Women and Goddesses in Myth and Sacred Text: An Anthology, Tamara Agha-Jaffar, editor. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.
Reviewed by Johanna H. Stuckey, Ph.D., York University, Toronto, Canada
When I was teaching Goddess courses in the 1970s to 1990s, I would have been really grateful to have had access to this textbook. It does what few other such books do: it provides key selections in translation from religious and mythical material pertaining to the goddess/woman being studied. Thus, students can dip into, among others, such works as the Babylonian creation story, the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, the Qur’an, and the Ramayana.
The goddesses and sacred women Agha-Jaffar treats are as follows: Isis, Inanna, Tiamat, Demeter and Persephone, Circe, Medea, Sita, Kali, Amaterasu, Kuan Yin, Lilith, Eve, Virgin Mary, Hawwa, Maryam, Oshun, White Buffalo Woman, and Corn Mother. If I had been picking the ones to include, I probably would have left out two of the sacred women (Circe and Medea) and added the Canaanite/Israelite Asherah and another Greek or Asian goddess or both. However, Agha-Jaffar’s choices reflect the course she was teaching and for which she devised this textbook.
And this is only the beginning. In ASWM, goddess scholars and teachers interact with artists, writers, ritualists—people on all creative paths—to bring myths and images to life for modern women. We believe that we all have much to say to one another, and that sharing ideas and resources strengthens the work we do.
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