What Do You Think?

[jerrys1960]

I think I am going to lean towards this is one of those articles that is designed to promote a personal agenda rather than fact. Especially since they did not give any specific references just general, very controversial, almost impossible to verify information.

How hard would it have been to put in a link to just one source of these documents or findings so we can decide for ourselves?



copied from:
http://news.discovery.com/history/god-wife-yahweh-asherah-110318.html


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
Mar 18, 2011

THE GIST

God, also known as Yahweh, had a wife named Asherah, according to a British theologian.

Amulets, figurines, inscriptions and ancient texts, including the Bible, reveal Asherah's once prominent standing.


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 -- 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."

[troach]

I would agree with you about the author having a personal agenda. I don’t know if it is the same group but it sounds like one of the teachings from Esoteric Theological Seminary ( http://www.northernway.org/ ) I am sure there are others. But that is the group I heard the idea from. ( in my opinon the group has a lot of flawed biblical teachings so anyone looking at them be careful not to be lead astray, with their half truths.)

With editing Gods wife out of the bible, the short form basically goes like this (as best I remember).

They start out giving an out of context definition for Baal saying that Baal means simply Lord or husband. Then adding that many Israeli wives today refer to their husbands as baal. (I suspect that the second part might actually be a true statement though I suspect that the wives are not using the term in a positive way and probably add a few “colorful colloquialisms” when using the term. Like when the husband tracks mud across a floor that she just cleaned.)

Then they later the move to a topic about how After Baal fell out of favor with the Israelites, they began to worship Yahweh, and Baal's consort was promoted as Yahweh's wife. Then adding that she is mentioned in the bible, sometimes referenced as a tree or trees.

It took a little time to track down but I did find several of the of the references.

Judges 2:12 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were around them, and bowed themselves to them, and provoked the LORD to anger.
Judges 2:13 And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.

Even the reference about cutting down the trees (as in your posting)

Judges 6:25 And it came to pass the same night, that the LORD said to him, Take thy father's young bullock, even the second bullock of seven years old, and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it:
Judges 6:26 And build an altar to the LORD thy God upon the top of this rock, in the ordered place, and take the second bullock, and offer a burnt-sacrifice with the wood of the grove which thou shalt cut down.

In a twisted sense of context the person is correct that the Israelites did worship a god that had a wife (or at least a female partner). However the god that many of the Jews started worshiping was not The One True God. As for editing Ashtaroth out of The Bible I am sure there were many texts regarding Baal and Ashtaroth but those would not have been in our biblical text or the Jewish Torah to begin with, other than references to false gods for instance the Apocryphal text of “Bel and the Dragon”. (see: http://troach.org/faith/lostbooks/Deuterocanonical/bel.htm )

So I am sure that there are several ancient items that show a supposed god of creation that had a wife which was worshiped by the Jews, and others in the area, however one has to remember there are several times though out Jewish history that many of the Jewish people strayed and worshiped other gods and idols as if those false gods were the One True God.

Unfortunately it seems that the person in your article as well as the other groups only want to tell half the story. Thus weaving a lie into the truth in order to lead people astray.

As we know there are many references in Our Biblical Text about false teachers which pretend to be working for truth and goodness.

This is one of the reasons it is so very important to always remember that even The Devil has the ability to masquerade as an angel of light. (

Always be diligent and do your own varification research with what people tell you religious or otherwise for sometimes being mere mortal humans we all make unintentional mistakes and sometimes there are people that intentionally trying to mislead anyone that listens to them in order to promote their own agenda. Both of which need to be caught, corrected and the truth placed front and center for all to see.