This reference book offers a comprehensive survey of gods and goddesses from cultures across the globe, with each entry covering specific cultures, dates of worship, the role the god played, and defining characteristics and symbols.

In Goddess and God in the World, leading theologians Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow debate the nature of divinity, proposing a new method called embodied theology. They agree that the transcendent, omnipotent male God of traditional theology must be reimagined. Carol proposes that Goddess is the intelligent embodied love that is in all being. Judith counters that God is an impersonal power of creativity that includes both good and evil. Rooting their views in experience and questioning each other, they offer a fruitful model of theological conversation across difference.

In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts--and a violent destiny.

This dictionary focuses on more than 9,500 goddesses from hundreds of cultures around the world.

Many mythological traditions from around the world seek to explain the origins of the earth, human beings, and the forces of nature. This set examines the stories associated with gods and goddesses: their relationships with each other and with human beings; their faults, foibles, strengths, and special powers. It offers explanations of how the gods and goddesses gifted humans with life, water, fire, music, and dance. Nearly 220 essays detail gods and goddesses from around the globe: the Greek and Roman pantheon including Zeus, Neptune, Nike, and Aphrodite; Norse gods including Odin and Loki; Native American deities including Hunahpu and Xbalanque; and Egyptian gods and goddesses like Ra and Osiris.

The nurturing Earth Goddess, the Great Mother worshipped at the dawn of civilization—historical fact or consoling fiction? While Goddess mythologies proliferate and the public devours books by artists, psychotherapists, and enthusiastic amateurs, it is remarkable that those in the field of prehistory have remained largely silent. Did Goddess worship really exist? What actually remains from the earliest cultures, and what can it tell us? What can we learn about the early stages of human religion from the study of prehistoric carvings, pictures, pottery, figurines, and temples? In Ancient Goddesses, historians and archaeologists write accessibly about this intriguing and controversial topic for the first time. Considering a number of significant early civilizations—Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt; “Old Europe;” Early North West Europe; “Celtic” civilization; the Prehistoric Aegean; Malta; the Ancient Near East; Old Testament Israel; Çatalhöyük; and Archaic Greece—these experts review the most recent evidence so that readers can make up their own minds. Contributors include Ruth Tringham and Margaret Conkey, University of California, Berkeley; Lynn Meskell, New College, Oxford; Fekri Hassan, University College, London; Karel van der Toorn, University of Amsterdam; Joan Westenholz, Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem; Elizabeth Shee Twohig, University College, Cork; Caroline Malone, New Hall, Cambridge; Mary Voyatzis, University of Arizona; and Miranda Green, University of Wales College.

Giving Western literature and art many of its most enduring themes and archetypes, Greek mythology and the gods and goddesses at its core are a fundamental part of the popular imagination. At the heart of Greek mythology are exciting stories of drama, action, and adventure featuring gods and goddesses, who, while physically superior to humans, share many of their weaknesses. Readers will be introduced to the many figures once believed to populate Mount Olympus as well as related concepts and facts about the Greek mythological tradition.