Note: The following is an effort to collate

• the motifs, goals, and practices of both Western (Babylonian, Greek [both Chthonic {pre-Aryan} and Homeric-Olympian], and Semitic [Judaism, Christianity, Islam]) and Eastern religious traditions with
• corresponding economic, social, and political organization, including:
• communication "technology," and
• (most fundamentally) the underlying Logic (i.e., a complementary logic of connection in the face of difference and/or a dualistic logic of hierarchy and opposition).

For an initial survey of these elements in early Greek traditions, see "Goddesses, Patriarchy, and Reconciliation in Hesiod's Theogony."
Other figures refered to below include the gods, goddesses, and warriors in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish (e.g., Tiamat, the salt-water goddess; Marduk, the warrior-king, etc.) and the gods, goddesses, and warriors in the Sumerian-Babylonian epic Gilgamesh (Ishtar, the goddess of love/war - later Ashtarte/Ashtaroth in the Hebrew Bible; Gilgamesh, the warrior-king, etc.)

Economic / Social Organization // "Technology of Communication" // Logic	Authority	Mythic Images, Goals, Motifs	"Religion," practices
Hunting/Gathering: Oral Culture Complementarity + Dualistic Logics Both hierarchical and egalitarian social forms; both males and females attain status and power in various ways; emphasis on cooperation over competition. Women contribute ca. 70-90% of food supply; bear and rear children; "social bonding" Matrilineal/ matrifocal as well as patriarchal social structures [Examples: Twana Indians (West Coast, North America), Daughters of Time, pp. 10f.; Iriquois (?), D.o.T., 18ff.]	Shaman (primarily male, but often female [Japan]) as medium between human, divine; ritual use of music, dance, drugs to induce trance; Magic as effort to control one's environment, fate. Goddess // "sacred prostitute" Other characteristics: (continues into...	Unity with animal powers (MALE) for success in hunt SACRIFICE-- the final death of the individual, symbolized by blood -- as necessary for the continuance of life	Experiential unity with the sacred (use of hallucinogens [tobacco]) Native American, Siberia, Japan, African Tribal mascots
Horticulture (Oral culture) (Complementarity + Dualistic Logics) Women are first farmers (out of experience with seeds, vegetation). Often "non-militaristic" (no weapons found at early sites). [Examples: Neolithic Catal Huyuk, Minoan Crete (D.o.T., 11-18);] matrilineal (mother-daughter)	fertility nurturance wisdom ("sacred priestess" in Gilgamesh makes Enkidu wise ["like a god"]; retells Gilgamesh's dreams) menstrual cycle --> lunar calendar Vegetation gods as male consorts to the goddess: Tammuz (N. 27) Baal (O.S.B. 59) "Sacred sexuality" (1. No need to control female sexuality for the sake of guaranteeing paternal lines; 2. Tantric yogas.)	PARTHENO- GENESIS: FEMALE "OWNS" THE GENERATIVE POWERS (Aruru -> Enkidu; Gaia, echoed in Purusa Sukta) IMAGE OF THE FEMALE: large bodied "fertility figures"(POWER) (Ishtar) Sacred animals, plants of the goddess: birds (messengers of divine instruction); snakes (wisdom, regeneration); trees, bushes (as "haunts" of important powers) Vegetation cycle, resurrection motifs: life as a whole in which cutting a part only expands the circle of life -- "death" of seed / "burial" / "resurrection" CUSTOM, tradition as primary social "authority" - e.g., Antigone	Experiential unity with the sacred -- return to the Mother ("Goddess" religions): the female as source of vegetative and animal life [Indus River] female as source of wisdom; also associated with death (Hindu goddesses; Eve; Ishtar [Astarte]; Siduri [Gilgamesh] Persephone [Chthonic/Greece]; chthonic goddesses in Minoan, Mycenaen cultures) Association between resurrection, fertility Emphasis on experiential unity (continues shamanism, adds "sacred sexuality" and other forms of ecstatic "mysticism," (Dance, music, WINE, BEER --Siduri, maker of wine [N. 35]; Bacchae, Dionysus in Greece, "relic" in communion) as well as "contemplative" forms (yoga in Indus River Civilization)
Agriculture / patriarchy: Literate Culture Dualistic Logic dominates (Enkidu, the Cyclops, as "innocent" of cultivation") patrilineal (father-son) Males control through roles of warrior, king, priest, head of patriarchal family	SOLAR CYCLE displaces lunar cycle discovery of male role in reproduction? Sky-gods (legitimate the power of warrior/kings) Gilgamesh, the man who knew all things Examples: Olympian- Homeric gods/ goddesses (Greece)	MALES now own generative powers (e.g., Zeus, "circularity" of Purusa Sukta) --> CONTROL of female sexuality now critical for preserving patrilineal line: female as property -- "double-standard" for male/female sexuality ORDER = HIERARCHY VIOLENCE AGAINST CHAOS (=NON- HIERARCHY) IS JUSTIFIED IN THE DEFENSE OF "ORDER" (= HIERARCHY) --> LAW, the importance of explicit social codes (a relatively late stage in the development of "religion")	"Swap," "Business contract" with Sky-gods [Example: Homeric Gods] "Sacred marriages" between king, divine female (shakti; Zeus/Hera)
		REVERSAL MYTHS (designed to justify "new" male powers over against "old" female powers) 1. Female (and her beasts) as chaos agents -- as threat to hierarchical order: Enuma Elish: Marduk - Tiamat; Image of snakes in Western traditions 2. IMAGES OF POWER in "old" system --> "ugly": Wiccan crone --> "witch"; "new" "beauty" emphasizes weakness and the sexual attractiveness of females to males Gilgamesh: Ishtar adorns her breast; Hesiod: Aphrodite 3. Sexuality of "old" female now dangerous, to be controlled Gilgamesh: Ishtar (cf. Fatal Attraction, etc.)	(Ishtar as goddess of war, uses the Bull of Heaven to disrupt the line between the living and the dead, and to abuse her control over the fertility of Uruk - N. 28) (cosmetics) (Sacred sexuality now becomes "fornication," "prostitution")

References

The Epic of Gilgamesh, in The Norton Anthology of World Literature, 6th ed.

Hesiod, The Theogony

Kinnear, Mary. 1982. Daughters of Time: Women in the Western Tradition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.


Additional Reading:

Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. 1992. In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth. New York: The Free Press.

Gimbutas, Maria. 1982. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 6500-3400 B.C.: Myths and Cult Images. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

McCance, Dawne. 1990. "Understandings of 'the Goddess' in Contemporary Feminist Scholarship." Goddesses in Religions and Modern Debate. Hurtado, Larry, ed. (Volume 1, University of Manitoba Studies in Religion). Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. 165-178.

Townsend, Joan B. 1990. "The Goddess: Fact, Fallacy and Revitalization Movement." Goddesses in Religions and Modern Debate. Hurtado, Larry, ed. (Volume 1, University of Manitoba Studies in Religion). Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. 180-203.


For an account of some of these themes, additional literature, and their impact on Western Christian readings of the second Genesis creation story, see:

Ess, Charles. Reading Adam and Eve: Re-Visions of the Myth of Woman's Subordination to Man," in: Violence Against Women and Children: A Christian Theological Sourcebook, Marie M. Fortune and Carol J. Adams, eds. New York: Continuum Press, 1995.