Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost

God's wife, Asherah, was a powerful fertility goddess, according to a theologian.

Would finding E.T. change our view of God?
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.
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.

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.

God's consort, Goddess of the Sea, mother of Baal, this Asherah figurine was discovered in Nahariyeh, Israel. King Mannasseh introduced Israel to her worship (2 Kings 21). The Hebrew word is often translated as "groves" in KJV (abu.nb.ca).

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.

Abrahamic religions violently turned on their Goddess (northernway.org)

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." More>>

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