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In the Biblical / Apocryphal book {{bibleverse|2|Maccabees|6:1-4}} the Greek rulers of Jerusalem are accused of bringing prostitutes (''hetairai'') into the Jerusalem Temple and having sex with them there. The text is not explicit, but the Jewish author apparently is indicating that this was considered a Greek religious custom.
In the Biblical / Apocryphal book {{bibleverse|2|Maccabees|6:1-4}} the Greek rulers of Jerusalem are accused of bringing prostitutes (''hetairai'') into the Jerusalem Temple and having sex with them there. The text is not explicit, but the Jewish author apparently is indicating that this was considered a Greek religious custom.

==Buddhism==
[[File:MET Asian Wing.jpg|thumb|Loving Couple, [[Maithuna]], Eastern Ganga dynasty, 13th century Orissa, [[India]]]]
In [[Tantric Buddhism]], [[yab-yum]] is the male [[deity]] in sexual union with his female [[wikt:consort|consort]]. The symbolism is associated with [[Anuttarayoga tantra]] where the male figure is usually linked to compassion (''{{IAST|karuṇā}}'') and skillful means (''[[upaya|upāya-kauśalya]]''), and the female partner to 'insight' (''prajñā'').<ref>Keown, Damien. (2003). ''A Dictionary of Buddhism'', p. 338. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860560-9.</ref>

The symbolism of union and sexual polarity is a central teaching in Tantric Buddhism, especially in [[Tibet]]. The union is realized by the practitioner as a [[mystical experience]] within one's own body.<ref>Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. "Yab Yum Iconography and the Role of Women in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism." ''The Tibet Journal''. Vol. XXII, No. 1. Spring 1997, pp. 12-34.</ref> Yab-yum is generally understood to represent the primordial (or mystical) union of wisdom and compassion <ref>[http://www.seriousseekers.com/News%20and%20Articles/pallis_marriagewisdommethod.pdf The Marriage of Wisdom and Method] By Marco Pallis</ref>.

[[Maithuna]] is a [[Sanskrit]] term used in [[Tantra]] most often translated as [[tantric sexuality|sexual union]] in a ritual context. It constitutes the main part of the Grand Ritual of Tantra known as [[Panchamakara]], [[Panchatattva]], and Tattva Chakra.

Maithuna refers to male-female couples and their union in the physical, sexual sense and is synonymous with [[kriya]] nishpatti (mature cleansing). <ref>[[Kamala Devi]] ''The Eastern Way of Love'', pp. 19-27, [[Simon and Schuster]], 1977 ISBN 0-671-22448-4</ref> Just as neither spirit nor matter by itself is effective but both working together bring harmony so is maithuna effective only then when the union is [[consecrated]]. The couple become for the time being divine: she is [[Shakti]] and he is [[Shakta]]. The scriptures warn that unless this spiritual transformation occurs the union is carnal and sinful.<ref>Omar Garrison ''Tantra: the [[Yoga]] of Sex'', p. 103, Causeway Books, 1964 ISBN 0-88356-015-1</ref>




==Christianity==
==Christianity==

Revision as of 16:56, 14 September 2010

Sacred prostitution, temple prostitution, or religious prostitution is a practice of worship that includes hieros gamos or sacred marriage performed as a fertility rite and part of sacred sexual ritual.

Ancient Near East

Inanna/Ishtar depicted wearing the ceremonial headdress of the High Priestess.

In the Ancient Near East along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers there were many shrines and temples or "houses of heaven" dedicated to various deities documented by the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus in The Histories[1] where sacred prostitution was a common practice.[2] According to Samuel Noah Kramer in The Sacred Marriage Rite, in late Sumerian history kings established their legitimacy by taking part in the ceremony in the temple for one night, on the tenth day of the New Year festival Akitu.[3] It came to an end when the emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD destroyed the goddess temples and replaced them with Christianity.[4] The practice is sometimes disputed, claiming that the sources have been misunderstood.[5].

Mesopotamia

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus was the first to state that the ancient Mesopotamians practiced temple prostitution:

The foulest Babylonian custom is that which compels every woman of the land to sit in the temple of Aphrodite and have intercourse with some stranger once in her life. Many women who are rich and proud and disdain to mingle with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages drawn by teams, and stand there with a great retinue of attendants. But most sit down in the sacred plot of Aphrodite, with crowns of cord on their heads; there is a great multitude of women coming and going; passages marked by line run every way through the crowd, by which the men pass and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her place there, she does not go away to her home before some stranger has cast money into her lap, and had intercourse with her outside the temple; but while he casts the money, he must say, “I invite you in the name of Mylitta” (that is the Assyrian name for Aphrodite). It does not matter what sum the money is; the woman will never refuse, for that would be a sin, the money being by this act made sacred. So she follows the first man who casts it and rejects no one. After their intercourse, having discharged her sacred duty to the goddess, she goes away to her home; and thereafter there is no bribe however great that will get her. So then the women that are fair and tall are soon free to depart, but the uncomely have long to wait because they cannot fulfill the law; for some of them remain for three years, or four. There is a custom like this in some parts of Cyprus.[6]

Sacred Marriage

Sacred prostitution was common in certain Ancient Near Eastern cultures [7] as a form of "Sacred Marriage" or Hieros gamos between the king of a Sumerian city-state and the High Priestess of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare. Along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers there were many shrines and temples dedicated to Inanna. The temple of Eanna, meaning "house of heaven"[8] in Uruk[9] was the greatest of these. The temple housed priestesses of the goddess. The high priestess would choose for her bed a young man who represented the shepherd Dumuzid, consort of Inanna, in a hieros gamos or sacred marriage, celebrated during the annual Akitu (New Year) ceremony, at the spring Equinox.

In ancient texts

Main article: History of human sexuality
Detail from Khajuraho Group of Monuments in India.

The ancient texts celebrate the sacred nature of human sexuality[10] The Song of Songs is a book of the Hebrew Bible that explores an important religious dimension to sexuality, the love between a man and woman who are not married.[11] In the Hebrew Zohar there were four fallen angels of prostitution, the wives of archangel Samael. They were Lilith, Eisheth Zenunim, Agrat Bat Mahlat and Naamah. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, priestess Shamhat tames wild Enkidu after "six days and seven nights." The Hindu Tantras integrate sexuality into spiritual practice.[12]

Ancient priestesses

Handmaiden of the Goddess

In Mesopotamian mythology, Lilitû is called the handmaiden of the goddess Inanna or "hand of Inanna." The Sumerian texts state that "Inanna has sent the beautiful, unmarried, and seductive prostitute Lilitû out into the fields and streets in order to lead men astray." That is why Lilitû is called the "hand of Inanna."[18][19] Babylonian texts depict Lilith as the sacred prostitute of the goddess Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna.

In the Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible uses two different words for prostitute, zonah (זנה)‎[20][21] and kedeshah (קדשה)‎.[15][22] The word zonah simply meant an ordinary prostitute or loose woman.[21] But the word kedeshah literally means "consecrated (feminine form)", from the Semitic root q-d-sh (קדש)‎ meaning "holy" or "set apart".[15] Qedesha also became the Canaanite name for their goddess of sex (or perhaps a title for either the goddess Astarte or the goddess Asherah in this role), adapted into Egyptian as Qetesh or Qudshu.[23]

Whatever the cultic significance of a kedeshah to a follower of the Canaanite religion, the Hebrew Bible is quick to connect the term with a common prostitute. Thus Deuteronomy 23:17–18 warns followers:

None of the daughters of Israel shall be a kedeshah, nor shall any of the sons of Israel be a kadesh.
You shall not bring the hire of a prostitute (zonah) or the wages of a dog (keleb) into the house of the Lord your God to pay a vow, for both of these are an abomination to the Lord your God.

The religious aspect of kedeshah is underlined by the ancient Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Koine Greek, which renders the first verse as a double prohibition, both against prostitution, and against being an initiate of foreign cults:

None of the daughters of Israel shall be a prostitute (porne), neither shall any of the sons of Israel be porneuon;
none of the daughters of Israel shall be an initiate (telesphoros), neither shall of the sons of Israel be a teliskomenos.[24][25]

It is notable that every occurrence of the female kedeshah appears to be paired, at least to some degree, with the word zonah.[25] Thus Hosea (4:14), in a sequence complaining that the men of Israel have not remained true to Yahweh, but instead have gone whoring after foreign gods, writes using the parallelism typical of Biblical Hebrew poetry:

I will not punish your daughters when they act like a zonah


   Or your brides when they commit adultery,
For the men themselves go with zonot[26]


   And offer sacrifices with kedeshot.

Even closer is the association in the one other usage, the story of Tamar at Genesis 38, where the two words seem to be being used effectively interchangeably.

Tamar, left widowed and childless, disguises herself and tricks Judah into thinking she is a zonah (38:15) to get herself pregnant. But a few verses later Judah's friend the Adullamite, sent to find the woman again, asks the men of the place "Where is the kedeshah, that was openly by the way side?" And they reply, "There was no kedeshah in this place," (38:21) which he duly reports to Judah. (38:22).

The meaning of the male form kadesh or qadesh is not entirely clear.[27] Some early English translations, following the Greek porneuon, rendered it as a "whoremonger" - i.e. a prostitute-seller or pimp;[28] but it may have been a closer analogue of kedeshah, i.e. a male cultic attendant, apparently again with some sexual implication, hence the King James translation as "sodomite". Many recent translations simply say "cult prostitute".[29] The Hebrew word keleb (dog) in the next line may also signify a male dancer or prostitute,[30] perhaps a transvestite or eunuch. The cuneiform sign UR.SAL for assinnu (a male devotee of Ishtar who took on feminine characteristics) means both "dog" and "man/woman";[25] while in Greek the word kinaidos ("dog-like";[31] Latin cinaedus) was used for men who were flamboyantly effeminate and behaved as though they were on heat for homosexual advances. In the New Testament the word "dog" may have a similar meaning at Revelation 22:15.[25] The kadeshim are also mentioned four times in the Books of Kings (1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7), when they evidently rose to some prominence, until purged by Jahwist revivalist kings such as Jehoshaphat and Josiah. Again, ancient translations vary. At 1 Kings 15:12 the Septuagint hellenises them as teletai - personifications of the presiding spirits at the initiation rites of the Bacchic orgies. Aquila at all four instances translates them as endiellagmenoi ("changed ones"), while the Vulgate of St. Jerome renders them as effeminati.

In other texts

The Canaanite equivalent of Ishtar was Astarte, and according to the contemporary Christian writer Eusebius temple prostitution was still being carried on in the Phoenician cities of Aphaca and Heliopolis (Baalbek) until closed down by the emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD.[32]

In Ancient Greece, known cases of "Sacred prostitution" were in Sicily, in the Kingdom of Pontus Cyprus, in Cappadocia, and the city of Corinth where the temple of Aphrodite housed a significant number of servants at least since the classical antiquity. In 464 BC a man named Xenophon, a citizen of Corinth who was an acclaimed runner and winner of pentathlon at the Olympic Games, dedicated one hundred young girls to the temple of the goddess as a sign of thanksgiving. We know this because of a hymn which Pindar was commissioned to write (fragment 122 Snell), celebrating "the very welcoming girls, servants of Peïtho and luxurious Corinth" .[33] During the Roman period, Strabo states that the temple had more than a thousand sacred slave-prostitutes (VIII, 6, 20).

Other examples from Greek sources have not been examined in the scholarly literature. For instance, Diotima is a female character in Plato's Symposium 202-210. She is introduced as someone consulted by the city concerning a series of sacrifices, thus a religious authority. She is also introduced as a teacher of "erotics." Though Plato uses her to transcend sexuality, this is effective only if "erotics" is understood as a reference to the sexuality which Plato wants to transcend.

In the Biblical / Apocryphal book 2 Maccabees 6:1–4 the Greek rulers of Jerusalem are accused of bringing prostitutes (hetairai) into the Jerusalem Temple and having sex with them there. The text is not explicit, but the Jewish author apparently is indicating that this was considered a Greek religious custom.

Buddhism

Loving Couple, Maithuna, Eastern Ganga dynasty, 13th century Orissa, India

In Tantric Buddhism, yab-yum is the male deity in sexual union with his female consort. The symbolism is associated with Anuttarayoga tantra where the male figure is usually linked to compassion (karuṇā) and skillful means (upāya-kauśalya), and the female partner to 'insight' (prajñā).[34]

The symbolism of union and sexual polarity is a central teaching in Tantric Buddhism, especially in Tibet. The union is realized by the practitioner as a mystical experience within one's own body.[35] Yab-yum is generally understood to represent the primordial (or mystical) union of wisdom and compassion [36].

Maithuna is a Sanskrit term used in Tantra most often translated as sexual union in a ritual context. It constitutes the main part of the Grand Ritual of Tantra known as Panchamakara, Panchatattva, and Tattva Chakra.

Maithuna refers to male-female couples and their union in the physical, sexual sense and is synonymous with kriya nishpatti (mature cleansing). [37] Just as neither spirit nor matter by itself is effective but both working together bring harmony so is maithuna effective only then when the union is consecrated. The couple become for the time being divine: she is Shakti and he is Shakta. The scriptures warn that unless this spiritual transformation occurs the union is carnal and sinful.[38]


Christianity

There are many instances of surviving visual representations in Christian churches and cathedrals that are difficult to explain using Christian theology.[citation needed]

Sheela na Gig at SS Mary and David's Church, Kilpeck, England

One such example is the Sheela na Gig, a stone carving found in Romanesque Christian churches scattered throughout Europe. The figures are found in Ireland, Great Britain, France, Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Belgium and in the Czech Republic. They are figurative carvings of naked women displaying an exaggerated vulva. It is said that they are there to keep evil spirits away (see apotropaic magic). They are often positioned over doors or windows, presumably to protect these openings. Their meaning is not clearly identifiable as Christian, and may be a concept that survived from ancient forms of yoni worship and sacred prostitution practiced in the goddess temples that the churches replaced. They are very similar to the Baubo, the Greek goddess of sacred sexuality.[39]

Hinduism

The practice devadasi and similar customary forms of hierodulic prostitution, as it has come to be seen, in Southern India (such as basavi),[40] involving dedicating pre-pubescent and young adolescent girls from villages in a forced ritual marriage to a deity or a temple, who then work in the temple and function as spiritual guides, dancers, and prostitutes servicing male devotees in the temple.

Human Rights Watch reports affirm that devadasis are forced into this service, and at least in some cases, to practice prostitution for upper-caste members.[41]

Various state governments in India have enacted laws to ban this practice prior to India's independence and since. They include Bombay Devdasi Act, 1934, Devdasi (Prevention of dedication) Madras Act, 1947, Karnataka Devdasi (Prohibition of dedication) Act, 1982, and Andhra Pradesh Devdasi (Prohibition of dedication) Act, 1988.[42]

Central and South America

The Mayans maintained several phallic religious cults, possibly involving homosexual temple prostitution.[43][44] Aztec religious leaders were heterosexually celibate and engaged in homosexuality with one another as a religious practice, temple idols were often depicted engaging in homosexuality, and the god Xochipili (taken from both Toltec and Mayan cultures) was both the patron of homosexuals and homosexual prostitutes.[44][45][46][47] The Inca sometimes dedicated young boys as temple prostitutes. The boys were dressed in girls clothing, and chiefs and headmen would have ritual homosexual intercourse with them during religious ceremonies and on holidays.[48][49]

A Marigold/tapestry depicting Ichpuchtli
  • Ichpuchtli is a goddess of Sacred prostitution, ruler of love, marriage, flowers, art, music, women, magic, spinning, fertility, sex, weaving, and changes.
  • Xochiquetzal is a goddess of sexual power, patroness of prostitutes and artisans involved in the manufacture of luxury items.[50]

The conquistadores were horrified by the widespread acceptance of homosexuality, ephebophilia, pederasty, and pedophilia among Central and South American peoples, and used torture, burning at the stake, mass beheadings, and other means to stamp it out both as a religious practice and social custom.[44]

Revisionist criticism of "widespread sacred prostitution"

Recently some scholars, such as Robert A. Oden,[51] Stephanie Lynn Budin[52] and others,[53] have questioned whether sacred prostitution, as an institution whereby women and men sold sex for the profit of deities and temples, did in fact ever actually exist at all. Julia Assante believes that the classical view of temple prostitution is more of a construct of the 19th Century Western European mindset than a true representation of the facts.[54] While there may well have been some religious prostitution centred around the temples of Inanna/Ishtar, Assante suggests that the concept of the 'Sacred Marriage' hieros gamos has in fact been misunderstood. It was previously believed to have been a custom whereby the king coupled with the high priestess to represent the union of Dumuzid with Inanna (later called Ishtar).[55] It's much more likely that these unions never occurred, but were embellishments to the image of the king; hymns which praise Middle Eastern kings for coupling with the goddess Ishtar often also speak of him as running 320 kilometres, offering sacrifices, feasting with the sun-god Utu, and receiving a royal crown from An, all in a single day. Once scholar comments: "No one, to the best of my knowledge, has been so wooden-minded to propose that human actors played the role of Utu and An at the banquet" .[56] Not all authors are convinced, however.[55]

Recent Western occurrences

In the 1970s and early 1980s, some religious cults practiced sacred prostitution as an instrument to recruit new converts. Among them was the alleged cult Children of God, also known as The Family, who called this practice "Flirty Fishing". They later abolished the practice due to the growing AIDS epidemic.[57]

In Ventura County, California, Wilbur and Mary Ellen Tracy established their own temple, the Church Of The Most High Goddess, in the wake of what they described as a divine revelation. Sexual acts played a fundamental role in the church's sacred rites, which were performed by Mary Ellen Tracy herself in her assumed role of High Priestess.[58] Local newspaper articles about the Neopagan church quickly aroused the attention of local law enforcement officials, and in April 1989, the Tracy's house was searched and the couple arrested on charges of pimping, pandering and prostitution. They were subsequently convicted in a trial in state court and sentenced to jail terms: Wilbur Tracy for 180 days plus a $1,000.00 fine; Mary Ellen Tracy for 90 days plus mandatory screening for STDs.[59][60]

See also

References

  1. ^ Herodotus, The Histories 1.199, tr A.D. Godley (1920)
  2. ^ See, for example, James Frazer (1922), The Golden Bough, 3e, Chapter 31: Adonis in Cyprus
  3. ^ "Encounters In The Gigunu". Bibliotecapleyades.net. Retrieved 2010-05-23.
  4. ^ Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.55 and 3.58
  5. ^ Stephanie Budin, The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
  6. ^ Herodotus, The Histories 1.199, tr A.D. Godley (1920)
  7. ^ James Frazer (1922), The Golden Bough, 3e, Chapter 31: Adonis in Cyprus
  8. ^ é-an-na = sanctuary ('house' + 'Heaven'[='An'] + genitive) [John Halloran's Sumerian Lexicon v. 3.0 -- see link below]
  9. ^ modern-day Warka, Biblical Erech
  10. ^ Sacred Sexuality
  11. ^ All of the Bible is holy, but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies. 2004
  12. ^ Sacred Sexuality
  13. ^ Sarah Dening (1996), The Mythology of Sex, Macmillan, ISBN 978-0028612072. Ch.3. [1]
  14. ^ Jeremy Black (1998), Reading Sumerian Poetry, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-485-93003-X. pp 142. [2]
  15. ^ a b c Blue Letter Bible, Lexicon results for qĕdeshah (Strong's H2181), incorporating Strong's Concordance (1890) and Gesenius's Lexicon (1857).
  16. ^ Also transliterated qĕdeshah, qedeshah, qědēšā ,qedashah, kadeshah, kadesha, qedesha, kdesha. A modern liturgical pronunciation would be k'deysha
  17. ^ Plinio Prioreschi (1991), A History of Medicine, Horatius Press, ISBN 1-888456-00-0. pp 376. [3]
  18. ^ S.H. Langdon p.74
  19. ^ Hurwitz (1980) p.58
  20. ^ Associated with the corresponding verb zanah.
  21. ^ a b Blue Letter Bible, Lexicon results for zanah (Strong's H2181), incorporating Strong's concordance (1890) and Gesenius's Lexicon (1857)
  22. ^ Also transliterated qĕdeshah, qedeshah, qědēšā ,qedashah, kadeshah, kadesha, qedesha, kdesha. A modern liturgical pronunciation would be k'deysha.
  23. ^ Johanna Stuckey, The "Holy One", MatriFocus, 2007
  24. ^ Blue Letter Bible, Lexicon / Concordance for Deu 23:17 and Deu 23:18 (note that the Septuagint numbering has slipped by one verse, compared to the Hebrew)
  25. ^ a b c d Kim Kemmis (2002), Deuteronomy 23:17,18
  26. ^ Plural of zonah.
  27. ^ Anderson, Ray Sherman (2001), The shape of practical theology: empowering ministry with theological praxis, InterVarsity Press, p. 267, ISBN 9780830815593
  28. ^ Douay-Rheims Bible, Young's Literal Translation
  29. ^ For example, the New American Standard Bible
  30. ^ Lexicon results for keleb (Strong's H3611), incorporating Strong's Concordance (1890) and Gesenius's Lexicon (1857).
  31. ^ But an alternative etymology is from kineo ("I move") + Aidos (the goddess of Shame)
  32. ^ Eusebius, Life of Constantine, 3.55 and 3.58
  33. ^ Template:Fr icon Trans. Jean-Paul Savignac for les éditions La Différence, 1990.
  34. ^ Keown, Damien. (2003). A Dictionary of Buddhism, p. 338. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860560-9.
  35. ^ Herrmann-Pfandt, Adelheid. "Yab Yum Iconography and the Role of Women in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism." The Tibet Journal. Vol. XXII, No. 1. Spring 1997, pp. 12-34.
  36. ^ The Marriage of Wisdom and Method By Marco Pallis
  37. ^ Kamala Devi The Eastern Way of Love, pp. 19-27, Simon and Schuster, 1977 ISBN 0-671-22448-4
  38. ^ Omar Garrison Tantra: the Yoga of Sex, p. 103, Causeway Books, 1964 ISBN 0-88356-015-1
  39. ^ http://www.beyond-the-pale.org.uk/zxBauboBeset.htm
  40. ^ Anti-Slavery Society. Child Hierodulic Servitude in India and Nepal
  41. ^ Human Rights Watch. Caste: Asia's Hidden Apartheid
  42. ^ United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Thirty-seventh session: 15 January – 2 February 2007
  43. ^ Thompson, John Eric Sidney. The Rise and Fall of Maya Civilization. 2d ed. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973. ISBN 0-8061-0301-9
  44. ^ a b c Greenberg, David. The Construction of Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. ISBN 0-226-30628-3
  45. ^ Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. The True History of the Conquest of New Spain. Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham, ed. Cambridge, Mass.: Library Reprints, 2008. ISBN 1-4227-8345-6; Trexler, Richard C. Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas. Paperback ed. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8014-8482-0; Keen, Benjamin. The Aztec Image in Western Thought. Paperback ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-8135-1572-6; Idell, Albert. The Bernal Diaz Chronicles. New York: Doubleday, 1956.
  46. ^ Mendelssohn, Kurt. Riddle of the Pyramids. Paperback ed. New York: Thames & Hudson Ltd., 1986. ISBN 0-500-27388-X; Estrada, Gabriel S. "An Aztec Two-Spirit Cosmology: Re-sounding Nahuatl Masculinities, Elders, Femininities, and Youth." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 24:2 & 3 (2003).
  47. ^ Taylor, Clark L. "Legends, Syncretism, and Continuing Echoes of Homosexuality from Pre-Columbian and Colonial Mexico." In Male Homosexuality in Central and South America. Paperback ed. Stephen O. Murray, ed. San Francisco: Instituto Obregon, 1987. ISBN 0-942777-58-1
  48. ^ Guerra, Francisco. The Pre-Columbian Mind. Burlington, Mass.: Academic Press, Inc., 1971. ISBN 0-12-841050-7
  49. ^ Flornoy, Bertrand. The World of the Incas. Trans. by Winifred Bradford. New York: Vanguard Press, 1956; Scott, George Ryley. Phallic Worship. London, Luxor, 1966; Brundage, Burr Cartwright. Lords of Cuzco: A History and Description. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967; Murra, Victor. The Economic Organization of the Inka State. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, 1980. ISBN 0-89232-118-0.
  50. ^ Clendinnen (1991, p.163); Miller & Taube (1993, p.190); Smith (2003, p.203)
  51. ^ Robert A. Oden (1987), The Bible Without Theology: The Theological Tradition and Alternatives to It, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-06870-X. pp 131-153.
  52. ^ Stephanie Lynn Budin (2008), The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-88090-4. Preview: pages 1-10. Mailing-list discussion on some classical and near-East references.
  53. ^ Recent papers skeptical of cult prostitution in the Ancient Near East
  54. ^ Assante, Julia. 2003. "From Whores to Hierodules: The Historiographic Invention of Mesopotamian Female Sex Professionals." Pp.13-47 in Ancient Art and Its Historiography. Edited by A.A. Donahue and M.D. Fullerton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  55. ^ a b John Day (2004), Does the Old Testament Refer to Sacred Prostitution and Did it Actually Exist in Ancient Israel? in Carmel McCarthy & John F Healey (eds), Biblical and Near Eastern Essays: Studies in Honour of Kevin J. Cathcart. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 2-21
  56. ^ Sweet, R. "A New Look at the 'Sacred Marriage' in Ancient Mesopotamia," in E. Robbins and S. Sandahl, eds., Corolla Torontonensis. Studies in Honour of Ronald Morton Smith (Toronto, 1994) 85-104.
  57. ^ Williams, Miriam (1998). Heaven's Harlots. New York: William Morrow/ Harper Collins. p. 320. ISBN 978-0688170127. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  58. ^ Weekly World News article about Wilbur and Mary Ellen Tracy, with photograph of subjects
  59. ^ New York Times: "Religion Based On Sex Gets A Judicial Review," May 2, 1990
  60. ^ Star-News, December 25, 1991
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