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What is the meaning of "Now" in the following sentence,
"No one else can weave as well as I can," Arachne boasted. "Not even the goddess Minerva could make anything so lovely and fine." Now Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods. She was proud of her weaving, too, and thought that no human could ever match her work.
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Does "Now" mean "As a result that Arachne boasted" ?
In this case, now is simply used to transition to an important point (definition 3 here). A comma could follow "now" without changing the meaning. Without "now," you might interpret the sentence to mean that Minerva did her weaving after Arachne's boast.
Although you're correct that "now" sometimes indicates a consequence (broadly, definitions 5 and 6 in the link), that's not the case here; you should not interpret "now" to mean that Arachne's boast prompted Minerva to start weaving.
Other ways to express the same meaning are
At the time, Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
You must realize that Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
Notably, Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
It was Minerva who wove the cloth for all the gods.
Consider this: Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
But guess what? Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
For your information, Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
Surprise! Minerva wove the cloth for all the gods.
