Liberal "Bible scholars" claim that the Old Testament left out Mrs. God
University of Exeter theologian Francesca Stavrakopoulou and J. Edward Wright of The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research say that Yahweh's wife, Asherah, was 'edited out' of the Bible.
Asherah is actually mentioned numerous times in the Bible- but in terms which hardly support the thesis that orthodox Yahwism was polytheistic, as Stavrakopoulou, Wright, and Aaron Brody of the Pacific Institute of Religion (among others) imply. She is usually presented as the consort, not of Yahweh, but of His arch-rival for the allegience of the Israelites, the idol Baal. The female deity- doubtless thought of as Yahweh's wife by certain polytheistic cults among the ancient Israelites, just as Baal himself was often conflated with Yahweh- is consistently depicted in the Old Testament as an idol, the worship of whom was opposed by the orthodox. Ahab was said to have "provoked" Yahweh by building an altar to the alleged "Mrs. God." The passage in 2 Kings which Stavrakopoulou cites as relating the presence of a statue of Asherah in the Temple, for which sacred garments were woven, in fact reports Josiah's removal of the statue of Asherah and the male prostitutes in the Temple, as part of a reformation which included the destruction of sites sacred to Asherah elsewhere. The adjective used by I Kings to describe an image of the goddess is "abominable." And the famous showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel depicts "the 400 prophets of Asherah,who eat at Jezebel’s table" as among those to whom the Elijah issued his challenge. Deuteronomy 16:21 explicitly forbids the worship of Asherah in connection with that of Yahweh.
In other words, nothing Stavrakopoulou or Wright or Brody or the others has to say is either new or surprising. The Old Testament clearly depicts the religious history of Israel as an ongoing battle between the orthodox cult of Yahweh and often syncretistic cults which worshipped other deities, often along side of Him.
Part of the problem, of course, is that much liberal Bible scholarship rejects the Old Testament's account of the Abrahamic antecedents of Israeliste worship, insisting that Yahweh Himself is actually only a somewhat more elaborate version of a Canaanite deity. Supposedly the Israelites picked up the worship of Yahweh early in the Exodus. And what would be more reasonable than for a Canaanite god to marry a nice Canaanite goddess?
In fact, there are a number of indications in the Old Testament that Yahweh was worshipped in Canaan. For example, Moses' father-in-law, Jethro- a Midianite priest- already worshipped Him. But nothing in the Old Testament conflicts with the notion; the Midianites and various other Canaanite tribes, after all, were also descended from Abraham.
But leave it to the extreme adherents of the historical-critical method to take an altogether uncontroversial group of facts utterly uncontested by anybody familiar with the Old Testament, and make it into the sensational (and wholly baseless) assertion that, rather than being a heterodox aberration, the worship of Mr. and Mrs. God was somehow ever a genuine part of the official Israelite cult.
HT: Real Clear Religion
Asherah is actually mentioned numerous times in the Bible- but in terms which hardly support the thesis that orthodox Yahwism was polytheistic, as Stavrakopoulou, Wright, and Aaron Brody of the Pacific Institute of Religion (among others) imply. She is usually presented as the consort, not of Yahweh, but of His arch-rival for the allegience of the Israelites, the idol Baal. The female deity- doubtless thought of as Yahweh's wife by certain polytheistic cults among the ancient Israelites, just as Baal himself was often conflated with Yahweh- is consistently depicted in the Old Testament as an idol, the worship of whom was opposed by the orthodox. Ahab was said to have "provoked" Yahweh by building an altar to the alleged "Mrs. God." The passage in 2 Kings which Stavrakopoulou cites as relating the presence of a statue of Asherah in the Temple, for which sacred garments were woven, in fact reports Josiah's removal of the statue of Asherah and the male prostitutes in the Temple, as part of a reformation which included the destruction of sites sacred to Asherah elsewhere. The adjective used by I Kings to describe an image of the goddess is "abominable." And the famous showdown between Elijah and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel depicts "the 400 prophets of Asherah,who eat at Jezebel’s table" as among those to whom the Elijah issued his challenge. Deuteronomy 16:21 explicitly forbids the worship of Asherah in connection with that of Yahweh.
In other words, nothing Stavrakopoulou or Wright or Brody or the others has to say is either new or surprising. The Old Testament clearly depicts the religious history of Israel as an ongoing battle between the orthodox cult of Yahweh and often syncretistic cults which worshipped other deities, often along side of Him.
Part of the problem, of course, is that much liberal Bible scholarship rejects the Old Testament's account of the Abrahamic antecedents of Israeliste worship, insisting that Yahweh Himself is actually only a somewhat more elaborate version of a Canaanite deity. Supposedly the Israelites picked up the worship of Yahweh early in the Exodus. And what would be more reasonable than for a Canaanite god to marry a nice Canaanite goddess?
In fact, there are a number of indications in the Old Testament that Yahweh was worshipped in Canaan. For example, Moses' father-in-law, Jethro- a Midianite priest- already worshipped Him. But nothing in the Old Testament conflicts with the notion; the Midianites and various other Canaanite tribes, after all, were also descended from Abraham.
But leave it to the extreme adherents of the historical-critical method to take an altogether uncontroversial group of facts utterly uncontested by anybody familiar with the Old Testament, and make it into the sensational (and wholly baseless) assertion that, rather than being a heterodox aberration, the worship of Mr. and Mrs. God was somehow ever a genuine part of the official Israelite cult.
HT: Real Clear Religion
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