Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Holy Land Looks Like a Vagina

Warning, this post is for a mature audience and will likely offend anyone with refined tastes. You could have guessed that from the title I suppose, but in any event, you've been warned.

Today in Prophets and Prophecy we were talking about Amos and physical geography, as in Tekoa, Bethel, and the border between Judah and Israel. I showed this satellite image:
DeadSeaRegion
A student remarked that it looked like a vagina. She was correct. I hadn't noticed this before. This all led to an interesting tangent about vaginas and ancient Near Eastern history/archaeology/iconography. I said that scholars never say "vagina," but they say "pubic triangle" all the time because the topic comes up frequently. Why does the topic come up? Well, because there are vaginas all over the place in ancient literature and art. The original cuneiform sign for "woman" and "female" was a pictograph of a vagina, sort of like Eve getting her name because Adam sees her as "the mother of all living," sort of a baby making machine. Then there are all the fertility goddesses and amulets that are shaped like vaginas, and stories about goddesses and their great vaginas. For example, the beer goddess Ninkasi has a vagina that is described as tasting like sweet beer. The late scholar Tikva Frymer-Kensky described Inanna as the "cosmic cunt." At the very least, this all gives a very different nuance to the phrase "a land flowing with milk and honey." OK, that last sentence was a bit much. I'd better put an end to this vagina monoblog.

7 comments:

Mark Goodacre said...

Good grief, what is happening on the biblioblogs these days? First testicles, now vaginas. What next?

oyster said...

Is that why they call it the "Holiest of Holies"?

Anonymous said...

not to mention fisting ;-)

Leigh C. said...

It's all the stuff the fundamentalists downplay.

And I damn near wrote "foreplay" instead of "downplay". Ooooh, blasphemous. I'm scaaaared.

Aravah said...

Ha! I knew I couldn't be the only one out there who looks at the map of my beloved Yisrael and thinks - that looks almost exactly like a vagina!

Unknown said...

when I first saw Israel on Google earth I thought I was seeing things, but I kept looking at, it and it sure looks like a Vagina. I am not making fun of it, I personally have high respect for God and that country. But it makes me wonder that maybe it represents something symbolic, because after all if it wasn't for vagina none of us would be here today and it could be that the holy land represents the world's vagina and there is where every thing started. And if that's how it is may God bless the Israel and the Jewish people, and also every women on earth, for woman is the most wonderful creature that the lord created.

Anonymous said...

During my Torah Club meeting, the instructor passed around a cute little 3D map of the Holy Land. As I toyed with it, running the tips of my fingers over and over its ridges and folds, I was thinking to myself, Now what does this remind me of? Hmm...something... I almost dropped the dang thing. Somebody up there has a sense of humor! Female 49, SoCal