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:

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.