Yaweh and Asherah

Religious Scholarship Series.

There’s a good article in the Biblical Archeology Review entitled “A Temple Build for Two: Did Yahweh Share His Throne With His Consort Asherah?“

Ashrh (Asherah) is a goddess of Ugarit origins who was called, in Ugarit poetry, “she who treads the sea,” and is seen as the wife of the El, who was the supreme god and creator of mankind in Ugarit folklore. El is also the generic Hebrew name “god,” which is used to describe yhwh (Yahweh), “El Yahweh,” or “the god Yahweh,” or “The Lord our God (El).”

Eventually, in Hebrew folk religion (or popular non-elite religion), Asherah was replaced as the consort of El, the Ugarit god, to Yahweh, the supreme god of Israel (which eventually morphed into the only god in the universe in Israeli theology).

The author of this article, William G. Dever, writes:

Some of the most powerful evidence for this contention is in the Bible itself. The fact that the Bible condemns the cult of Asherah (and other “pagan” deities) demonstrates that such cults existed and were perceived as a threat to Israelite monotheism. Based on the Biblical texts alone, we can conclude that many ancient Israelites, perhaps even the majority, worshiped Asherah, Astarte, the “Queen of Heaven” and perhaps other female deities. Their sanctuaries (ba¯môt, or “high places”), we are told, were “on every hill and under every green tree.” (The phrase recurs numerous times in Kings and the Prophets.)

Some of the clearest physical evidence for the existence of a cult of Asherah is the growing collection of small house shrines. The technical name is naos (plural, naoi), a Greek word that means “temple” or “inner sanctum.”

The rest of the article goes on to describe a recent personal shrine discovered on the antiquities market which has a throne set up for two deities, more than likely for Yahweh and Asherah, based on the time period the author dates this piece, and the location in apparently came from.

The author than goes on to write:

In short, “true” Israelite religion was not “aniconic,” despite traditional scholarship and synagogue and church traditions that have maintained otherwise. I have recently argued that there are plenty of anthropomorphic symbols of Yahweh in the artifacts that have survived from ancient Israel…

…

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.^f But Asherah was once alive and well; modern archaeology has in fact resurrected her. Her “houses,” now vacant, were once occupied. Here she was “at home” for many of the masses in ancient Israel.

You can also find some fabulous commentary on Asherah in the book The Early History of God Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, by Mark S. Smith in where he explains the history of Asherah as well as how the name asherah eventually morphed into a generic term essentially meaning “post,” or “idol” that was to be worshiped toward a specific god.

Image From:
Biblical Archeology Review