Biblical research is a gift that
keeps on giving. It is our one clear
window into the lifeways of the Bronze Age and its culture. Other scraps have survived, but none so completely
as that of the Bible unless we accept much older lineages for some of the Indian
Scriptures. We should address that.
In the meantime, the original
pantheon consisted of Yahweh and Asherah which is mirrored by all the other pantheons
throughout the Near East . The cult of the one god appears to have been
tolerated up to the Babylonian exile when the leaders chose to effectively
suppress all other gods to create the modern Abrahamic religions.
The Levant
acted as a religious crucible for the Mesopotamian – Hittite cults, The
Egyptian cults including Atan, and the Cult of Baal which appears to be at
least the Mediterranean Phoenician cult.
We also have the Atlantean cult of Zeus and Poseidon identified.
It is startling to uncover ideas
and practice that properly explain the often otherwise unexplainable. Cross fertilization of these cults easily
produce and even explain the most bizarre assertions.
I wonder how many prayers to Yahweh
can be profitably rewritten as a prayer to the mother goddess.
GOD'S WIFE EDITED OUT OF THE BIBLE – ALMOST
God's wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a
theologian.
Fri Mar 18, 2011 07:00 AM ET
God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped
alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.
In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the
ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new
prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work
at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the
department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter .
Information presented in Stavrakopoulou's books, lectures and journal
papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe , where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah
connection.
"You might know him as Yahweh, Allah or God. But on this fact,
Jews, Muslims and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are
agreed: There is only one of Him," writes Stavrakopoulou in a statement
released to the British media. "He is a solitary figure, a single,
universal creator, not one God among many ... or so we like to believe."
"After years of research specializing in the history and religion
of Israel ,
however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable
conclusion that God had a wife," she added.
Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on ancient texts, amulets and figurines
unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now
modern-day Syria .
All of these artifacts reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.
Asherah's connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled
out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in
the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.
"The inscription is a petition for a blessing," she shares.
"Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from 'Yahweh and his
Asherah.' Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair.
And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which
help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife."
Also significant, Stavrakopoulou believes, "is the Bible's
admission that the goddess Asherah was worshiped in Yahweh's Temple
in Jerusalem . In
the Book of Kings, we're told that a statue of Asherah was housed in the temple
and that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her."
J. Edward Wright, president of both The Arizona Center for Judaic
Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, told Discovery
News that he agrees several Hebrew inscriptions mention "Yahweh and his
Asherah."
"Asherah was not entirely edited out of the Bible by its male
editors," he added. "Traces of her remain, and based on those traces,
archaeological evidence and references to her in texts from nations bordering
Israel and Judah, we can reconstruct her role in the religions of the Southern
Levant."
Asherah -- known across the ancient Near East by various other
names, such as Astarte and Istar -- was "an important deity, one who was
both mighty and nurturing," Wright continued.
"Many English translations prefer to translate 'Asherah' as
'Sacred Tree,'" Wright said. "This seems to be in part driven by a
modern desire, clearly inspired by the Biblical narratives, to hide Asherah
behind a veil once again."
"Mentions of the goddess Asherah in the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament) are rare and have been heavily edited by the ancient authors who
gathered the texts together," Aaron Brody, director of the Bade Museum
and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School
of Religion, said.
Asherah as a tree symbol was even said to have been "chopped down
and burned outside the Temple
in acts of certain rulers who were trying to 'purify' the cult, and focus on
the worship of a single male god, Yahweh," he added.
The ancient Israelites were polytheists, Brody told Discovery News,
"with only a small minority worshiping Yahweh alone before the historic
events of 586 B.C." In that year, an elite community within Judea was
exiled to Babylon and the Temple
in Jerusalem
was destroyed. This, Brody said, led to "a more universal vision of strict
monotheism: one god not only for Judah , but for all of the
nations."
That many pre-exilic Israelites practiced polytheism is not a new discovery, nor does it contradict the Bible. The Bible condemns polytheism as idolatry. but it freely admits that a lot of Israelites practiced it anyway. In fact, the Bible basically lists Israeli polytheism as one of the reasons why Israel was exiled.
ReplyDeleteReferences to "Yahweh and his Asherah" could as easily be seen as example of apostate syncretism as they could be seen as examples of pre-monotheistic Judaism.