Nonfiction · 1897
The God-Idea of the Ancients
Or, Sex in Religion
An argument, built from comparative mythology and the new science of evolution, that the earliest human religions worshipped goddesses before gods — and that the later dominance of male deities, like the broader subordination of women, was a cultural development rather than a fixed law of nature.
Eliza Burt Gamble published The God-Idea of the Ancients, or Sex in Religion in 1897.
This Bibliomancer edition presents the complete text.
Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chapter I — Sex the Foundation of the God-Idea
- Chapter II — Tree, Plant, and Fruit Worship
- Chapter III — Sun-Worship—Female and Male Energies in the Sun
- Chapter IV — The Dual God of the Ancients a Trinity Also
- Chapter V — Separation of the Female and Male Elements in the Deity
- Chapter VI — Civilization of an Ancient Race
- Chapter VII — Concealment of the Early Doctrines
- Chapter VIII — The Original God-Idea of the Israelites
- Chapter IX — The Phoenician and Hebrew God Set or Seth
- Chapter X — Ancient Speculations Concerning Creation
- Chapter XI — Fire and Phallic Worship
- Chapter XII — An Attempt to Purify the Sensualized Faiths
- Chapter XIII — Christianity a Continuation of Paganism
- Chapter XIV — Christianity a Continuation of Paganism—(Continued)
- Chapter XV — Christianity in Ireland
- Chapter XVI — Stones or Columns as the Deity
- Chapter XVII — Sacrifices
- Chapter XVIII — The Cross and a Dying Savior
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
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About the author
1841–1920 · Victorian
Eliza Burt Gamble (1841–1920) was an American writer and women's suffrage advocate, born in Michigan, who worked as a schoolteacher and later a factory inspector for the state. Drawing on Darwin's theory of evolution, she argued in books including The Evolution of Woman (1894) and The God-Idea of the Ancients (1897) that early human societies were matriarchal and that women's subordination was a later cultural development rather than a biological given.
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