Did God Have a Wife?: William G. Dever
Dever, one of the world's most renowned archaeologists has finally asked the BIG question, and his research, archaeology, and scholarship have come up with the most stunning answer. Yes, God was married!
His analysis of the folk religion, and how the common folk worshipped was one of the powerful aspects of this book, the stuff that never made it into the Bible, yet is reflected in the archaeology of the people in the countryside. This is archaeology at its level-headed best.
A very shocking book, as well as revealing for his amazingly coherent, and provocative challenges, and answers to the nay-sayers of Asherah being God's wife.
I highly recommend it. (*****)
Giorgio Santillana, Hertha von Dechend: Hamlet's Mill
This is not the easiest book to read or understand, but it is by far one of the most influential ones I own for the sheer power of generating ideas and themes to research and write on. It is archeoastronomy detective work like no other text. Scholarly, erudite, difficult, astounding, breath-taking. I also rate this one as one of those books in my all time favorite top 10.
I know others have not found their overall thesis convincing, but archeoastronomy is indepted to this book for having a serious start, and it has also come a long way since, especially with John Major Jenkins work on "Maya Cosmogenesis 2012" and "The Galactic Alignment."
Archeoastronomy became a hobby of mine directly because of this book. I highly recommend it. It was reprinted for the 3rd time in 1992, and well worth shelling out the dough for it. (*****)
Jason Lotterhand: The Thursday Night Tarot
In his down to earth style and humor, Lotterhand opens up the world of the Tarot symbolisms and what they can mean for us in our every day to day lives. Without stuffy erudition, nor with New Age silliness, Lotterhand goes through the Major Arcana of the Tarot Cards and analyzes their interpretations as he understands things. You can't help but come away from this book feeling good. This is the collection of his classes he has taught for years and years, including questions from many of his students and his responses.
I have read it many times, and will continue reading it as a perfect introduction as to what the Tarot symbolisms and use really means, not what phony prognosticators of the New Age Movement have hijacked the Tarot to mean. Their use of it is an "adulterated use" to quote Paul Foster Case, another of the true Tarot interpreter geniuses.
The overall view of the Tarot following Lotterhand's interpretation is one of love.... love for God, our fellowman, as well as for ourselves. That Tarot has nothing at all in any form to do with Satan worship, devil loving wickdness, and magic is more than proven by Lotterhand's scholarship in this fascinating area. I highly and strongly recommend this cure for the disease of understanding Tarot as an evil Devil inspired system. (*****)
Leonora Leet: The Secret Doctrine of the Kabbalah
This book just simply stunned me. It is one of the most fascinating analysis of Sacred Geometry and modern Quantum Physics along with a detailed discovery after discover after discovery of the Jewish religious system called Kabbalah.
Leet's geometric charts make the book even easier to understand, but the depth of her cogent reasoning concerning the cosmos, geometry, and music is a sight to behold.
Her follow up book "The Universal Kabbalah" is quite interesting in the first few chapters and then bogs my mind down with so much detail and analysis that it is far over my head, though I am working on deciphering it.
Leet spent over 20 years analyzing and writing about her discoveries. The most significant one concerns the Kabbalah Tree of Life diagram which is remarkably elucidated by Leet, both in the historical aspects of its changes, as well as the reasons why it is the shape and form that it is, and the meaning of sacred geometrical extensions of the already existing lines of the Tree of Life.
A most significant contribution, not only to my own understanding of Kabbalah and Geometry, but for my own enthusiasm of learning more about the Kabbalah (****)
Margaret Barker: The Great High Priest
With her astonishing range of scholarship and working with ancient archaeological and linguistic data, Barker has changed our understanding of the ancient Hebraic Priesthood as well as religion. This book is a milestone. (*****)
Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau: The Conscious Universe
The Quantum Physics notion of Complementarity (two particles being connected, no matter how far apart they are in the universe), as well as understanding how the part relates to the whole is what is explored in this gem of a little book.
This is no spiritual guru linking of science and religion together by mis-representing one or the other or both of the disciplines, but a sober, real look into the ideas of consciousness, and how Quantum Physics has come around to recognizing the universal aspect of consciousness in *all things*. An amazing book, quite technically written, but with amazing conclusions. The main conclusion being that consciousness can no longer be separated from the problem of the way science operates. (****)
Robert Eisenman: The New Testament Code
Again, with his impeccible schoalrship and thirst for detail Eisenman extends his analysis and evidence for a First Century Early Christian provenance for the Dead Sea Scrolls using the internal materials of the scrolls themselves, their literary usages, their dramatis personae, and their descriptions of what sins abound with the wicked foreign leaders, which can only possibly apply to the Herodians.
I wish Eisenman's writing style was easier however. For this reason I can't give it a 5 star rating. His information is astonishingly useful however, and rather controversial, my kind of book! (****)
Tree of Souls: The Mythology of Judaism: Howard Schwartz
Magnaminous! This compilation from all periods of Jewish mythology, using hundreds, if not thousands of the texts, shows without doubt or question that there was a Jewish mythology, and its power of presentation for relevance is unsurpassed in all of mythology.
From the Creation, the the Shekhinah as the wife of God, to Israel's woes, and successes, this detailed, and humorous, insightful, powerful book has so much in it from the lives of the Patriarchs, the prophets, and the rabbis, that it will take many months to read all the way through it. I have referenced it several times, and spent not a few very delightful evenings (even rainy days) browsing through its pages, and the excellent scholarly discussions by Schwarts itself placing things in context. This is a book I turn to again and again and again with new "Aha!" insights from every single page. (*****)
Kevin Christensen has a most delightful and excellent series of links to not only Margaret Barker's scholarship, but also to many early Christian texts that is well, well, WELL worth your efforts to see. This is just a very fine site!
I am very appreciative of the writings of Margaret Barker, as well as several friends of mine who have helped me gather her materials. I produced a DVD of some of her ideas on Atonement, the Bible, the ancient Judaic concepts in the First Temple period of Judaic history, etc., and she got a copy of it and her response below (in italics) is very gratifying.
Thank you for the DVD. It is good [and fascinating for me] to see how well my suggestions fit with the traditions and teachings of the LDS. I was also interested to see which aspects of my work you chose for discussion, which I thought was done fairly and accurately.
Thank you,too, for emphasising the cosmic covenant and the need to care for creation. That is central to my whole exploration, and very important for all of us.
I think the main area of her discussion of the Atonement as a rite of healing the creation, us, and all things, the bringing together of something broken or scattered, back into a unity, a wholeness, a Divine realization is what struck me so very strongly in my heart. That is why I made that 17 mile hike (round trip), so I could get into the heart of creation here in Idaho, and film it as I discussed Barker's inspiring ideas on the most significant event in the universe, Christ's Atonement. It was a perfect fit. And I nowhere exhausted her detailed analysis (which she has brought out in several of her books), so that means there are more DVD's to produce on my part (yeah!)
Margaret Barker in her Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity, reprint, Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2005, describes how Enoch as Metatron, and Melchizedek, and the Son of Man, are all functionally similar. (pp. 38f).
In light of this remarkable similarity of works (as I shall call them, i.e., their activities, their functions on earth and in heaven, say for instance, being High Priests...), I find it remarkably interesting that Robert Eisenman has described the Zaddik ideology and associations to dovetail in interesting ways.
In all of his works, Eisenman (who has focused on elucidating the Dead Sea Scrolls for decades now), has shown that not only Habakkuk, but Phineas, Elijah, Hanan the Hidden, Honi the Circle Drawer, and James the Just, the leader of the Jerusalem Judaism of the first century, and the true successor of Jesus, his brother, are all Zaddikim (that is, Just and Righteous), and rainmakers, not to mention leaders if not actual High Priests themselves.
The link with Barker's list (Enoch, Melchizedek, Son of Man, Angel of Yahweh, and perhaps Metatron - who is said to be Enoch only in his heavenly aspect after he has been deified), and Eisenman's list is the High Priest, the actual earthly functioning Zaddik and miracle worker which brings salvation to the people, (through rainmaking and ending of famines following Eisenman), and which High Priest actually represents the Lord on earth (following Barker).
From Eisenman's understanding, this Son of Man coming in the clouds imagery stemming from Daniel is tied in with what he terms "eschatalogical rainmaking imagery", as well as with apocalyptic judgment of the end times. Barker's analysis of the Son of Man is equally as fascinating as it brings in Enoch, Melchizedek, and others from the ancient Judaic tradition.
Though these two Biblical scholars use the same materials in the scrolls, it is utterly fascinating to see the differences in their paradigms, and use of the materials. Combining them together is an exercise in incredible learning and understanding. I shall continue to do so, along with the Zohar as I have time. But this is a head's up, Both Eisenman and Barker are going to be discussed on my blog, in extenso...
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