Yahweh's Wife by Arthur Frederick Ide is a book I have been looking for. I have been aware there is a lot that was edited out of the earliest Bible texts, because ancient religious leaders didn't want their followers to hear this material. This is the first time I have seen a book dedicated to ferreting out such ancient "political correctness."

On his first page he stated one that had gone right by me during Sunday School, namely that Moses had set up a brass snake monument. Imagine my amazement to find that the Hebrew words in Numbers 21:14 for snake and brass come from the same root. Hebrew nâchásh means to hiss or whisper a magic spell. This root ultimately gives rise to the word for "snake" nâchâsh, the animal which hisses and might have a coppery color. In fact, typical of Hebrew, there is a whole group of words that have related meanings.

The next five items are the names of lost works mentioned in the Bible. Dr. Ide states they were not included in the canon because of material not considered to be be "politically correct." I have no doubt that is true, but he doesn't really make the case.

Then Dr. Ide states that Yahweh was both androgynous and hermaphroditic, citing Isaiah 63:14f, which reads in the King James Version:

As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest; so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name. Look down from heaven and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?

"Bowels" translates mê'âh, meaning soft, belly, bowels, sympathy, passion, heart and uterus. To translate it as "uterus" would support Dr. Ide's thesis, but it seems more appropriate to me to consider it an emotion in this context.

"The Psalmist recognizes Yahweh as male and female in Psalms 123:2:"

Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress: so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

This doesn't seem to present us with the androgyny of Yahweh, but rather with typical Hebrew poetic parallelism. However, some of his other references do seem to indicate an androgynous Yahweh.

And so the book continues. It contains some errors, sloppiness and exaggerations, but the good stuff you can hardly find anywhere else in such a compact form.

I challenge any author's Hebrew or Greek with trepidation, but Dr. Ide's etymology of the English "amusement" as coming from "amu" (love) and "semen" is hilarious. It actually comes from French "amuser" meaning cause to ponder or muse. C'est amusant!

In summary, this is a terrific source of ancient material edited out of our canonic Bible or modified beyond recognition, but be careful to check everything out you wish to use.

Jorge Potter

Ide's central hypothesis is that the cult of Asherah, once the most important feminine deity in the Canaanite canon, was systematically destroyed by the Jahwehist priests of Levi and their fanatical, patriarchic allies. The rights of women and sexual relations not aimed at procreation were destoyed coterminously.

There is in fact little doubt that the early Hebrews were polytheists and that they took part in similar rituals to their neighbours : animal and human sacrifices, the deification of some mortals and orgies of ritual sex. In Canaanite mythology, El takes Asherah as his wife but she later becomes sexually involved with the sun god Ba'al. Ide doesn't make much reference to it but the Ugaritic Cycle of Ba'al is the best source for finding out more about this. Yahweh was also known as Elohim ("many gods") and in the early stages of the Jahwehist rewrite of local mythology, Jahweh was just one of many gods but a "jealous god". His followers took blood vengeance against the worshippers of Ba'al and Asherah. I say "His" here, although the term "yahweh" is older than the Israelites and refers to hermaphroditic deities.

It wasn't until later that the Levite priests switched tactics and attempted to remove Asherah altogether : now Jahweh was to be the 'universal god', moving from being a jealous god to the one and only god. Anyone who doubts the ongoing pogrom against Asherah and Ba'al in Old Tstament times need only look to the Bible : when Moses finds that Aaron has led the people back to the worship of golden statues he separates the Levites from the rest of the camp and orders them "The Lord God of Israel (lit. 'people of El') commands every one of you to put on his sword and go through the camp from this gate to the other and kill his brothers, his friends, and his neighbours." (Good News tr.) The result is the massacre of 3,000 - a very divine act reminiscent of the Balkans in the 1990s! And Elijah's record is possibly worse.

However I have some problems with certain aspects of Ide's thesis. For example he adds a rather racist and disturbing element by suggesting that the onset of patriarchy can be laid at the feet of those Indo-European tribes such as the Hittites invading from the north. There is plenty of evidence that women were reduced from a dominant role in society to chattels to bought , sold or raped but Ide isn't clear enough as to why the blame lies with external peoples to the Semitic world preferring as he does to concentrate on chaging coital practices. And I think what is least impressive is his lack of perspective : in rejecting the blood revenge of Jahwehism he has assumed that the old order was one of harmony and free love and that "there is no evidence of Asherah's priests commiting similar atrocities and crimes." Asherah to him is simply "a nourishing, loving mother" and the possibility that some aspects of sexuality are dangerous, harmful or immoral is not one on which he dwells. Ide also makes some attempt to link in the role of the state and the economic context but these are somewhat superficial - although the relationship between power and worship evidenced by the switch from Asa to Josiah in the mid ninth century BC is interesting.

Ide also makes a few isolated references to the New Testament which he clearly wishes to attack as well, although like many others he sees Mary as the return of the feminine goddess. I think he would do well to take Marcian's advice and consider the two to be totally separate religions and look for the source of the New Testament in Hellenistic sources.

I learned a lot from this little book (112 pages), but then I didn't know very much about the Old Testament to begin with. Ide shows that polytheism was prevalent among ancient Israelites from their inception to beyond the time of the monarchy. Even King Solomon was polytheistic (even mentioned in the Bible)! The Old Testament tries to hide this fact, but it is there if you know where to look for it, and Ide tells you where. There was a vigorous and lengthy competition between the gods Yahweh and Asherah. Asherah was a female Canaan fertility deity that encouraged sex, even in its temples! The "Asherah poles" mentioned in several recent Bible translations were phallic symbols. Asherah is mentioned by name about 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, but has sometimes been downplayed in English translations. According to the Old Testament, at one time Asherah had 400 prophets devoted to her. The King James version tries to hide these embarrassing facts by omitting the name Asherah, and by calling her poles or pillars "sacred groves" or "graven images" or some other phrase that hides their sexual significance.

Later, Asherah was considered a consort (or in Ide's terminology, a wife) of Yahweh (a male). As a reaction to the free love and lofty position of women advocated by Asherah, Yahweh tried to distance himself from Asherah as far as possible. Consequently, he advocated monogamy, abstinence from sex except for procreation, and a very submissive role for women. Yahweh eventually won out over Asherah and became the God of late Judaism and Christianity. These views have persisted throughout Christianity, and characterize Roman Catholicism today.

I found most of his arguments convincing, but others were unconvincing to me. This book is very heavily footnoted. One problem for me is that I lack access to most of his sources, so I cannot verify the conclusions he has drawn from them.

This book has several deficiencies. Ide "puts down" the Levite priesthood at every opportunity. His belligerent attitude is very offensive! For this reason, some readers may give up on this book before they obtain the very useful information it contains. The book is extremely poorly written. Although the back cover says Ide was born in the U.S., he has a poor grasp of English. The book contains a large number of typographical errors. A worthwhile book even with these faults. I give this book 4 stars on content only; the other features would rate much lower.

Don't bother learning *the tricks of the trade* -- learn the trade. In this case, the trade is playing music on a guitar, and its not just a series of tricks. With this sort of attitude and say, ten years, you'll have 10 years experience being a first-year wannabe. Music is made from Melody, Harmony, Rhythm... so, do the work: learn Music, not tricks about music.

I originally bought this book as a gift for a friend. When I went over to his house again, I looked it over out of curiousity and realized I should have bought an extra copy for myself!!!! The tips given are the perfect for a beginner or even an expert such as Eric Clapton. Overall this book was good family fun and I recommend it for guitar players of all ages and levels of expertise.

This is a Dover picturial archive book, so almost the entire book is black/white designs. Many are very flowery and detailed. Many would make either good fabric or better wallpaper designs. I bought the book for ceramic tile designs and had to weed through for something that would work. Most of the designs were too much for my purposes. Still a very good source of inspiration, as all Dover books are!

i've got this a bout 2 month ago and used it a lot, for both art, graphic works and just as somthing nice to look at, unlike the full color pictoral archive this is a very thural book, it has a lot of designs of allover patterns.

it's not one of those alboms you buy just to look at, it's a proffesional usful book for people who uses those designs for either decoration of wall or tiles and probebly decofague, quiltings, needle point and so on, for me patters is somthing i use a lot in my painting and this have proven to be useful in many oppertunities.

If you are looking for a "picture" book of American Arts & Crafts Textiles and designs, this will be a big disappointment. Although there are a few excellent photographs, most are so small that it is almost impossible to clearly see details.

I read this beautiful and glorious book front to back. I was quickly taken back to the turn of the century by the authors' rich and flowing text. The historic photograghs and textiles, both museum and privately owned examples, just added more layers of interest to an already thought provoking saga....I learned why I was seduced by their intricate designs and magic performed by two fingers and silk floss. Love poured into the flax, stitch by stitch.
The academic research has been carefully and exhaustingly accomplished. A mindful spirit of the authors who take you page to page revealing the movement of these dedicated women and the heritage they created for us and the preservation of their past.
I learned so much from this lovingly and tirelessly crafted book.
It is a book that will be frequently opened, just to treat my eyes and gaze upon the linens that I love so much.
I highly recommend you treat yourself if you any interest in the Arts and Crafts design or the art textiles.. It is the benchmark for any future work.
Thank you Dianne and Tim for your passion and love.

This is a good book for people who want to learn more about the great Italian luthier, but it definitely has its flaws. The book was written around the turn of the 20th century and its style is very stilted and convuluted. I often had the feeling the authors could have conveyed the information they give us in two pages in one paragraph. Also, their worship of anything related to Stradivari gets to be a bit much after awhile. Still, this is the book to turn to for information on this great violin maker.

This is perhaps the most important book ever published relating to the topics of violin making and the unchallenged greatest maker of all times. The Hills are the most respected scholars, ever, of the violin, and this was a landmark publication in 1902 and remains so. Under the quaint language is the information that subsequent scholars have used as the basis of their understanding of Stradivari's work (and stolen for the basis of many of their own articles and books), and almost everything written in the book is still considered accurate--an unprecedented event in violin publishing, where there's much more myth than fact in many books, especially those of the past, many of which are essentially fiction posing as non-fiction. There is simply no reason not to own this book if you are interested in violins.

I read Arthur and the Goalie Ghost.
Thought it was an ok book because it did not give enough detail and it was not a good story. I would recommend this book for ages 6-9 because it is a fairly easy book to read. And it is in easy language to read and under stand. I recommend this book because it is about sports and it was easy to read.

This book is hilarious. We have read it about 10 times already. The whole series is good for sports minded kids and all of the stories are great, but this one takes the cake! The one thing that we wondered, however, is why Marc Brown gets top billing when it is Stephen Krensky who has written all of the books in this Good Sports series?

I'd read "The Tortoise and the Hare." Unfortunately, this isn't a good start to the Arthur Good Sports series, which has many good offerings. The idea is that a race is being held to raise money for reading. Fern, however, doesn't really seem interested in all of the crazy training everybody else is doing to get ready for the race. The thing is, readers who've read "The Tortoise and the Hare" can smell the ending a mile away. It's terribly predictable and overall not a very good story.

My son loved this book. I bought it awhile ago, when he was just learning to read. It wasn't the right time. So, it set forgotten on a shelf. A year or two later, when one rainy Sunday afternoon he ran out of his favourite Magic Tree House books, we found this one. And he loved it. It is a little bit more challanging to read, but he sailed right through it!

This book is about a pen pal. Arthur thinks that his pen pal is a boy but it is a girl for real. I liked this book because it had really good pictures. I didn't like this book because it was too hard to read. I think kids should read this book.

This book is about Arthur's pen pal. I liked this book because it is cool. I didn't like this book because it had some hard words. I think this book is cool. It's really fun. I think kids should read this book.

I was very disappointed with the purchase of this book. Living on a tropical island I am surrounded by most, if not all of the plants in this guide. I was looking for a book to help me identify plants in my surroundings that I see on a day to day basis. While there are colour photographs with each plant description, it was difficult to recognise plants because the photos tended to focus mainly on the flowering part of the plant. This is especially frustrating when one wants to identify a tree or shrub.

The Poinciana, (here it is called Flamboyant) is an unmistakeable tree with flame red floweres and feathery leaves. The photo shows a close detail on the tree's flowers and leaves. I have never actually inspected the floweres of this tree up close, having only seen it's distinctive shape and of course flame red colour in parks and along roadways. Now that I have seen them in this book, I notice that they closely resemble those of a shrub called Barbados Pride! This could lead to confusion with someone who is totally unfamiliar with either plant!

The tree would be easier recognized if a picture of the tree itself was included. There is of course a magnificent photo of a Flamboyant on the back cover but I use this as only an example. No other tree or shrub is featured this way.

In short this book is completely useless to me in identifying plants. Everything looks familiar but I'm left with the feeling that I'm sure I've seen that plant somewhere but I don't know what it is:-(

For the serious tropical gardener, this is one book you must not be without.

The "Organization Of Information" section of this book I found to be very boring. I did however, immensely enjoy the rest of the book and would highly suggest it to anyone who grows a large majority of tropical plants.

Some of the plants mentioned in the book such as Albizia Lebbeck, I had been unable to find any information on previously. I was quite surprised at the large number of plants mentioned that were not common. There were also some plants they touched on that I was completely unfamiliar with. I thought this was great!

There are color photographs with each plant description and sometimes there is more than one photo showing various varieties of the plant. This is a real plus if you grow most everything from seeds or cuttings and have never seen these plants. There is a total of 458 photographs.

Although each plant only receives a small section, the descriptions do include information such as flowers or fruit, propagation, leaves and plant type. It also gives the common name of the plant and the index allows you to reference each plant by scientific name or common name.

Overall, I found it a highly useful book that will be one of the most used books I have. That's a very high compliment!

The only thing that might have been made it better was to move the explanation section to the back!

I cannot emphasize enough that this is one book you must have on your reference shelf!

This book should be a "must read" for anyone wanting to grow tropical plants.

This was the most comprehensive book about the tropical plants that I have read. It truly covered most of the tropicals that I wanted to look up. Most impressive.Very systematic. Had good information on flowering periods and propagation techniques. More details on growing these plants could enhance this book even more. All in all a very good addition to my tropical plants collection.

The Real F.W. Nietzsche would never argue against dissent of his views. He, unlike Wagner, wanted no disciples. He wanted critical commentary, and above all, he wanted to be challenged. The reality is that he was challenged everyday to write, even in extreme pain and half blind. This translation is an admirable effort, but it does fall short in emphasis on what Nietzsche tried to (really) say. His odd, broken, and subtle humor has been lost in many English translations. In truth nothing other than the original German, read by an accomplished student of the language, can really give insight into his mind. This is the same problem that exists in Carl Jung's writings. In my humble opinion Kaufmann is still one of the best German/English translations available. Kaufmann dispels many previous myths associated with Nietzsche especially when it comes to National Socialism, and Darwinism, both of which Nietzsche himself despised. One last note on Nietzsche: His opinion of Noble Morality vs Slave Morality is true even more today.

Sometimes, as I channel surf past some WWF goon belting another with a chair, I can't help but feel that we suffer from the opposite of the problems Nietzsche discussed, and that a little more suffocating bourgeoisie-Christian 'good culture' couldn't hurt. But that's neither here nor there.

I believe this book is considered transitional Nietzsche, having been written after _The Birth of Tragedy_ but before _Beyond Good and Evil_, _The Genealogy of Morals_, et cetera. It consists of four essays: on David Strauss, history, Schopenhauer, and Wagner respectively. In my opinion the 'history' essay is the most interesting; Nietzsche asserts that too much awareness of history enervates the mind, robbing it of the raw vigor he considered so important. Not en entirely original thought, perhaps, but knowledgeably and poetically argued.

This translation seems to be clearly the best of the three I perused in the bookstore: the vocabulary is sharp, forceful, and true to what I know of the German. I don't think this is the place to begin one's study of Nietzsche, but if Walter Kaufmann's collections (The Portable Nietzsche, The Basic Writings of Nietzsche) don't give you your fill, you could certainly pick up this one next.

I take my title for this review from the final sentence of Nietzsche's essay on "David Strauss the Confessor and the Writer." Nietzsche was finding himself in a troubling position, commenting on a work which was as subjective as it was without objective proof, while he was just an individual trying to make himself heard against the entire world, in order to adorn us with one more feather, "For as long, that is, as what was always timely -- and what today more than ever is timely and necessary -- is still considered unfashionable: speaking the truth." (p. 81) This masterly translation removes an element of contradiction which has tripped up those who used the title, "Untimely Meditations" for this book, as if we, of all people, didn't need to read it. Walter Kaufmann did not translate this early work by Nietzsche into English. While Kaufmann is widely recognized as having provided translations which were superior to what was previously available, Nietzsche in the original German ought to be considered better than any English version, and the truth with which Nietzsche was concerned in his essay on Strauss might have been particularly painful for any scholar who would like to remain at a high level in the esteem of his peers, for the insults in this work win every argument. From the first words of the first section, "Public opinion in Germany," (p. 5) Nietzsche displays a worry about "defeat -- indeed, the extirpation -- of the German spirit for the sake of the German Reich." (p. 5) Perhaps Kaufmann was never comfortable enough with the English language to make himself credible in a work that ends with a section on style: "perhaps Schopenhauer would give it the general title 'New Evidence for the Shoddy Jargon of Today,' for we might console David Strauss by saying . . . indeed, that some people write even more wretchedly than he does. . . . We do this because Strauss does not write as poorly as do the vilest of all the corrupters of German, the Hegelians and their crippled progeny." And Strauss of course, in Germany in 1873, was famous for providing the Germans with a guide to their beliefs and culture, much like the works of Walter Kaufmann on Goethe, Hegel, Nietzsche, etc., provide today's Americans with a view of individual self-control which seeks to guide public opinion above all, or over all, or whatever. Perhaps, given our current status as civilizers of Europe, Nietzsche might even maintain a view of the Americans who study his work in accord with what he said of Strauss, he "would by no means be dissatisfied if it were a bit more diabolical." (p. 20) This is only frighteningly inappropriate for those who see nothing but manipulation in matters of public opinion, which remains about as far from the truth as it can be stretched, and who are afraid of these things snapping back all over the place. I certainly think they are.