I've been reading about the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) and it's fascinating because assuming that the oral history is true and they moved to Ethiopia before the destruction of the Second Temple, there's some fascinating parallel religious evolution with Christianity.
So, their texts (especially "Commandments of the Sabbath") personify the Sabbath as a female divine figure (so far, this is in keeping with where mainline Judaism went). But then she goes off to have all these adventures and battles and divine intercessions.
But then the text goes into "The souls of the sinners will love her in order that she may bring them out of Sheol [hell]." And then she stands at the entrance of hell, between the Lord and the sinners, and insists that they be forgiven.
She also demands that the Lord give into her keeping all who kept the Sabbath, regardless of any sins.
So, they evolved a tradition in which there's a figure who plays a parallel role to Jesus: saves sinners from divine retribution, harrows hell, is the merciful counterpoint to a punishing father deity. But she's female.
And in some ways, her salvation role is even stronger than that of Jesus: rather than just everyone who she saves goes to heaven, she actually requests and receives separate keeping of them from the Lord. So, it seems like she almost rules a separate heaven.
Oh, and also? She's a warrior queen. She's the one who leads the divine armies.
I don't have any profound conclusions to share here or anything. I just am fascinated and delighted that this exists and sort of wish I could read an alternate history where this became a dominant world religion instead of Christianity.
