We look at Judea under Roman occupation; Yeshua of Nazareth and his followers (who ere not “christian”); healing, exorcism, and the sorcery charge; Jewish traditions around Wisdom and women’s “sorcery.” Then to pagan influences on the culture, including in synagogue mosaics, but we'll concentrate the female figurines discovered in a village ceramics workshop of the 3rd century bce. We’ll look at parallels in late bronze age Canaanite and contemporary Jordanian art, and in traditional Palestinian women’s headdress (shaweta). I'll present a shortish visual talk and discuss Chapter 2 from Magna Mater, Paulianity, and the Imperial Church. That reading (a preview) will be posted here on Dec 14.
Two sessions, Wed 18 Dec at 6pm, and Sun 22 Dec at noon, California time. (Check a timezone converter for your area.) Recording of 2nd showing will be posted here if you can't make either time.
Course Curriculum
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StartIntro to readings
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StartNew reading: the Hasmonian Queen Shlomtzion and the Pharisees
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PreviewJudaea Capta and Rav Yeshua
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PreviewYeshua the Healer—and Exorcist
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StartWitchcraft in Jewish Tradition
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StartThe Judaic Wisdom Tradition
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StartThe Therapeutae
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StartJudaean Women
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StartThe Female Icons of Beit Nattif
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Your Instructor
Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document global women's history, reflecting the full spectrum of the world's peoples. She uses images to teach, scanning the cultural record: archaeology, history, art, orature, linguistics and spiritual philosophies. From her collection of some 50,000 images, she has created 130 visual talks on female cultural heritages, foregrouding Indigenous traditions, with attention to patterns of conquest and domination. She is internationally known for her expertise on ancient female iconography, matricultures and patriarchal systems, medicine women and shamans, witch hunts, and female spheres of power.
Dashu's legendary visual talks bring to light female realities usually hidden from view, from ancient female figurines to women leaders, priestesses, clan mothers, philosophers, warriors and rebels. Her courses scan the cultural record—archaeology, history, art, orature, linguistics, and spiritual philosophies—making this knowledge more accessible to all education backgrounds.
Dashu has been presenting her visual talks for more than four decades, at universities, conferences, museums, community centers, bookstores, galleries, libraries and schools, in North America, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Austria, Australia, Mexico and Guatemala.
Max Dashu's book Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1000 (Veleda Press, 2016) has been acclaimed as a sourcebook on European ancestral traditions. Her forthcoming book on women in Hellenic myth and history is Vol II in her 16-volume series Secret History of the Witches.
Dashu has published in various journals and anthologies, including Goddesses in World Mythology (Praeger 2010) and the Encyclopedia of Women in World Religion (ABC-Clio 2018). She created two videos: Women's Power in Global Perspective (2008) and Woman Shaman: The Ancients (2013). Her daily posts on the Suppressed Histories Facebook page are followed by 181,000 people, and 72,000 more have viewed her articles on Academia.edu.