God’s Wife

Very interesting site that talks about God’s wife Asherah and how she was deleted from the Hebrew Pantheon in the early days, as the priests adjusted the story of Yahweh, El, or Elohim to make a monotheistic God. Shrewd story tellers those Hebrews. Go: Here

From the ABC radio program The Ark, hosted by Rachael Kohn.

Rachael Kohn: “To archaeologists and some Biblical historians the Israelites’ monotheism, enshrined in the Bible, was a long time coming. Before the single God of the Bible, there was a divine couple, and Asherah was in effect, God’s wife. Biblical archaeologist, Dr Diana Edelman from Sheffield University in the UK says the evidence for ‘Mrs. God’, known as Asherah, is both material and scriptural.”

Diana Edelman: “Well in the Bible, we in fact have a mention of God’s wife about 48 times, but she has come to be a little bit obscured, probably deliberately, when monotheism truly did develop, and God was made to look like a bachelor, even though he was officially made a widower.”…

…Diana Edelman: …well Israel ceased to be in 721 BC; Judah continued that religion. When it was sent into exile there was a change, and it’s when they come back from exile that it seems that Mrs. God has been ousted. She’s no longer welcome in the Pantheon. And it’s when we get the new Temple rebuilt in Jerusalem the traditional date for that is given under Darius about 515 BCE.”

We have all sorts of funny things in that new Temple. No.1, we don’t have The Ark any more. The primary symbol of Yahweh when he used to be the God of Judah, was the Ark, which seems to have been tied up with the title Yahweh of the Hosts, showing him a very martial God; that symbol is gone…”

William Dever, See this article in Biblical Archaeology Review

“Asherah was, of course, finally driven underground by the reformist parties that edited the Hebrew Bible. In its final form she is written out of the text. Hence, she disappeared and all her cult imagery with her when Jewish monotheism at last triumphed in the period after the Israelites returned from the Babylonian exile.”

From Wikipedia, Here
The goddess Asherah, whose worship Jeremiah so vehemently opposed, was worshipped in ancient Israel and Judah as the consort of Yahweh and Queen of Heaven (the Hebrews baked small cakes for her festival):

“Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.” -Jeremiah 7:17-18

“… to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem …” -Jeremiah 44:17

…”Tilde Binger notes in her study, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament (1997, p. 141), that there is warrant for seeing an Asherah as, variously, “a wooden-aniconic-stela or column of some kind; a living tree; or a more regular statue.” A rudely carved wooden statue planted on the ground of the house was Asherah’s symbol, and sometimes a clay statue without legs. Her cult images- “idols”- were found also in forests, carved on living trees, or in the form of poles beside altars that were placed at the side of some roads. Asherah poles are mentioned in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. The term often appears as merely אשרה, Asherah; this is translated as “groves” in the King James Version and “poles” in the New Revised Standard Version, although no word that may be translated as “poles” appears in the text. Scholars have indicated, however, that the plural use of the term Asherahs, as Asherim or Asherot, provides ample evidence that reference is being made to objects of worship rather than a transcendent figure.”

Most Christians have no idea that the Bible was continually edited and changed significantly well into the fourth Century CE. Strong Christian believers I have talked to just flatly deny that the Bible was ever messed with and they will not listen, I suppose they are thinking I’m the devil. Well, I guess that is the kind of single-mindedness that is required to be Christian…there’s too much information out there, so lets not listen anymore.“

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