Because Abrahamic religions are kinda the Big Three and you don’t hear much about other religions. Hinduism has gods with female characteristics, a good majority of classical age religions feature female gods, lots of modern druids/neo-pagans/Wiccans revere an “Earthmother” or “Mother Nature” type deity. I’d even go so far as to say the Abrahamic religions are particularly weird for their lack of female representation.
YHWH (“Yahweh”) was the storm god of the Canaanite pantheon likely referred to in the Old Testament book of Job. El was the head of that pantheon. When gendered in the text, both were male.
Judaic tradition championed YHWH above the others, perhaps due to the oral tradition of the parting of the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea) in Exodus. The other gods in the pantheon came to be regarded as pagan, and their worship was considered idolatry (religious infidelity), but these older religious traditions proved difficult to stamp out, with numerous examples of turning to the “old gods.”
One such instance of idolatry in the book of Hosea (echoed in Isaiah and Jeremiah) detailed an old (idolatrous) tradition of offering “sacred raisin cakes” and “flagons of wine” to an unnamed god. This god was almost certainly Asherah, YHWH’s sister and the wife of El, whose religious tradition featured the baking of raisin cakes in the shape of her body and the pouring of wine into the earth.
So to answer your question, while none of the Abrahamic religions officially worship a god with a female gender identity, their holy books technically recognize at least one female god: Asherah.
Greek, Roman, Norse gods had a mix of male and female, although I think “head god” was still male.
In Hindu there is also a mix, although I’m not sure if they are all equal or one is in charge.
Shinto has animal gods (I’m again unsure if there is a particular “head god” or whether they are male or female, but at least it probably isn’t “a man”).
Hindu is complex and has some variability depending on the flavor. Some are left up to the individual to determine based on their perceptions.
The supreme being is genderless, the other aspects are more masculine or more feminine and some are androgenous or both. Feminine energy is the most powerful at creation and masculine is the most powerful at destruction. The gods are just a reflection of an aspect of the supreme genderless Brahman, where their characteristics favor a given gender and that is expressed in their visage. They also use names that convey a symbolism.
So no gender is the most powerful in Hindu, but different forms of gender expression have more power in an aspect of power.
Shinto’s “head god” was Izanagi, who was very much a man.
But there were plenty of very powerful feminine gods anyway. And Izanagi was the head in more a ‘fathered the others’ way than anything.
Shinto’s Izanagi wasn’t really the “head god” I thought? He was the creator deity, and fathered the rest but that’s true for Ouranos in Greek myth and I don’t think he’d be considered a primary deity at all.
From my understanding that was Amaterasu. Wikipedia agrees, for whatever that’s worth.
Often considered the chief deity (kami) of the Shinto pantheon, she is also portrayed in Japan’s earliest literary texts, the Kojiki
I don’t really know of any other solid examples of a female-led pantheon, though.
It’s a little more complicated than that. Izanami and Izanagi both created a lot of gods together. They descended from the heavens and using a spear in the waters of creation, Izanagi created land. The both of them aren’t the original gods though.
Izanami and Izanagi are the last of the seven generations of gods, the Kamiyonanayo. Before them came the Kotoamatsukami, all coming into existence in solitude in Takamanohara at the creation of the universe.
It’s a little more complicated than that.
I’ve been interested in mythologies for a long time and in my experience this phrase literally always applies.
But I didn’t actually know most of that, really interesting! Thank you.
The major Abrahamic religions have the same root and have had a heavy influence on most of the world. This is largely due to the Roman empire and it’s successors adopting and spreading Christianity in Europe and the Muslim caliphates spreading Islam through the Middle East and Africa.
Further east, Hinduism is the largest polytheistic religion and features a number of prominent goddesses. Though Hinduism has a lot of variety and the exact deities and their genders change depending on the adherents.
Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism don’t really focus on any deities.
Those are the most widespread religions, many others were eradicated or sidelined by European imperialism. Out of those left, many are animist religions, believing in spirits that can be a variety of genders.
Some classical polytheistic religions are still practiced today. They usually have some major goddesses in the mix.
If you go back to ancient Mesopotamia, Inanna/Ishtar is the head of her pantheon.
And Jainism has infinitely many gods, they just aren’t that important, from what I gather.
He - and if there is a God, I am convinced he is a he, because no woman could or would ever fuck things up this badly.
-George Carlin
TL;DR: daddy issues
Especially Christains and Muslims. Is there a prominent female god that as big as the other two
Technically, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim worship the same “God”. And have a big corpus of common texts and prophet (at the point the Koran talks a lot about Jesus) their religious differences are mostly about “interpretation” but they have way more similiarities than conservative of either religion like to admit
the trick is that the big block of Abrahamic monotheism is like the major monotheist religion. Then you have various polytheist pantheon having a mother earth figure but I don’t know them enough to know how major/female would be amateratsu or patchamama Neo-Pagan also tend to worship a Godess However, it’s a kind of made-up underground religion more than a major traditional one.
Outside of Western religions there are plenty of other cool non-male deities. There’s lots of pagan goddesses.
The only “feminine” or female deity that is maybe as well known as “God” would be like nature as it is often referred to as “mother” nature and in she/her. Though I’m not sure pantheists or other religions would refer to her strictly as a goddess.
Western religions talk about a male god because western societies are patriarchal; they need it to support a male-dominated societal structure.
No, it is a good question with the usual simple ugly answers but also interesting nuanced ones too.
For example, one of the first civilizations Sumeria had a very prominent female deity named Ianna
She was especially beloved by the Assyrians, who elevated her to become the highest deity in their pantheon, ranking above their own national god Ashur. Inanna/Ishtar is alluded to in the Hebrew Bible[citation needed], and she greatly influenced the Ugaritic goddess Ashtart and later the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who in turn possibly influenced the development of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Her cult continued to flourish until its gradual decline between the first and sixth centuries CE in the wake of Christianity.
Inanna appears in more myths than any other Sumerian deity.[9][10][11] She also has a uniquely high number of epithets and alternate names, comparable only to Nergal.[12]
the cultures that were around when abrahamic religions (christianity, judaism, islam, and all offshoots whether considered separate or not) were the patriarchal (men in charge) and misogynystic (prejudice against women). this was adopted into their religion, which in turn influenced the future of their culture and any cultures it took hold in. large islamic and christian states such as the ottoman empire, the (later) roman empire, and the catholic
empirei mean church spread this to pretty much all of europe and the middle east. colonialism spread this influence to the americas and part of africa. this large influence, along with trade, also affected religions in places that were not affected as much, such as asia and the parts of africa they didn’t colonise. this resulted in pretty much all of the non-asian world having a abrahamic religion as their biggest one, which caused the various african, pre-catholic european, and pre-colonial american religions to be either eradicated or forgotten. it also prevented the prominent asian religions (which were already well-established at that point, and did the same thing as the previous point to the areas they were in) from spreading much further.as it’s relevant to the topic, I feel like I should mention that I am a christian. I don’t think anything I said here was biased, but if i missed something important please let me know so i don’t accidentally misrepresent other religions.
Wicca/paganism/Earth-based traditions tend to be matriarchal and use names like Earth Mother, Ancient Mother, Gaia, etc to describe the most powerful deity.
Btw, Christians, Muslims and Jews worship the exact same God.
According to muslims. christians reject the muslims: not related except taking the . jews reject both as only taking the name of their god.
What do you mean with the word “reject” in this context? I mean they’re all Abrahamic religions and share that foundation. But they all disagree on who is the last prophet. Islam would even acknowledge Jesus. He’s just not the most important prophet. And we christians have all the old Jewish stories in the Old Testament and we study them and deem everything to be true. What the Israelites did in the Iron Age and how it all came to be. And our messiah was a Jew. So there is a strong bond between those two religions. But I’m not very well educated on the Jewish perspective on this renewal and spin-off of their religion.
Jews believe the truth of their faith ends with them. Christians believe the truth of their faith ends with them. Islam believes they have the final truth.
But is that rejection, or what are the consequences? I mean even every denomination of christianity thinks all the other ones are wrong. All the holy books are in itself full of contradictions, so people interpret them and deem every scholar of their own faith wrong, once it opposes their own take on it… So I’m not sure if they even think like that. I mean in practice it turns out that way. Everyone forms tribes and they’re the only ones blessed with the truth. But I think that’s way smaller groups, and kind of the other way round. Because religion is to a large degree about tribalism and not intellectual arguments. Though they have that, too. But it’s slapped on top. Maybe I’ve answered my question with that… 😆
The other denominations think the other ones are mistaken in most cases. Some like LDS are seen as “wrong” though I would argue they should be seen as a new Abrahamic branch.
Judaism sees no truth in Christianity or Islam. Christianity sees the Jewish faith as outdated in the light if the teachings of Jesus. Islam thinks both Jews and Christians have a misunderstanding of the truth God gave them.
This really isn’t about tribalism. It’s about what you must accept to justify your belief. If a Christian believes any of the core principles of Islam they kind of can’t be Christian because the truth was supposed to be that Christ was the final messenger. If there is another prophet that undoes Jesus’ supremacy.
Hmmh, thanks. I wrote another comment here, detailing how I wasn’t taught that Jewish faith is outdated. Their way of living and civil laws, yes. But most of their books is what we look at to see how the world was created and what happened until Jesus was born. And that’s pretty much in place as is. But I’m not a theologian. I don’t think they taught me much about Islam, though.
And sure, I can see how it’s different the other way around, if someone declares a messiah and it’s not the same belief any more.
Their religious laws are outdated for Christians in light of the message of Christ. Theoretically Jesus’s sacrifice fulfills the laws.
By going beyond they are rejecting ‘the truth’. christians read The old testiment looking for jesus but otyerwise superceeded.
That’s not what the catholic church taught to me. I believe they said something like that the new covenant means we get a new relationship with god. But it doesn’t invalidate the old one. It’s more or less civil laws and ceremonial laws that don’t apply anymore while the deeper morals shouldn’t really contradict each other. And the history and stories stay relevant. (And they made us learn a good amount of them, like what the Samaritan tribe did and a few others, the main story arcs with Moses, Abraham, the flooding and Noah, Lot…) I mean we wouldn’t even be able to tell how the world came into existence without relying solely on the Old Testament.
I grossly oversimplified things (I was typing on a phone). If everyone understands the above as a gross over simplification Christians will generally agree it is close enough to their truth. Meanwhile if we get into the more complex version that whichever Christian sect believes we discover this is no agreement.
Because He presents Himself that way. That’s the way He wants to be seen.
I had a dream one time, where I was watching myself through God’s eyes. I was surprised that He cared about me, and thought He must be millions of years old. And the thought came to me, I wonder what He looks like? And in the same way I can imagine what I look like even without a mirror, He allowed me to ‘see / imagine’ what he looks like. He was fit, Maybe the tiniest bit bulky, but not so lean that His muscles would be popping out. Dark hair, full beard, trimmed neatly. And if I had to guess an age I’d say in his mid 40s or 50s. Basically in His prime. Forever.
The other interesting thing that came to me, that made sense in the dream. Is that He wasn’t old. He would never age. Because aging came from negative emotions like anger, bitterness, and so on. And He had none of that in Him. He had a zest for life, and He enjoyed existing.
I’ve had other dreams/ experiences as well.
Why? I’m not sure I’m up to a proper history of the Abrahamic religions and how their deity came to be who and what it is. Like, entire books have covered it, written by people with a shit ton more ability to research and support their conclusions than I can.
I’m not even sure how to tackle the subject in a comment length synopsis. Suffice it to say that there is a long and complicated history that led to that branch of religion. It wasn’t a single deity growing out of nothing, unconnected to other gods and myths.
So, I’ll limit myself to the second part of the question.
I think that if you boil it down, Isis is probably what you’re looking for. I can’t think of any other goddesses with such a popular following across the world, across multiple eras. She was a fairly big deity in various Egyptian eras and surrounding locations, and had a major following throughout Greece and Rome over millennia.
You could argue that Inanna was equally a top goddess, though I’ve seen it argued that they’re the same goddess with different names as “she” spread across the ancient world cultures.
But I’m comfortable saying that Isis was, in some times and areas, way more important than Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah/El/Adonai, or whatever other names you want to apply to that deity, in some of the places and times “he” has been worshipped.
If you look only at the current world, I think you’d be hard pressed to find any goddess having that kind of almost monotheistic fervor though. Even Wiccans and other neopagans don’t glom onto a single goddess, and they usually equally revere gods on average.
Since none of the polytheistic religions around the world throughout history really had one god above all gods on a reliable basis, you have to look at sects and cults for equivalents to the monotheistic cults and religions. And that means Isis. She was popular enough to have what amounted to a monotheistic following, here and there.
I wouldn’t argue or fuss if anyone had another candidate, or disagreed with my take though. I sure as hell stopped maintaining my body of knowledge about religions almost twenty years ago, so I can’t pull things out of memory on the subject the way I can with stuff I keep myself refreshed on. And with something that covers as much territory as religion, you gotta keep things fresh or they get buried under mountains of memory.
What about Alanis Moresette?
You mean all anus moresette
Heretic!
I see you’re not a fan of letter Kenny
