Infamous Eve

By May Sinclair PhD

Unlike those who are expected to place their hand on its cover and make an oath, the Bible does not tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. The biblical authors only told theirs. Even the women actually named are remarkably silent, making it easy to believe whatever has been said about their lives throughout the ages.

The biblical story of Eve impacts modern society on both a conscious and subconscious level. Are you aware that the authors of the Garden of Eden creation narrative were greatly influenced by the Persians in the fifth century BCE—maybe even taking the basic story from them? Did you know Adam had a wife prior to Eve, the equality-demanding Lilith? Do you think it is possible for a single mother to have populated this planet? It is well past the time for all of this to be common knowledge.

Infamous Eve includes many legends, stories, and folktales—even that of Eve also being the snake in the Garden of Eden—but first May Sinclair delves into the genetically induced response that has been handed down as a physical, emotional, and psychological inheritance to modern people. She rips open the seams of the historical records to see the weave of the religious, economic, and political threads that have endlessly rolled out the same pattern of notions about Eve and her daughters. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: May Sinclair PhD
• Release date: Oct 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781449933197

May Sinclair PhD

May Sinclair's doctorate is in the philosophy of Metaphysics. An award-winning and internationally acclaimed author of numerous non-fiction and fiction books, based on symbolism and ancient history, she is currently writing the third book in the metaphysical fantasy trilogy about reincration: Another turn of the Wheel.

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Copyright  © 2005 by May Sinclair

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any from or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any known or to be invented, without the permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer who wished to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusions in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Don Roberts, Editor, for permission to reprint previously published material:  Paraphrasing The Diaries of Adam & Eve, Translated by Mark Twain by Mark Twain.

Also, Jan Hirshfield, Editor and translator of Prayer to Inanna, for permission to reprint portions from Women in Praise of the Sacred.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sinclair, May, 1947-

Infamous Eve, A History/May Sinclair

Includes bibliographical references and index

TXu1-258-683

1. Eve (Biblical character)  2.  Bible. O.T. Genesis-Criticism, interpretation 

3. Eve__History  4. Woman and religion  5. Sex in Christian theology

International Standard Book Number: 144993319X

EAN-13 9781449933197

Printed in the United States of American

Reissued: December 2009, October 2016

Cover painting: The Woman The Man the Serpent

John Byam Liston Shaw

(1872-1919)

We have endeavored, where necessary, to trace the ownership of copyrighted material and to secure permission for copyright holders.  In the event of any question arising as the use of any material, we will be pleased to make the necessary corrections in future printings.

To the long succession of Eves

whose unmistakable  power

generated fear rather than love.

CONTENTS

FOREWORDCHAPTER ONE

DID THE GODDESS BIRTH OR THE GOD CREATE?

WHEN DID IT ALL BEGIN?PALEOLITHIC RELIGIONS

NEOLITHIC PERIOD

THE SUMERIANS

THE AKKADIANS

THE AMORITES

THE EGYPTIAN

THE HITTITES

GODDESSES, RESURRECTION-GODS OF MATRILINEAL SOCIETIES

TRANSITION

CHAPTER TWO

WHY DID EVE EAT THE APPLE RATHER THAN ADAM?

WHO WROTE THE BIBLE?

MANUSCRIPT VERSIONS

DATES AND CALENDARS MESOPOTAMIAN INFLUENCE

EGYPTIAN INFLUENCE

PERSIAN INFLUENCE

GREEK INFLUENCE

THE HEBREW PEOPLE

THE MONARCHY

CHAPTER THREE

WHY WAS IT A SNAKE THAT ENTICED EVE?

PRIMEVAL SNAKES

FERTILITY AND RE-BIRTH

COSMOLOGY-ASTRONOMY

MESOPOTAMIANS

EGYPTIANS

PERSIANS

GREEKS

HEBREWS

GNOSTICS

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT HAPPENED TO WIFE NUMBER ONE?

THE VEDAS

THE AVESTA

THE TORAH

THE HAGGADAH

THE KABBALAH

THE GNOSTIC GOSPELS

CHAPTER FIVE

WHICH EVE IS IT, STUPID OR EVIL?

TENTH-SEVENTH CENTURIES BCE

SIXTH-THIRD CENTURIES BCE

SECOND-FIRST CENTURIES BCE

FIRST-SECOND CENTURIES CE

THIRD-SIXTH CENTURIES CE

SEVENTH-FIFTEENTH CENTURIES CE

SIXTEENTH-EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES CE

NINETEENTH - TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES CE

CHAPTER SIX

ONLY ONE WOMAN ON EARTH?

HOW DID IT ALL REALLY BEGIN?

EVOLUTION

GENETICS

RACE

GENETIC EVE

LEARNED BEHAVIOR

CONSCIOUSNESS

AFTERWORD

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

NOTES

BILIOGRAPHY

FOREWORD

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It is difficult to know how many people are aware of just how strong an impact the biblical story of Eve has on modern society.  Every woman I know feels it remains a problem for the female sex.  Recently I was told by a friend that once while in a public Ladies Room she made a mild complaint about menstrual cramps and to her surprize a woman she did not know promptly responded that her discomfort was the will of God.  With those kinds of notions being spread it is impossible to simply shake one’s head and leave the room.  I decided to pick up my pen and set the record straight.

I assumed the Eden creation story must have been based on some Mesopotamian myth that offered a better circumstance for humanity and started reading ancient history and then digging into pre-history.  But rather than finding what I had started out to uncover my research revealed some other startling stories and information about Eve.  When I began to write on the subject of Eve as the mother of humanity, I realized it is impossible to write the story of Eve separate from the history of the Hebrews.  It would be like writing about the impact Margaret Sanger had on our lives while leaving out the immigrant factions; their social, political, religious, and emotional impressions that all together make up the history of birth control in the United States of America.

My research has taken me to many fields of knowledge and my attitude towards the biblical texts has changed, but to me the Bible remains like an enormous museum housing the mysterious, the natural, the man made—the God inspired.  There is much in it worthy of a basic belief system—a foundation of faith that life is good. The words also provide a wonderful opportunity to discover fascinating information about how a divergent group of people came together over several centuries and how their beliefs seemed to change when their traditions were finally merged.

There are numerous scholarly views about who wrote the Bible just as there are a number of theories about from where they came and who were the Israelite people.  These issues are of significance to this book.  It is important to look at them because the world has been deeply affected—not only by women but men too—by the beliefs of several different peoples who were joined together over hundreds of years to become commonly known as Hebrews, Israelites, or Jews. Their diverse traditions were interwoven into the biblical stories that are now being carried forward into yet another millennium. Because of the poetic language found in the Bible, many modern people have a tendency to ignore it on a conscious level.  However, tightly held within our sub-conscious, a place where we keep ideas and beliefs that are often unmanageable, those world-views are perpetuated.

It is an accepted fact that the Orthodox Christian Church forbade most people from even reading the canonized Bible and removed anyone who did not embrace its dogma.  Yet, the forbidding and the prevention continue.  Far too many branches of the Christian Church Community enforce the belief that their version of truth is the only truth, which is often a literal interpretation of the Bible.  Eve remains both the mother of humanity and the cause of pain and death.  Although that perspective is readily altered by reading history, there are many churches that condemn those who read non-biblical writings that demonstrate the Bible is an edited compilation of earlier material.  The Crusades and the Inquisition continues—spiritual torture and emotional death are brought about through fear.  Certainly, for some people who fear their soul spending eternity in Hell for exercising their free-will.  For others, subtle social and economic pressures are felt because of their non-acceptance of fundamentalist Christian dogma.  Christian literalism is no less of a problem than any other literal-minded dogma when it prevents anyone from achieving social and political dignity.  Fear and therefore dismissal of those who do not fit into a narrow window of opinion that was manipulated, often by force, over two thousand years ago is not an acceptable form of morality.

Moving forward in the third millennia of the current era we see that humanity is plagued by a general sense of uneasy responsibility for our lot in life—our acceptance of responsibility for our free-will that, to many, has an inherent or perhaps predestined doom.  Far too many people feel condemned because of their choice of worldliness.  Meaning simply, that humans acquired the knowledge and took the bodily pleasures said to necessitate physical death rather than choosing a spiritual freedom that offers life eternal.  Between those frightening and lofty extremes is a myriad of positions.  However, it is difficult for most people to even think of options when they have some vague notion, based on their sub-conscious beliefs, that their actions are willful and doomed—just as Eve and Adam were innocent, ignorant, and naïve—yet still ejected from paradise.  Harboring within ourselves the sense that something important outside of us is the actual decision maker, whatever actions we ultimately take as individuals, forces our acceptance of accountability—just like that couple. We continue to be troubled by those first three chapters of Genesis containing the report that no matter what a person does, no matter what mitigating circumstances there might be, unless the Intelligence that created people chooses to, we are ultimately doomed to live some life that we are mindlessly born into and from which we will ultimately die.  Needless to say, that is a rather unattractive circumstance.  It paints a fatalistic picture for humanity that needs to be adjusted.  Hopefully this book will help with the adjustment at conscious and sub-conscious levels.

Why else should I think the story of Eve is relative to modern humanity?  Women are equal to men, right?  Women have equal opportunities.  Women earn as much.  The ideas and beliefs that women support are considered to be as important as those of men. Equality in ideas, beliefs, opportunities, pay, and work is the normal condition.  Sadly, no, not quite. This book, like all others, has an underlying position. It is of the feminine—not of the feminist—at least not in what is generally understood to be the political nature and use of the term.  It is certainly not the agenda of returning to any goddess worshiping, male consort sacrificing civilization. This book does however take the measure of the equality issue because by understanding the pattern in the fabric of our history we may unravel the threads to reweave our future.  I have taken advantage of all the hard work developed from the various perspectives of numerous writers and scholars to perhaps compose a slightly different viewpoint.  The one that I believe will be seen and accepted by most people: men and women must be equal in every sense of the term.

While we examine the past to understand our present beliefs it is important to acknowledge that education based on expanded information does not prevent faith in Powers and Intelligence beyond our humanity.  It does, however, allow for consciously made choices. 

May Sinclair

August 19, 2003

INTRODUCTION

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There are uncounted numbers of books that discuss the story about Eve’s and especially Adam’s role in the paradise world found in any modern Bible. Most of those books rightfully give the impression that the story was written in two pieces. It is also generally reported that one portion of the tale was written around 1000-900 BCE (before the current era) and the other between 600-500 BCE.  Often the authors suggest that the actual impact of the legend only occurred during the first century CE (current era) when Christianity and Gnosticism were contending with each other for the hearts and souls of mankind.  This book goes much further back to describe how our ancestors were affected by the many physical and mental conditions they confronted in their world.  And why they fashioned their many and varied religious beliefs that has been endowed as an emotional legacy to modern humanity.

Although we must begin by reading the modern biblical account of Eve, as it is written in the first three chapters of Genesis, it is mandatory that we understand many of the stories in the Hebrew Bible originated from periods occurring back into pre-history. They were woven together to become a literary piece between 950 BCE and 70 CE.  Redactors or editors compiled the works of many authors, or schools of authors, by grouping together diverse traditions to form a past for the Hebrew people.  Taking several separate and different heritages they cut, overlaid, joined, and stitched those stories to tailor a new history for their people. 

The sanctioned manuscripts of those stories and histories were lost when the Babylonians destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 586 BCE.  Efforts were made to bring the history of the Israelite nation back together when the Persians liberated the people who had been exiled in Babylonia. Rewritten during the Persian occupation of Palestine after 458 BCE, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, referred to as the Torah or the Law, was officially canonized.  No part of the Davidic monarchy history was included for the obvious reason that it would not have supported the Persian’s military presence. 

Many additional books, containing different perspectives of both the Hebrew religion and history, were in circulation for several hundred years.  Only some of those books, that expand the history found in the Torah, were selected to be added to it.  After the Persian, Greek, and Roman invasions, when Jerusalem was in complete ruins, the process of official canonization of the entire Hebrew Bible—all thirty-nine Books—took place as late as one hundred years into the current era.

Many people would be delighted by the discovery of a solid independent myth that would prove the entire paradisiacal story found in Genesis was based on some legend that allows for a happier circumstance for humankind’s parents.  Until around 1600 CE it was not safe for the Bible to be critically examined.  Then scholars of ancient civilization filled two camps: one group included those who tried to prove the Bible is correct and the other overflowed with those hoping to disprove it.  Then the arena of the historical scholar was impacted by the inclusion of women, who brought to it a different perspective. Those groups were augmented again, by many wanting to prove it was the Goddess that once reined supreme, with all of them together generating excellent scholarship and ideas.  Still, there is no currently known tale that can be said is the absolute underpinning for the biblical story.  Until that occurs, we can only continue to dig as deeply as possible into the written records of history as well as learn what we can from pre-history to determine the cause of the authors’ attitudes when writing and then publishing the story of Eve, Adam, the serpent, and the Tree of Knowledge.  Before we can begin to recount Eve’s position, our excavation demands that we look at how our planet Earth affected the genetic imprint of the first humans.  Next we can examine the influence the Sumerians, Egyptians, and a number of Semitic and Aryan people had on the various tribes that joined together to be called Hebrews.

Eastern mysticism has intrigued the western mind whenever contact between those worlds has occurred.  Perhaps that is a major reason why modern people often go from one extreme to the other when it comes to thinking of ancient people.  We think they were ignorant and at the same time suspect they had secret knowledge well beyond our current abilities. Archeological evidence proves repeatedly the high level of sophistication of ancient people.  Historians have shown that most of what we think we inherited from Greece was only reinvented or rediscovered by them.  The Chinese invented the mechanical clock a thousand years before anyone else.  Euclid’s geometry was a rediscovery.  Pythagoras’ numbers were used by the Mesopotamians many hundreds of years earlier.  Unlike the Babylonians, the Greeks considered 10,000 to be a large uncountable number.  And yet, we do not actually grasp and understand what we could learn from the Greeks.  Plato, in his book Timaeus, refers to four types of material from which all things are made.  Each with its own shape or form.  It is very recent indeed that we learned we have a genetic alphabet.  Discovery of DNA has revealed there are four letters in it__each with its own shape and form.  Even so, many remain in their belief that genetics only affects our physical selves and our emotions are a separate matter.

For us to understand why the folksy creation story, that included an inquisitive woman, a man, a wise serpent, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge, and an exacting God, was written we must first attempt to understand the beginnings of humankind.  Right from the start of the human race there were different types of climatic conditions where various groups of people evolved.  Those environments generated either a sense of security or the fear of survival.  Fear, the negative sensation of unpleasant physical and mental experiences is one of humanities strongest emotions. Not having our needs or desires fulfilled or getting something not needed or desired by us generates fear.  Every person on this planet has dealt with some form of mental, physical, or emotional experience causing his or her survival to be questioned.  Difficult—even highly unacceptable—behaviors arise from survival fears. Our genetic makeup contains all the inner pharmacology to endure under the most adverse conditions.  The chemicals created by our bodies, at the direction of our emotions, include adrenaline for fast action—to fight or take flight. We also produce endorphins, generating a sense of wellbeing.

Emotional impacts promoted various attitudes about the cosmology and theology of the people evolving in different parts of our globe.  Some embraced the belief in loving deities, while others believed in divinities outside of themselves that were fickle and harsh.  Those beliefs impacted the additional relative issue of matrilineal and patriarchal societies.  Examination of all the beliefs and social customs are important to this book because the many tribes that merged together, forming Israel and Judah, included both sets of theological ideals from which they developed their society.

As you read this book you will see how less and less likely it is that the second part of the biblical creation story, or for that matter the first one, was written prior to its author being profoundly impressed by the Persians.  And, of course, we do not know what the original story entailed because there were so many instances when those creation stories were overwritten and edited. As the world-view of those with authority changed, the creation stories were altered to fit the latest notions of those in positions of power.  That is why the actual stories about Eve are not told until Chapter Five.  First we need to understand the who, how, why, and when of her story.  Only then can we discover its initial purpose and force.  Then finally can we understand the dynamics of Eve, along with those included in her story that were and continue to be altered to fit into our ever changing world-view.

CHAPTER ONE

––––––––

DID THE GODDESS BIRTH OR THE GOD CREATE?

"The Lord God formed man from the dust

of the earth, and He blew into his nostrils

the breath of life; and man became a

living being."1

––––––––

Despite what we are told in Genesis 2:7, anyone who has seen a pregnant animal or human knows babies come out of the female__not the male.  Archeological finds make it clear that sex and fertility were the foundations from which the earliest religions sprang.  The goddess religions were based on the concept of a Mother-goddess birthing the world.  She accepted her son as lover and consort, but not as her lord, master, or ruler.  It is only after the fourth millennium BCE that cosmologies, the structured order of the universe, started to reflect the world being created by a male god rather than birthed by a female goddess—portraying fear, power, and war instead of sustained love.

Was it simply the proverbial battle of the goddesses and the gods: Emanation, coming from the Goddess source, thus everything being of the divine, in comparison to being made by God and therefore not a part of the divine force?  Were those who compiled the Hebrew Bible positioning their God, Yahweh as male, yet also sexless and devoid of any desire to have the world come forth from Him in a sexual manner—making a consort unnecessary—maintaining a separateness of God from humanity?  Or were they also concerned about the political decision of who conferred and thus controlled kingship?

The editorializing prophets and priests were teaching a masculine lesson about the immorality they believed was experienced by men in goddess religions while also proving that economic power was to be controlled by those strong enough to hold onto it—rightfully coming from the blood of battle rather than menstrual blood.  It was called a religious war, but the collision was over who had control over the distribution of earth’s bounty, making it economic warfare.

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WHEN DID IT ALL BEGIN?

It was at least eight million years ago that earth’s sea and land mammals2 developed into several different types of hominoids.  Sharing 98% of our genes in common with the Ape Family,3 humans parted from that common root or branch to struggle forward in our evolutionary journey.  Our first stage was as Homo Erectus.

During the severe conditions of another Ice Age the planet enforced further development. Spreading out from Africa into Asia and China, as Homo Erectus, we learned to control fire, make tools, build huts, hunt game, and be talkative. Walking upright our large bodied ancestors foraged and scavenged.  Meat, fat, and bone marrow was easier to digest so our brains diverted that internal energy previously used for food absorption to begin a new metabolic process—our brains got bigger while our stomachs got smaller.4

It was during that part of the early Old Stone Age called the Lower Paleolithic that the human brain went from the capacity of a pint pot5 to more than twice that size with modern brains weighing almost 3 pounds.6  The hip area also changed when Homo Erectus females started walking upright.  Brains were larger, but the birth canal narrowed. Larger headed births occasioned earlier deliveries of less evolved babies demanding that women have more help while caring for their young ones.

The Homo Erectus lineage too split up. One group, known as Neanderthals, were located north of the Sahara, in the Middle East, and in Europe while the other group, known as Cro-Magnons, evolved south of the Sahara.7  Due to them living in a freezing climate, the Neanderthals were a highly structured group, while the Cro-Magnons progressed forward in a tropical or subtropical one8 that allowed them more flexibility in their efforts to sustain life.

The Cro-Magnons, continuing the evolutionary journey, moved on to become what are called Homo Sapiens and were spreading out across Europe, moving into Siberia, and sailing off to Australia, while the Neanderthal types as a group started to disappear.9  No trace of the Neanderthals have been found in Africa, India, or any part of eastern Asia, but their bones have been found in the Middle East.  Although they had adapted to the cold, they moved south through Turkey or the Balkans into the Mediterranean coastal area known as the Levant during Arctic weather conditions.

Both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, branches off the same tree, coexisted for thousands of years in the same part of the world using the same types of stone tools, hunting the same game, butchering animals the same way, and practicing the same mode and methods in their burial customs10 but, there were differences.  Although Neanderthal men and women shared the same shelters, they lived virtually separate lives.  Unlike the Cro-Magnons they did not eat fish11 and went no more than thirty miles from their home sites to get food.  In comparison the Homo Sapiens moved around and had both summer and winter locations where they obtained a better diet with less physical effort.  Working smarter, they advanced from using sheer physical body strength to expand their brainpower for survival.  They set up a wide social network of groups and tribes who traded in areas up to two hundred miles apart.12

The Neanderthals displayed a rigid mindset.  A woman was to be used for food preparation and sex.  An animal was sometimes feared and sometimes food.  Yet, perhaps some animals, like bears, were worthy of worship. Neanderthal cannibalism13 indicates their inclination to believe it was possible to acquire strength and powers from both animals and people.  Cro-Magnons developed a less rigid thought process.  An animal was seen as an animal, a potential threat, a source of food, certainly as an ancestor, and probably as some form of caring divinity.  Women were thought of as more than a sex object.  Cro-Magnons, like our modern day hunter-gatherers, believed the forest gave them food, just as parents give it to their children.  North American Indians have always believed that their animal prey were giving up their lives to feed their sibling humans and thanked the animal for it.  It was a long time ago that nature was thought of as having the characteristics of humans to become anthropomorphized.

The Cro-Magnon people were more social, created organization, learned and made judgments on both a social and technological basis. The general conclusion that we, Homo Sapiens, outlived the other branches of Homo Erectus to rule as supreme humans was because we were more flexible and sociable. By being more socially integrated and making better use of the available food, the Neanderthals were eventually starved out.14  But did the Neanderthals completely vanish from planet earth?  Or did they instead contribute to the Homo Sapiens gene pool rather than utterly disappear?  We are told that our survival instincts are generated and driven by our genes.  The conclusion that men are motivated by their genes is supported by a study conducted in Britain where men, in conjunction with women whom they consider their lifetime and children producing partners, agreed to have their sperm counted.  It was discovered that whenever the female was in a position where she, willingly or unwillingly, could be impregnated by another male, her partner’s sperm count, in an effort to outnumber the hordes from a foreign invasion, rose dramatically.15  Even so, it does not always prevent his territory from being usurped. Neither genetically nor socially is there any reason to think that some Neanderthal did not join with a Cro-Magnon, each contributing to our Homo Sapiens gene pool.  Even the staunchest stay-at-home television addicted couch potato might be attracted to leave it long enough for a tantalizing—the more exotic the better in many instances—sexual encounter—whether it was genetically or pheromone induced—whether it was encouraged or forced.

Modern people often think of cave dwellers as ignorant or even stupid. Yet, all that occurred in our distant past was not based on an inability to understand.  A great deal was based on the physical state of planet earth, leaving both genetic imprints of abundant surroundings and a corresponding confidence that life is good, as well as those of a harsh environment engendering the belief that life is to be feared.

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PALEOLITHIC RELIGIONS

Toteism, the mystical relationship between humans, animals, and plants, started with the physical need to eat and have shelter along with the emotional desire to be thankful for the ability to fulfill those needs.  Life was a serious matter.  Many initiation rites were held in terrible climatic conditions.  In order to establish group, tribe, and self positions in the world as it was known, organized religion and a belief in an after-life was taken up to relieve some of the inner stress caused by horrendous life conditions.  Many burials included cremation, bodies coated with red ochre, and coverings of tiny stranded ivory beads.

The need to placate the spirit world was intense enough that statuettes were being baked more than ten thousand years before practical types of pottery were made.  From ivory, someone carved a foot-long figurine of a sorcerer, or shaman, with a lion head and human body making magic.  Carved stone or baked clay Venus figurines are faceless feminine torsos with enormous breasts, bulging stomach, and huge buttocks.  Those, along with other images of goddesses shown with lions, leopards, and panthers are fertility cult figures.  They do not denote motherhood because the figurines appear to be pregnant, yet there are no additional statues of mother with child.16

Blood has always had the connotation of being life.  Menstrual blood does not cause death, or pain, not even weakness in women.  And it only comes from women.  Many puberty rites for males include circumcision, knocking out teeth, or incising parts of their bodies. The rites are often extremely bloody and perhaps originate from some attempt by men to create children from their blood.  Upon discovery that a male’s blood would not do the baby-making job, they must have conceded some awe-inspired power to menstruating women. Menstrual blood was believed to have special power, being magical and mystical, because it contained the owner’s soul or spirit.  Drinking blood was believed to foster the ability to prophecy.17

In the Paleolithic period, although females were generally pregnant throughout their sexually reproductive lives, it might not have been too easy to connect pregnancy with sexual intercourse.  Even those who herded animals may not have been able to link animal sexual behavior with that of humans, because the female animals in the northern hemisphere, as well as many in the southern hemisphere, were not like human women—they did not show any signs of the mysterious monthly bleeding.18

Men could see that blood was often associated with birth and death.  Yet, human women were different, they bled regularly and did not die.  Women who discovered the connection between menstruation and pregnancy might have had their reasons for not telling.  Choosing to maintain a sense of mystery and engender a state of feigned ignorance could have been used as a control device, a method of being held in high esteem when nothing else seemed available. The concept of Bloodlines may have been established to ensure male help was freely given to breeding females.  If women had known that males contributed to their individual babies, it would have been beneficial to tell him—instilling in the man a sense of partnership.  However, by the time the connection was common knowledge, the goddess religion and corresponding bloodline issue was probably already in place.  Then, detecting manipulation, when man did discover his biological role in procreation, his egotistical pride of ownership would have forced him to challenge the exalted status of the Goddess rather than simply accept his part on an equal basis.

Many believe the male role in procreation was not known until late in the life of humanity.  Since early humans did not separate themselves from the natural world they lived in, it may have taken some time before the natural phenomena of women giving birth was even considered at all.  Why is water wet, the sky blue, fire hot?  Why do females and not males have babies—these issues probably did not occur until survival was assured.

Abraham Maslow, a twentieth century Humanistic Psychologist, noted the degree of hostility and aggressiveness among primitive cultures ranged from 0% to 100% and that it all depended on the culture of the people, not on their genetic heredity.19 Physical survival is human’s most powerful need.  We require, and thus must have oxygen, water, food, shelter, sleep, and sex.  It is only when survival is assured and fulfilled that our other needs can be given any prominence. Our first needs are physiological and when satisfied we require a predictable safety that can then be followed by both the giving and receiving of love and affection.  Only then are we in a position to experience psychological growth, development, and usefulness, adding beauty and aesthetics into our life experiences.

Yet, other studies indicate that we are emotionally affected by our deoxyribonucleic acid—DNA—the genetic material gained from each of our parents that determines our chromosomal heredity.  We are emotionally affected by our genetic makeup in the sense that our thoughts cause our bodies to produce chemicals that affect our bodies and back to our thoughts again in a circular effect.  Several studies conducted in the United States in the 1990s concerning seasonal affective disorder show that both mood and energy are negatively affected at the onset of the winter months.  However, those who are natives to the colder climates are less affected than newcomers. Women experience seasonal affective disorder four times more often than men. The further north, the longer the depressive symptoms last. Ninety percent of those living above the 40-degree latitude* experience seasonal mood and behavior changes with a quarter of them feeling they are severe enough to be a problem,20 concluding humans are affected by our genetic makeup.

Our heritage retains much from our genetic past.  None-the-less, it is from cultural conditioning that we choose mates, gain our ability to share in group living situations, generate concepts of beauty, react to infidelity, and are more or less hostile to those who seem racially different.  Humans, do however, contain genetically controlled notions

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*The states of Oregon, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania as well as the cities of Salerno, Italy, Madrid, Spain, Lisbon, Portugal, Bucharest, Romania, Ankara, Turkey, and Beijing, China are found at 40 degrees latitude.

that fearful powers come from outside ourselves.  But, our gene pool also holds the beliefs that there are powers beyond ourselves that are helpful and caring. Which humans have which genes is significant, but no matter which type a male has he wants to spread his genes around as much as possible. Females, on the other hand, will spread her genes through her own body, no matter who her sexual partner(s) might be.  During the Paleolithic period there is no evidence to support monogamy from either a male or female perspective, but there were three men to two women,21 so women must have been held at a premium.  Perhaps as an image of awe and wonder.  Perhaps to be used for sex.

Accustomed as modern people are to teaching their children the basic biological reproductive facts as soon as a child shows any curiosity in the matter, we are amazed at the thought that any one could possibly not know procreation requires that a male sperm fertilize a female ovum.  Yet, primitive people who live in our modern world often do not connect copulation and impregnation. In the 1930s when Christian missionaries discovered the Bellonese of the Solomon Islands believed children came from their social father’s ancestor deities,22 they were shocked.  Quickly they started teaching their morality standards to those lascivious Bellonese, because to them, sex could not simply be an act of pleasure.

In the harsh conditions of the Ice Age, where there was little vegetation, there is the psychological probability that men accepted the ego-gratifying role of savior.  As hunters, men had to have been given special status.  Although a healthy young woman, even during pregnancy, could easily be a hunter and gatherer while breast-feeding was being shared by a group of women, the stamina required to be a tracker and stalker would probably be beyond her abilities.  Physical testing scores today indicate that males have higher spatial abilities.  They can visualize, judge distances better, and are also more accurate at hitting targets.  The tests indicate these attributes are genetically sex-linked.  They further indicate that females are better at seeing in dim light and have more distinct hearing than males.23  Those female attributes possibly come from genetic memory established over the thousands of years that women spent gathering.

In the social communities where group survival depended on eating meat, those men trackers and stalkers who brought it back for everyone were quite likely revered.  In those areas where life was easier with hunter-gatherers being more prominent, men and women would have been physically able to share with more equality.  When climactic conditions required greater effort was necessary for the continuing existence of humanity, both men and women would have been needed to protect the young.  In more favorable conditions there would have been less concern about survival, so fewer people, or perhaps women alone without males as guardians, could have taken care of the young children.

It may have taken a while for our ancestors to understand that sexual intercourse had a direct connection with childbirth, but they certainly knew females gave birth.  Female infanticide was the most common form of birth control.  There was a correlation between populations that remained static due to horrendous living conditions and the populations that grew in more favorable ones.  Those people knew that food and ecology were major factors to their very survival.  Insufficient food for the number of people in their group meant they had to get rid of someone.  Girl babies grew up to have babies, thus they had to be prevented from growing up.

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NEOLITHIC PERIOD

When the deserts got smaller and the forests got bigger in the Middle East offering good pastures and ample caves the need for social decisions arose—who was to sleep where.  Groupings had to occur, if for no other reason then that of the size of the shelters.  Physical reality, survival techniques, and religious beliefs demanded and controlled those decisions.

Between the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age, there was a transitional period known as the Mesolithic when animals were domesticated. First dogs were trained, then sheep began to be herded, and after a while horses were tamed. Prior to the development of agriculture, the land of Mesopotamia was used as a pasture for sheep and goats in the river valley and the plains of the steppe.24  The hunter groups had added herding and breeding to their prior tracking and stalking abilities.

The pastoralists were a mobile people seeking grazing lands for their animals. Likely, the early nomadic pastoralists emerged from cold climate hunter societies that were politically and religiously male dominated—women were inferior to men.  The nomads were dynamic and alert because of their high protein diet and the demands of their way of life.  They had to be mentally and physically agile to assure survival in their life-style. The hunter groups became nomadic pastoral tribes worshiping strong wind, rain, lightening, and mountain variety male gods—deities outside of themselves that were capricious and often harsh. As they merged, either peacefully or as invader groups into the agriculturally based societies, they superimposed their myths and beliefs onto the already established goddess religions, but they stressed and enhanced a masculine perspective.

Men and women were considered more or less equal in the agricultural areas, but there was the blood issue and the birth issue.  The Goddess was worshiped.  Mothers had rights.  Clans were established. Lineage descended through the female line. The nomad tribal groups attempted to merge their beliefs in male gods with those of the agriculturist’s female goddesses. Seemingly they accepted the goddesses had a major role in the birth and re-birth process, as well as controlled lineage through the female bloodline, but they forced the goddesses to also acknowledge their virile male Nature-gods’ significant role. Since the concept of creation was given a human form and thus anthropomorphized—they demanded a joint rule. Even so, still continuing earlier practices, the dead were covered with red ochre while the goddess sculptures also remained similar in size, materials, and styles. Those burials suggest a belief in the Goddess (figurine) taking the dead back into herself (earth) for re-birth (red ochre for blood) into some form of after-life.

Three factors suggest men discovered their part in the procreation process early in