights Reserved.
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic 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.” (John Matthews, coauthor of Temples of the Grail and The Lost Book of the Grail)

“Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince are two of the most important history writers of modern times. They build a compelling case for the veneration of the goddess alongside the religion of Yahweh among the ancient Israelites and how its persistence lingered through to the age of Jesus. A page-turning read from start to finish.” (Andrew Collins, author of The Cygnus Key and Göbekli Tepe)

“Picknett and Prince, long known for profoundly unsettling religious and historical revelations, have excelled themselves with this story of the little-known Israelite goddesses--their rise, fall, and, unexpectedly, their rise again. But now we are also faced with another deeply uncomfortable cover-up--that of the priestesses who celebrated the goddess even from within Christ’s own circle. A major book and a gripping read.” (Graham Phillips, author of The Virgin Mary Conspiracy)

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Great book

totally loved this great book. There is so much information I had to listen several times.

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well researched and informative

well written, a couple of hiccups by the narrator, but very informative and great research.

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Problems with Narration

The story suffers via the narration. Flat, without inflection, pauses in the wrong places and totally unlistenable

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