As we all know, the Bible tends to overlook and often look down on women. The priests and scribes who were in charge of it did everything they could to emphasize the maleness of God, thus supporting the social organization in place. However, we can also detect in their writings the obvious fact that most of the people and many of the nobles of Israel liked to turn to goddesses like Asherah, who they could expect to be more sympathetic and compassionate than YHWH, and that the Jewish people, in their legendary past, had other gods and goddesses (think of Rachel's teraphim, get a Bible commentary that talks about how the OT interacts with Near Eastern myths in attempting to have YHWH absorb the characteristics and titles of other gods and goddesses, note the lateness of even the prophetic condemnation of Asherah compared to the early condemnation of Ba'al worship). This is also confirmed by the archeological evidence that has been uncovered in recent years. Anyone interested can google the subject, the details of which I don't feel like going into further here. I can't help but wonder what the history of western civilization would have been like if the priests and scribes and prophets had not been successful in stamping out the common people's more ballanced conception of God. I suspect that the desires like deadening the body, dominating others, and scorning nature would have been condemned, not glorified. What would the world be like if instead of the nation of Israel being the submissive wife of Jehovah, he were married to Asherah?
Asherah, the wife of YHWH
by veradico 9 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Doug Mason
Have you read this book?
"It Ain't Necessarily So: Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past" by Matthew Sturgis (see the Index at the rear of the book), ISBN 0 7472 4510 X
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Clam
Interesting Veradico.
most of the people and many of the nobles of Israel liked to turn to goddesses like Asherah, who they could expect to be more sympathetic and compassionate than YHWH
Yes there's something to be said for a female god. Fathers often expect their children to measure up to something, but Mothers love their children unconditionally. Maybe a god that was too forgiving would not be compatable with the religious despots who need fear to maintain control?
Clam
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Narkissos
Just to refrain your feminist enthusiasm : goddesses are not always exactly sweet. Some of the fiercest depictions of Yhwh ("smashing the skulls of his enemies," for instance) seem to derive from the texts about Anat (Baal's consort in Ugarit, hence in a position similar to Asherah in Israel)...
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veradico
Sorry I never responed everyone! I gave this thread up for dead. Narkissos, I agree. To my mind, female villans are far more scary than male ones. Lady Macbeth, Kali, etc... I would much rather have a guy be angry with me. Still, I think their popularity comes from the intuition expressed by Clam, and I would maintain that the attempt by the Jewish priesthood to exclude the feminine from the divine was unhealthy and has had a negative cultural influence on Western civilization. Doug Mason, thanks for the reference. I'll check the book out. I'd actually like to take this opportunity to change my whole subject heading. I recently read a article that argued that "asherah," like the name of Jehovah's father "el" (which got softened to simply mean something like "god"), came to mean "divine consort, image of the divine consort." Asherah was originally the wife of El, but Ashtoreth remained the personal name of the YHWH's consort.
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veradico
I figured I should track down the reference for the argument that Asherah was, like her husband El ("god, divinity") demoted from a proper name to mean "goddess, divine consort." (It can be found at http://cc.usu.edu/~fath6/bible.htm) This would resolve the grammatical problem of the pronominal suffix on the inscriptions at Kuntillet 'Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom and does not require a (for me at least) less-intuitive (particularly in the context of the use of the preposition l with the verb brk) common noun meaning for asherah like "sacred pole." Thus, the inscription would mean "by Yehowah of Samaria and by his consort." Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 40, Fasc. 3 (1990), p. 269 argues the reverse, namely, that the word originally meant "divine consort" and then became a personal name. (Perhaps the personal name became a common noun and then was revived to the status of a divine name again? I'd have to look more closely into the chronology.) Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 49, Fasc. 3 (199), pp. 319ff. argues against all of the interpretations that would make asherah in the inscriptions a personal noun, but, in doing so, it summarizes many of the opposing arguments. It's worth reading. I find the "divine consort" interpretation compelling for the following reason. El's wife was Asherah. Ba'al's wife was Ashtoreth (Ishtar, Astarte). Later, as Narkissos mentions, Ba'al took his father's wife (as well as most of his divine functions), and, just as Ba'al had little trouble absorbing El, YHWH easily becomes identified with El. There is a clear conflict between Ba'al and YHWH in the OT. Ba'al remains a potent personality, rarely meaning merely "lord." On the other hand, there are only a few passages in Deut. and the Psalms where El manages to survive as a personal god. I would argue that the fates of Asherah and Ashtoreth mirrored the fates of their divine spouses. Asherah was easily defeated and became a generic title for the divine consort and her icons, but Ashtoreth remained the name of the goddess.
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Leolaia
veradico....Have you seen my old post on Asherah? I have a hypothesis that the Garden of Eden narrative contains a veiled polemic against Asherah and alludes to the deuteronomistic reform which removed her from the Jerusalem Temple (= Eden). This is based on the fact that Eve (i.e. Chawat in Phoenician) is a known epithet for Asherah, Asherah was associated with snakes and the "tree of life" (which Asherah iconically represented as a tree or pole), Eve is called the "mother of all living" in Genesis in language that evokes Ugaritic texts about Asherah, whereas Asherah healing spells from Ras Shamra contain language evocative of Genesis 2-3, the parallel between the eviction of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and the eviction of the asherah pole from the Temple in 2 Kings 18:4, 21:7, 23:4-6, the reference of Temple priestesses weaving clothes for Asherah in 2 Kings 23:7 and the reference in Ezekiel 16:16 to the cultic practice of placing clothes on the images, and a likely remnant of this practice in the tying of rags and clothes to sacred trees for healing purposes (moreover, eating fruit from these trees is "strictly forbidden").
Sekhmet-Hathor was another female goddess who was incredibly violent and bloody. I love the ruse to trick her to stop her wanton slaughter by pouring out blood-colored beer to the ground, and getting her snockered.
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veradico
Leolaia, I just read your thread. I think the points you mention definitely tap into a lot of what is going on in the Eden myth. (I love how myths can be endlessly unpacked. For example, if I recall correctly, your thread on Sodom mentions another aspect of the Eden myth, namely, the way in which humans, by eating of the Tree of Knowledge, are attempting to become fully divine, having both immortality and divine knowledge. All of the ancients seem to have agreed that the natural result of such hubris should be dire. I think the myth also speaks to a basic intuition that when the world of life is divided into "good" and "evil" and all the other catagories, something precious is lost and humanity becomes alienated from its own world. Humanity already had immortality in a sense, and the image of the snake captures wonderfully the link between reproduction and immortality. It's a grand paradox of the story that in seeking what they already had, they lost what they had.) I agree with your identification of Zion with Zaphon, the mountain of the assembly of the gods in Ugaritic texts (cf. Isaiah 14:13). With regard to your comments about cherubim, I certainly can see your point about how their association with wind would evoke the "mountainous locale" of Eden and the temples/gardens found on high places. I tend to think the cherubim, like the Babylonian karibu, function as tutelary beings, the guards of the Temple/Eden and the palace of the gods. The fact that YHWH rides upon them suggests his dominion over the human and animal world and, of course, makes rather explicit his storm god aspect. As winged bulls with human faces, they evoke numerous and complex associations in the iconography of the East. I think it's Richard E. Friedman who suggests, and I'm sure you'll agree, that the evidence is very strong for interpreting the story in Exodus condemning the "worship" of the golden calf (which becomes plural in part of the account) is related to the Judean condemnation of the Israel's placing images of cherubim in the temples at Dan and Bethel in order to symbolize that YHWH resided over the whole nation. The use of the bull as a symbol of YHWH in the national temples would also relate to YHWH's taking over El's iconography. For El, the husband of Asherah, was represented by the image of a bull. Thanks for pointing out your delightful post. The subject is worthy of even fuller treatment. Have you ever thought of writing a book? One could explore the way the images of trees of life and death are translated in other myths into waters of life and waters of death/chaos and the cosmic battle between the high god and the water/dragon. As you know this often boils down to a battle between male and female priciples. Also, the conflict in Eden (i.e. on the mountain of the divine assembly) resulting in the casting out of Helel (Azazel) is interesting. Keep it up. I for one enjoy your posts.
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Leolaia
I think the myth also speaks to a basic intuition that when the world of life is divided into "good" and "evil" and all the other catagories, something precious is lost and humanity becomes alienated from its own world.
I think there is a maturation theme somewhere deeply embedded in the myth, which is overt in 2:24 ("This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife"). I wouldn't necessarily say that the myth should be read allegorically, but it is hard to deny that the story plays out the maturation cycle at some level. Yahweh is the parent, Adam is the child, the Garden is the nurturing child-friendly place that Adam is raised in, and Adam's time in the Garden corresponds to childhood. Like a child, Adam is naked and is unashamed of his nakedness in childish innocence. Yahweh gives strict rules to Adam, as a parent would to his child. Yahweh shields Adam from adult knowledge (Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil), while Adam is nurtured and sustained by the Tree of Life. Like a small child, Adam learns language by naming the animals. Then as Adam grows older, he finds a companion and they acquire a more adult understanding of the world. They discover that breaking parental rules do not necessarily bring the consequences they thought they would bring, and they begin to discern right from wrong, and the shame of nakedness. In other words, they lose their childish innocence. Realizing that they are now adults, Yahweh prepares them for life outside sheltered childhood by explaining the facts of life, like sexual attraction for one's husband, childbirth pangs, and the toils of work. It is now time for Adam to work and produce his own food rather than having it provided for him by his parent. Yahweh has the two of them, now a married couple, move out of his home, and there is no returning to the sheltered, infantile existence of childhood. Considering that Asherah was a nurturing maternal goddess and the possibility that Adam was divinized in earlier forms of the story (cf. Ezekiel 28, if related to the Eden narrative in Genesis), it is possible that the maturation theme had an etiological function in earlier forms of the story, i.e. not just the origin of death but the origin of life stages as well. Thus the original form of the story may have had Yahweh and Asherah (i.e. the nuturing Tree of Life) as the parents of Adam who had a companion (Ishah) formed from his flesh, with the two humans removed from the Garden as an etiology of the process of growing up. Then, in a polemic against Asherah devotion, the mother figure was removed from the story and Asherah herself (via her epithet Chawwah) was posited as the companion, whose eviction from the Garden parodies the removal of Asherah from the Temple.
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needproof
Hi Doug,
I have read that book - a superb read.