God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible–Almost–Scholar Says

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.

 

God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost
God's wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a theologian.
By Jennifer Viegas • Discovery News

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 [i.e., Ishtar or Esther] -- 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."

Comments

[Loshon Hora]

Nebach

[stickafinger init]

If earthlings marry, and marriage is blessed by G-d, why couldn't he have been married? Makes sense to me.

[ruthie]

good for g-d
strange in all my life growing up in a very jewish religious home i never ever heard this.
in some way, i don't believe it.

[moom]

By contrast, I thought: "How is any of this news?"

[yehudi]

Purim is over!
enough with the jokes.

[David]

By contrast, I thought: "How is any of this news?"

Posted by: moom | March 23, 2011 at 04:10 PM

I had the same thought. I thought this was common knowledge.

[David]

Note on my comment above: I meant common historical knowledge, not Jewish religious knowledge.

[EM]

I wonder if Shmaryah believes this garbage

[effie]

The thought of God leaving the toilet seat up is overwhelming to me.

[ombudsman]

Doesn't the old testament say to eradicate, ashera that the Canaanites worshipped? & doesn't it also say that some Jews worshipped it and that was one of the major reasons the prophets chastised the Jews in the name of God? This inscription is most probably from those wayward Jews. This reeks of ameturism.

[baruch]

Everything old is new again. To take this silliness a step further, are we to assume that the deity was bi-sexual living in an open marriage with not-so occasional dalliances with Baal? Makes one wonder if Asheirah ever suffered pangs of jealousy. And, of course, we have yet another example of the cruelty of an imetuous patriarchal tosser of thunderbolts who created a universe for his own pleasure yet neglected to create a supernal female playmate for his wife. What a chauvinistic pig! All that remains to be said is that the prolifically plagiarizing Francesca has dusted off Ralph Patai's ideas and repackaged them. A-choo!

[Adam Neira]

G-d is omniescent, omnipotent and omnipresent. He doesn't need a wife.

[Rivky]

a. this isn't original.

b. many scholars believe the writing and the inscription on kuntillet arjud were written by different sources

c. asherah can both be Asherah, the canaanite god, or an asherah, a cultic object representing Asherah, and in biblical hebrew, there cannot be a suffix ("his") on a proper name. therefore, whoever wrote the inscription was referring to asherah as referring to a cultic object, not to a person/god

[Zalman Alpert]

Total nonsense, Read Yecheskel Kaufmann's The Religion of Israel.
Perhaps I will write a book claiming that God had a child oops its already been done !

[Garnel Ironheart]

Where does this garbage come from? Don't these people have real jobs to do?
Or wait, they're "intellectuals".

[ah-pee-chorus]

this is pretty clear. its also clear that the author(s) of the bible were polytheistic and wanted the readers to migrate to monotheism.

"naaseh adam b'tsalmeinu ki'dmutainu"
this can only be referring to multiple gods creating man since it is written in plural form. the mephorshim/apologists explanation that this was referring to angels is utterly laughable.
and all of this is totally consistent and supportive with the bible having been written using a collection of known myths, creation stories, and names of gods the readers would already be familiar with.

[Yochanan Lavie]

When Yahweh davens, does he say "shelo asni Asherah?"

[Malcolm]

It could be that early Jews were polytheistic, but so what? It is obvious that Judaism has changed over the centuries. That might be news to the ultra-Orthodox, but not to scholars.

On the other hand it could also be that the apparent goddess is just an early version of the Shekhinah.

[A. Nuran]

Yep. It's probably what many of our ancestors believed. But since when has truth or accuracy mattered in religion?

[Jeff]

Perhaps he was coerced into give her a get.

[A. Nuran]

"We have evidence that your Sacred Books were edited."

"That's impossible. Our Sacred Books tell us that didn't happen."

[nobody]

What a joke. Someone who cites Dan Brown fantasy cannot be called a scholar!

[Dave]

So what, the people who worshipped Ashera were heretics. That's nothing new.

[PishPosh]

I suppose these scholars also posit that Jeroboam set up two Golden calf's to symbolize Mr and Mrs Gods pets. One to give milk and the other to fetch the newspaper.

And all this time I thought that we worshipped the head of an ass in the Temple as the Romans seemed to think? Or is that not a money grubbing theory that will pay next months rent?

You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols
Deuteronomy 7:5,

Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Erase the names of their gods from those places!
Deuteronomy 12:3,

You must never set up an Asherah pole beside the altar of the LORD your God! Deuteronomy 16:21

[Yoel Mechanic]

Let's see if I got this theory straight: Editors (that is male editors) didn't like the former concept of a pair of married deities, so edited it to reflect their new monotheistic theology. Like what were they thinking when doing this "editing"? But what were they smoking because apparently their editing was SO VERY SLOPPY that they left a remnant of the offending deity in there for all to see, so later scholars could figure out the ruse. Hm......

[cynic]

Really? scottie, share some more details about this 'Wife of Gd' you have just discovered. Do they have a good marriage? Do they visit a counselor, or are they Hareidi? Which school did the couple decide to send their kids?

[Aleksandr Sigalov]

You must break down their pagan altars and shatter their sacred pillars. Cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols
Deuteronomy 7:5,

Break down their altars and smash their sacred pillars. Burn their Asherah poles and cut down their carved idols. Erase the names of their gods from those places!
Deuteronomy 12:3,

You must never set up an Asherah pole beside the altar of the LORD your God! Deuteronomy 16:21

I think its all related to Genesis 30:13...

So, it means something like "happy" or "blessed" !?!...

I mean, the name of the whole Tribe of Israel is using this root...

[Jtb]

Patai was a real nut job...

[Maskil]

The ancient Hebrews had no concept of a "goddess." So much so there is a guy, a dude, in Tanach, the father of one of the Kings of Israel (non-Davidic) named Ela (which today would translate to "goddess"). It is also the name of a tree. As far back as the period of Golah Jews began feminizing male names by adding the feminine ending 'ah', where we see the appearance of names like Michaela. The Jews were solidly monotheistic at that point and it never occured to anyone that there was a conotation of goddess in these names.

THE TRUE STORY

In fact, in the ancient scripts, the letter 'heh' does not appear as an em ha-kriya, one of three consonants used to assist the reading of the text by indicating a vowel sound. Thus "A-SH-R" is what is actually found in those texts and ignorance has led "scholars" to determine what would later appear as "Asherah" (a tree used for worship as a diety or symbol of a diety) to revise the original A-SH-R. Purely ignorant revisionism in the name of scholarship. The truth is that YHWH's "parter" was Asher, and was male - and this was before gay marriage was outlawed and God got really homophobic. You know how vindictive homosexuals are, it was all because Asher left YHWH for another god and the next thing you know two guys is an "abomination" and God hates gay men.

These revisionists should be ashamed to call themselves academics.

[Pagan]

And all this time I thought that we worshipped the head of an ass in the Temple as the Romans seemed to think?

The head of an onager, not an ass. The god in question was the Edomite God of Dora. How he got to Jerusalem is a long story.

[Truth Pursuit]

unless she's withholding information the foundation of her point is wholly conjectural, during the first temple period the Jews intertwined many deities into their Judaic service, many of which were borrowed from the native cultures. Asheira was a fertility goddess in their circles so as many started to incorporate pagan ritual into Judaic services this goddess was also introduced. Hardly a proof that the 'males' edited 'her' out of the texts...

[bob]

this article is a journalist's rendition of old news--there is nothing new in it--I suggest that you read any of the books of NYU Professor Mark S. Smith, who has done great resarch into the origins of the ancient Isarelites and Jewish monotheism

[maven]

I think the headline is appropriate: "Almost–Scholar Says"
I also think it is offensive that an illustration of the JPS translation of the tanakh is used, which creates an illusion that this old bit of "scholarship" is found there.

[A E ANDERSON]

Very old news, indeed. The Prophets were constantly inveighing against idol worship, including that of Asherah and her tree, among the Hebrews.

Methinks somebody is just trying to dig a new hole in the landscape of Jewish history in which to plant her own new feminist Asherah.

[PishPosh]

"The head of an onager, not an ass."

As in "he couldnt find his Onager if he used both hands"

LOL.

[Hanna Moishezon]

They killed kids for Moloch and we are worrying if they worshipped God's wife

[Loveandlivethetorah.blogspot.com]

The Idiocy of this article is amazing.
Shmarya,are you just out to trash all of Masoretic Judaism,even if it means twisting the facts?

It is NOTHING NEW that the Jews had big problems with Idol worship,and at many points in time until the destruction of the second temple the majority of Jews were worshiping Idols.
One of these Idols was Ashera.
It is furthermore also a fact that the Jews would mix their idol worship with the worship of Hashem.
These things are mentioned numerous times in the Nakh and Talmud.
There was no hiding of these facts by anyone and no attempt to cover up a so called wife of God,because God is one and had no wife.
The fact that the majority of Jews could not stand up to the test of worshiping Idols and tried to mix their Idol worship with the worship of Hashem does not make their Idolatrous view correct.

Again,why you choose to post this as a something new can only be,(as you have done with other articles)is to shock and drum up viewers(it's working,i have to admit)but still,what about your intellectual honesty?

[Nigritude Ultramarine]

The head of an onager, not an ass. The god in question was the Edomite God of Dora. How he got to Jerusalem is a long story.
Posted by: Pagan | March 24, 2011 at 04:32 AM

Well, I'll be! An onager is a horse.

onager: An animal of a race of the Asian wild ass native to northern Iran

Web definitions

onager - Asiatic wild ass
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=onager

The Onager (Equus hemionus) is a large member of the genus Equus of the family Equidae (horse family) native to the deserts of Syria, Iran, Pakistan, India, Israel, and Tibet. It is sometimes known as the Wild Asian Ass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onager

[Dave]

Loveandlivethetorah, you make some very good points.

[Paul Freedman]

the idolatrous paganism of idol worship in Israelite folk religion is a major biblical theme, starting with the golden calf. biblical religion as a codified construct and ongoing priestly project was and is at once monotheistic, jealously so, and, anthropomorphic. priestly deism was complemented by folk polytheism. wikipedia for ashera is replete with prior scholarly readings of the archeological evidence to show the ubiquity of popular paganism--this does not challenge the high court monotheism of biblical Israel.

[Yoel Mechanic]

This reminds me of a quip once made about the higher biblical criticisms pundits: (paraphrasing) 'These are scholars who act like they just discovered the bible'. From the JDPE hypothesis, to the peasant revolt theory (aka "The Revolting Peasant Theory'"), minimalists, maximilists there is a lot of really really weak embroidery like theories. No wonder textual criticism has such a bad rep.

[Teddy]

What's NEWS about this?

That background information among youngsters in the Netherlands (Protestants, Roman-Catholics, Hindus and Jews) to compare their views of religion with the one of Muslims,showed that a) all religious youngsters ran into prejudices, but that that only turned serious for Jews and Muslims, but that on the other hand ONLY Protestants and ORTHODOX Jews, felt they had a religion fit for use in modern life???

That is news, this is old stuff.

[muffinman]

This is absolute rubbish. What female would be stupid enough to marry a sadistic monster who calls for her torture in order to give life, the murder of innocent children for the sins of their parents, and stoning to death youth who misbehave? Oh, wait, the same women who marry men who buy into this garbage and call it good. OK, maybe he had a wife. :o