The Lead

Jennifer Viegas of Discovery News writes:

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. ...

"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.

and

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."

Is this new news, or does this conversation have a history?

Hat tip: The Awl

Click to enlarge drawing. Drawing of rock art showing Mr and Mrs Yahweh. The male genitals on Mrs. Yahweh were drawn in by the archeologist -who saw thought he saw it though it is not there in reality!

Comments (9)

Margaret Barker has been saying the same thing for the last decade or more. This is hardly news! Indeed, I believe Barker argues there is enough evidence to posit three gods--the senior deity (El), the female deity, and a junior (maybe son) deity called Yahweh... Doug

Posted by Doug Morrison-Cleary | March 21, 2011 8:16 AM

Not new news - we discussed this at HDS in the 90s and saw evidence in graffiti from the area of Israel Palestine from ancient sites. Michael Coogan showed slides to our OT class.

Posted by Ann Fontaine | March 21, 2011 9:50 AM

As it is in the text (canonical Scripture and many non-Scriptural ANE texts), it seems to be very old news indeed. Robert Graves posited similar notions beginning in the late 40s. It took a while for the scholars to catch up with the poet; a process hastened by discovery of additional ancient texts by the 60s.

Posted by tobias haller | March 21, 2011 10:35 AM

The Jewish understanding of God evolved over hundreds of years (as ours continues to do) during which they were in close contact with other cultures. That all sorts of ideas crept in from time to time is to be expected and gave the prophets something to carp about.

Posted by Paul Woodrum | March 21, 2011 11:07 AM

In my first undergraduate course on the Hebrew Scriptures we looked at the movement of the Jewish people from polytheism to henotheism to monotheism, so this is just detail for that schema.

The heavenly court scenes in Job hardly ever draw the blink of an eye and yet there they are with Satan flouncing about "testing" creation.

The religious response to 19th century rationalism emptied the Cosmos of all other intermediate beings to appear more acceptable.

Posted by Michael Russell | March 21, 2011 11:11 AM

Last week there was a discussion of this on BBC radio - there are about 7 hours left (till 6pm EDT) to listen to the archived programme.

It's the second item on the programme - Cambridge lecturer James Aitken and Rabbi Julia Neuberger take part in the discussion.

Here's a link to the site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zdfj8

Posted by Robert P Morrison | March 21, 2011 12:01 PM

Is this good or bad for feminist theology? On the one hand, it has some of the same feminist appeal as paganism in that it gives a female divine counterpart, in the same way that Mary has sometimes been used... On the other hand, what does this say about how I keep telling my confirmation classes that God transcends gender? This seems to put God definitively in the male category.
Also, I wonder what the Mormons would have to say about this. They've always believed in a Mrs. God.

Posted by Matthew Buterbaugh+ | March 21, 2011 12:46 PM

Matthew, the LDS actually believe in multiple Mrs Gods!

Yes, at Perkins School of Theology, SMU, in the mid 80s we also studied about the ancient Israeli trinity of a Father, Mother and Son, as well as the fact that it was a fertility cult as evidenced by the phalluses, Boaz and Jachim, freestanding pillars, that are described in the OT as standing outside the Temple.

Posted by Hermano David | Brother Dav•veed | March 21, 2011 2:24 PM

Can't say with certainty what this suggests for feminine theology, but masculine theology is experiencing a boon with the "click to enlarge." Is there an App for that?

Posted by Herb Gunn | March 22, 2011 7:52 AM

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