The Goddess Bible Paperback – 1 April 2023

Ashra Ball has done a remarkable job in translating documents discovered in a scroll jar in a cave at Qumran in 1995. They cover 2,000 years of the beliefs, practices, and history of the Goddess worshippers who lived in the ancient land we call Canaan.The Goddess of this bible is “The Great Allmother Nammu, the Fertile Womb, the Pleasure-Loving Vulva.” By caressing her vulva until she was satisfied, she became pregnant and gave birth to her daughters. By the same means she gave birth to the things the patriarchal God of the Hebrew bible created: the earth, sky, all living creatures, and so on, including a Pleasure Garden reminiscent of the Garden of Eden.Like the various books of the Hebrew bible, this various collection of scriptures comprises histories, petitions, testimonies, hymns and litanies, a book of wisdom, and a prophecy.Unlike the patriarchal Hebrew bible, which frequently depicts women as sinners and eroticism as impure, this matriarchal bible portrays women as the superior sex who indulge in sexual pleasure.I’m unfamiliar with such goddess beliefs, and I found it fascinating to read the account where these two religions co-existed in the same territory, such as Tyre and Sidon. Yahweh, the divine warrior, was worshipped as the national god of ancient Israelites and Judahites. Asherah was worshipped as the goddess of fertility by a queen and her followers. Bloody battles, treachery, and assassinations took place.I recommend this book to anyone interested in ancient history’s portrayal of the two sexes viewed quite differently from the conventional male perspective.

I am not really qualified to review this book per se, as my knowledge of biblical texts (not to mention Dead Sea scrolls and the like) is sparse to say the least. But as I am a few pages in, I’m reminded of something that always bugged me about the standard monot(he)istic religions: it always seemed odd that God had a gender! Think about it. How could a Consciousness described by the great religions as beyond form, sound, colour, identity as we know it, Who created everything, possibly have a gender? It makes no sense! When higher truths trickle down to Man and Woman through inspiration, they immediately get interpreted according to both conscious and unconscious biases. Gods take on shapes and forms and are immediately anthropomorphized. Different energies are also communicated (or not, as the case may be). So here we have a collection of documents to redress the balance. I recommend this to anyone who also wondered why the yin and yang of gender is so unbalanced in the monotone and monopolistic world religions... up until now.

I'd never heard of Ashra Ball, but on the recommendation of a friend I downloaded the book, and couldn't put it down till I'd finished it in one complete session. It's an incredible wealth of stories, a total (and on the face of it, completely overdue) reworking of the myths legends of what we've accepted as the man-based narrative of history. But of course those stories completely ignore the impact of women, and their importance in how we should judge the past. The book doesn't hold back ... and why should it, if these narratives are to be believed. Sexual politics aren't anything new; they existed in pre-history, of course: it's just that we've never read the evidence before. Ashra Ball's impeccable research has given these women a voice. And about time too.

What an ecovative and thrilling book! It literally throbs with womens' power and desire. From the very first pages where we witness the discovery of these sacred texts in a cave in Qumran in 1995, the writer Ashra Ball reveals to us the feminine essence, the Goddess. Although a work of fiction Ball places us the reader in a world no longer ruled by the patriarchy but instead revelling in female sensuality and fecundity: secure, proud and strong.We travel into the ancient past, a world of 2000 years ago, at once foreign yet familiar. Through the voices of the High Priestesses and Priestess Scribes we smell the incense, we hear the chanting, our minds ring with the voices of these mystical adorants for whom Asherah is their very life blood.Interwoven with Judiasm and Christian beliefs we hear testemonies to love, loss and abandoment. We are told tales of wars and battles won and lost, of journeys and hardships undertaken. All seen through female eyes. Mystical voices of Dalit, the Priestess Scribe and the entreaties of Yahzbul High Priestess and of Selama who writes with such fire in her belly. The women portrayed in this dazzling work speak words as old as time but they speak to us in our present.The world Bell has created is at once believable, erotically charged and moving. It pulses feminine power.

I found The Goddess Bible to be a fascinating and beautifully written take on Biblical stories. It's written as a series of long-lost religious texts with academic interpretation interspersed, and the tone is very convincing in both sections. It feels just like an ancient text, while providing a very new and exciting goddess perspective. It's a fascinating way of exploring what a woman-centred religion would look like and how it was destroyed by misogyny and hatred.Although I’ve read the Bible, I don’t know it particularly well, so I didn’t get all of the parallels, but I don’t think that hampered my reading of the book because the stories were executed so well. Readers who know the Bible better will probably get even more out of the book. Highly recommended!

In one of the other reviews, it's stated: "Despite the introduction claiming that this work comes from the latest scrolls found in Qumran in 1995 by a Dr. Yisabel Bat-Isha, and the "about the author" section on Ahsra Ball here in Amazon claiming she is a PhD graduate of archeology having went to UBC, University of London, and a third University in Israel, I cannot find ANYTHING to confirm any of this. I tried looking up articles of a dig in 1995 in Qumran and came up empty. Tried finding articles on new scrolls being made public in 2007 and came up empty. Tried looking up Ashra Ball at both UBC's and University of London's alumni site, and came up empty. It seems there are no scrolls and this Ashra Ball's scholastic history is fudged to make her look authentic. If you aren't one to really research stuff it would slip right by you.Con #2: There is a heavy slant towards making those of the Abrahamic religions rather barbaric and blood thirsty. In this book the god they worship is a jealous god and a god of war and death which is stark contrast to the Goddess Mother who gives life freely. I know a bit about Abrahamic religious history and what I do know is this view is true in a way but it's not the whole truth. The push to force conversion upon the matriarchal societies and those that acknowledged Goddess as well as God was a bloody and violent crusade that has left echos of its battles even in today's era. If you aren't familiar with this history from an objective standpoint it's very easy when reading THIS book to end up with an unbalanced perspective."Firstly, the Bible itself admits to killing everyone in Canaan so they could steal their land from them. So the author of this book is merely reporting exactly what it says in the Bible. Secondly, it is quite easy to find information about the digs in 1995, when I looked it up, it was on the first page of results.There seems to be an effort to discredit the author gently enough to not be flagged by Amazon's review policy, or raise the alarm of other potential readers. As someone who is writing a series of novels about a matriarchal society based on the Canaanites, and who has spent several years researching said novels/history, I am confident that the author of this book is genuine.

Before the the glut of monotheistic thought, before amnesiac modernity, before the rise of almost universal patriarchy pervading all cultures, there were ancient realms where women held not only political power but the ability to create ideologies based on a frank and forthright acceptance of the sexuality with which all human beings are endowed. Celebrated with letters, hymns and a variety of related texts, "The Goddess Bible" reminds us of earlier civilizations where notions of deity and sex were commingled in a manner that must have been common if not prevalent. The book also documents the rise of repressive forces as they begin to gnaw at the foundations of a feminine recognition of our primal nature. The translation and interpretation of archaeological narratives in "The Goddess Bible" is the work of a contemporary writer who elegantly breathes life into what was written down so long ago. I am reminded of Edward FitzGerald's famous 1859 poetic rendering into English of the Persian quatrains that we now know as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam. A companion text to Ashra Ball's book might be Jean Shinoda Bolen's 1984 volume "Goddesses in Everywoman: A New Psychology of Women." All the feminine archetypes of Jungian lore are represented in "The Goddess Bible:" The Sage, the Queen, the Lover, the Huntress, the Maiden, the Mystic and the Mother. Such an accomplishment.

First in English, then in Spanish.I totally recomend this book, it's amazing. It gives a new perspective about the Bible, like, from the point of view of women and Goddess.In the bible we find how they point women as evil, sinners, guilty of something. Sexuallity and erotism is seen as a sin and impure in traditional Bible. This book gives a voice to all these women that were missunderstood by the bible and abrahamic religions. Also, it includes and gives a new perspective about sexuallity, which is a energy of creation. I love it.I must say, if you're a blinded fanatic of an abrahamic religion and don't tolerate anything that brings a new light about the bible, then better skip it.Buy it, read it, you won't regret it.Super recomendado el libro. Me encanta la perspectiva que le da desde una visión femenina. Porque, la biblia señala mucho a las mujeres como culpables del pecado, pecadoras, malvadas, etc. Aquí no solo se le da una voz a todas esas mujeres juzgadas desde ese punto de vista patriarcal, y a veces, hasta misógino que tiene la biblia y religiones abrahámicas, sino que incluye algo tan castigado por siglos, como ha sido la sexualidad como energía creadora.Definitivamente no es apto para fanáticos religiosos con mente cerrada, que no toleren ningún tipo de pensamiento diferente, pero, si no es tu caso, seguro te gustará. Yo lo amé.Cómprenlo! Léanlo! Excelente lectura!

As a woman and an ancient history enthusiast, I found myself longing for the truth of this ... highly recommend

I’d just read, “When God Was a Woman,” by Merlin Stone (1974) with all its many historically relevant Old Testament quotes.Now I read, “The Goddess’s Bible,” and it’s blowing my socks off!1st hand contemporaneous priestess journal entries unknowingly making decimating counterpoints to the OT!You ever hear the OT quote,”…my God is a jealous god!” Ever wonder who, what and why God would ever need to feel jealous? Now you’ll get it.OMG what a gift to the world. To now easily understand what anti-goddess, anti-woman propaganda the Garden of Eden myth has been in our lifetimes, and that somehow instead of man coming from woman, Adam’s rib gave birth to woman??? Whaaat???The value of these translations is above and beyond anything I’ve ever read before. I’m so excited, I’ve been buying this Goddess Bible for family and friends. It’s revelatory.If you feel you’ve been confused and hoodwinked by all these dysfunctional male-dominated religions, read The Goddess Bible and finally make sense of it all. I promise, you’ll be glad you did. 💝I think I might create a book reading group just for this exciting open book of secrets!