Walk into almost any museum with an "Ancient World" wing and you’ll see them. Little clay figures. Most are barely larger than a palm, featuring heavy breasts, wide hips, and sometimes no faces at all. For decades, archaeologists tucked these into drawers or labeled them "fertility idols," a sort of polite way of dismissing them as ancient knick-knacks. But then came Merlin Stone’s 1976 landmark work, When God Was a Woman. It didn't just suggest that women used to be in charge; it argued that for thousands of years, the primary deity of the Western world was female.
The Divine Feminine wasn't a niche subculture. It was the culture.
Stone wasn't just guessing. She spent a decade digging through the records of the Near and Middle East, looking at how the rise of patriarchal religions—specifically Judaism and later Christianity—systematically dismantled the worship of the Goddess. It’s a wild thought. Imagine a world where the creator of the universe wasn't a "He" but a "She," or perhaps even an "It" that leaned much more toward the motherly than the kingly.
The Archaeological Reality of the Goddess
Before the Iron Age, things looked very different. If you look at the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, the evidence is everywhere. Take the Venus of Willendorf, found in Austria. She’s roughly 25,000 to 30,000 years old. She isn't a "pretty" statue by modern standards; she’s a powerhouse of biology.
Stone’s work, and the work of those she influenced like Marija Gimbutas, points to sites like Çatalhöyük in modern-day Turkey. Around 7000 BCE, this was one of the largest settlements in the world. Archaeologists found shrines filled with female imagery. There were no "big man" palaces. No evidence of organized warfare. It seems that when God was a woman, society was far less obsessed with building walls and more obsessed with the cycles of life, death, and rebirth.
Actually, the shift wasn't just a "vibe change." It was a total overhaul of how humans viewed their place in the world. In the Goddess tradition, the earth was her body. You didn't "rule" over nature; you lived inside it.
Why the "Fertility" Label is Kinda Insulting
Calling these figures "fertility idols" is a bit like calling a crucifix a "jewelry item." It misses the entire theological point. To the ancients, the Goddess was the provider of law, the inventor of agriculture, and the guardian of the home. She was Inanna in Sumer, Ishtar in Babylon, and Asherah in Canaan.
She wasn't just about babies. She was about everything.
The Sumerian tablets describe Inanna as the "Queen of Heaven and Earth." She held the Me—the divine decrees of civilization. She wasn't a sidekick to a male god. She was the source. Honestly, the idea that women were always second-class citizens is a relatively new invention in the grand scale of human history.
How the Narrative Flipped
So, what happened? How did we go from a world that venerated the female principle to one that, well, mostly didn't?
Merlin Stone argues that it wasn't an accident. It was a conquest. She tracks the arrival of Indo-European tribes—warrior groups from the north—who brought with them male storm gods and sky deities. These weren't "earth" gods. They were "war" gods. They valued hierarchy, thunder, and steel.
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The transition was messy. And often violent.
- The suppression of the priestesses: In the old world, women held the keys to the temple. By the time the Levant saw the rise of the Abrahamic traditions, these women were rebranded. The "sacred marriage" rituals were labeled as "prostitution."
- The rewriting of myths: Look at the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth. It depicts the god Marduk slaying the primordial mother goddess, Tiamat. He literally cuts her body in half to create the world. It’s a graphic representation of the new order destroying the old.
- The Garden of Eden: Stone spends a lot of time on this. In the Goddess tradition, the serpent was a symbol of wisdom and rebirth (because it sheds its skin). The tree was the Tree of Life. In the Genesis story, the woman and the serpent are the villains who bring about the fall of man. It’s a complete 180-degree flip of the original symbolism.
The Asherah Controversy
There is a massive piece of evidence that most people never hear about in Sunday school. Asherah. In many early Hebrew texts and archaeological finds, like the inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud, there is mention of "Yahweh and his Asherah."
Wait. God had a wife?
Basically, yes. Or at least, the early Israelites thought so. Asherah was a mother goddess symbolized by wooden poles or living trees. The Bible records the "reformers" repeatedly tearing down these Asherah poles. It wasn't that the Goddess didn't exist; it’s that the new religious leaders were working incredibly hard to make people stop worshipping her.
The Psychological Impact of a Male-Only God
When we talk about when God was a woman, we aren't just talking about history. We’re talking about how we see ourselves today. If the "Ultimate Being" is male, then maleness becomes the standard for power, authority, and leadership.
The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung talked about the anima and animus, but the cultural lack of a female divine image has left a hole in the Western psyche. It’s why Stone’s book became a foundational text for feminist theology. It gave people permission to imagine a spiritual framework where being female wasn't an "alternative" or a "deviation" from the male norm.
Think about it.
If the creator of the universe is a Mother, then the act of giving birth is a divine act, not a "curse" or a "punishment" as described in some interpretations of religious texts. The body itself becomes sacred rather than something to be ashamed of or controlled.
Critiques and Modern Scholarship
Now, to be fair and intellectually honest, Merlin Stone’s work has its critics. History is rarely a straight line.
Modern archaeologists like Ruth Tringham and Margaret Conkey have cautioned against "Goddess feminism" that might oversimplify the past. They argue that just because we find female statues doesn't mean those societies were perfect matriarchies where everyone lived in peace and harmony. Human nature is always more complicated than that.
Some scholars also point out that:
- Symbolism doesn't equal status: Just because a culture worships a goddess doesn't automatically mean the women in that culture have high social standing (look at modern-day India with the powerful Kali vs. the social challenges for women).
- Diverse roles: Ancient deities were often fluid. Some goddesses were fierce warriors; some male gods were nurturing.
- The "Matriarchy" debate: There isn't definitive proof of a "Matriarchy" in the sense of women dominating men. It was more likely a matrilinear society where lineage followed the mother, or a matrifocal one where the mother was the center of the social unit.
But even with these nuances, Stone’s core premise holds a lot of weight. There was a massive, documented shift in the human story where the feminine divine was erased.
Why This Matters in 2026
We are currently living through a weird, fascinating resurgence of these ideas. You see it in the "divine feminine" trends on social media, the rise of modern paganism, and the academic push to re-examine ancient texts. People are hungry for a spirituality that includes them.
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If you’re looking to dive deeper into this, don't just take one person's word for it. The history is buried in the dirt and the dust of the Middle East. It’s written in the margins of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s carved into the walls of Egyptian tombs where goddesses like Isis were once the "Great of Magic."
What You Can Do Next
If this reshuffling of history interests you, there are a few ways to see the evidence for yourself without needing a PhD in archaeology.
Look at the iconography. Next time you’re in a museum, look for the "unlabeled" or "fertility" figurines. Notice the dates. Watch how the imagery changes from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. You’ll literally see the weapons start to appear in the art as the female figures start to disappear.
Read the primary sources. Check out the Hymns to Inanna by Enheduanna. She was a high priestess in Ur around 2300 BCE and is the world’s first named author. Not the first female author. The first author, period. Her writing is raw, powerful, and shows a world where a woman’s relationship with a female deity was the most important thing in the universe.
Re-examine your own language. Notice how often we default to male pronouns for things that have no gender—like the "Man in the Moon" or "Father Time." Even our metaphors are stained with the transition Merlin Stone wrote about.
The story of when God was a woman isn't just a fun "what if" scenario. It’s a map of how we got here. It’s a reminder that the way we see the world today—with its hierarchies and power structures—isn't the way it has always been. And if it wasn't always this way, it doesn't always have to stay this way.
Understanding this history gives us a broader palette to paint our future. It allows for a spirituality that is more inclusive, more grounded in the earth, and perhaps a bit more balanced. Whether you believe in a literal goddess or not, the cultural impact of her "death" is something we are all still processing.
Actionable Steps for the Curious
- Trace the lineage: Research the transition from the Egyptian Isis to the Greek Demeter to the Christian Virgin Mary. You can see the "Goddess" traits being absorbed and modified through time.
- Visit local exhibits: Look for "Women in Antiquity" collections. Specifically, look for the "Lady of Nimrud" or the "Queen of the Night" relief.
- Analyze the text: If you are familiar with the Bible, read the Book of Jeremiah (specifically chapter 44). You’ll see a fascinating account of people—mostly women—arguing with the prophet because they wanted to keep making cakes for the "Queen of Heaven." They believed that when they stopped worshipping her, things started going wrong. It’s a rare, lived-in glimpse of the transition happening in real-time.