Further addressing the issue of “God’s Wife” it is interesting to hear the comments going back and forth on this. All stemming from comments like those of J. Edward Wright, president of both The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, who state, "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." Scholars have found mentions of Asherah in ancient scrolls, on pottery, in the Books of the Kings and other things which is claimed that she is "The Real Housewife of Heaven."
Aaron Brody, Director of the Bade Museum and Associate Professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, states, “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, according to Brody, led to "a more universal vision of strict monotheism: one god not only for Judah, but for all of the nations."
Ok…now – this is interesting. Let’s then consider something.To say that all Israelites were polytheists because of this is an incorrect assumption, and such reveals that these people have not read the Bible. To say that because there is a god called “El” in one place means this is “El” in the Bible. “But that’s reasonable,” one might say. Only if you’re not interested in what the BIBLE, History, AND Archaeology have to say.
Let’s consider some documented history here. Incest was NOT an acceptable thing among the Eastern people. The famous Laws of Hammurabi contain several sections on this particular issue[4]. The only external data about Canaanite practice we have here comes from the religious myths and the 'role models' of their gods[5]. In the Ugaritic writings (Canaanite), there is the story of an incestuous El: "The second myth is often called 'The Birth of the Good and Gracious God.' It opens with a banquet at which wine flows freely. The text is divided into sections, the tenth being the last and most crucial. El is about to create two women who will become either his wives or daughters, depending on his ability to impregnate them. He creates these females and seduces them, and they both become pregnant. One bears a child called Dawn (Shahar) and the other a child called Dusk (Shalim). Later, El makes love to these same women and they produce seven sons between them. These sons are 'the good and gracious gods.' They are destined to be gods of fertility, and are first suckled at the breasts of 'the Lady' (Asherah, wife of El?)[5]." With such deities to emulate, there is little wonder that God described this Canaanite practice as being very, very real, and VERY VERY FORBIDDEN in His society and people (Ex.20:3-6; Lev.26:1;Deut.16:21)!
Cultic prostitution--both male and female was also attested and clearly so in Canaanite sanctuaries[6] . The Bible and the Canaanite texts at Ugarit use the words qadesh and qedesha which mean 'holy one'--the first masculine, the second feminine. At Ugarit these 'holy ones' were homosexual priests and priestesses who acted as prostitutes. There is STRONG reaction against this 'cultic prostitution' in passages such as Leviticus 19:29, 'Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore,' and Deuteronomy 23:17, 'There shall be no whore (qedesha) of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite (qadesh) of the sons of Israel.' Josiah's initial reforms in returning to the Law of God, was 'to break down the houses of the sodomites' (2 Kings 23:7)." The Canaanite culture TOTALLY SOLD OUT to religious prostitution. This was why God’s instructions in Deut.7:1-11 were for them to remain faithful to Him and not to become like the nations around them. Because in doing so, they would bring about their own destruction.
One might ask what about the Israelites coming out of Egypt, didn’t they make the golden calf (Ex.32:4)? Didn’t they engage in debauchery (Ex.32:6)? Yes – they did – and WERE REPROVED BY GOD for it (Ex.32:8-10). God then explicitly tells them and the next generation to come after them, that they were not to have ANYTHING that represented Him or anything else and call it a “god” (Ex.34:17; Lev.19:4; 26:1; Deut.4:15-19, 23-25; 5:8, 27:15). Does this mean that they did not ever corrupt what God told them? NO! The Bible, history, and archaeology all confirm that they did. The Bible itself tells us that they did. 1Ki 15:13 “He also deposed Ma`akhah from her position as queen mother, because she had made a disgusting image as an asherah. Asa cut down this image of hers and burned it in Vadi Kidron.” Ahab and Jezebel are perhaps the most notorious in biblical literature for introducing this to the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and it most certainly was not sanctioned by God ( 1 Ki.16:33). It was for this cause that God had the Northern Kingdom to be taken captive into Assyria (Dt.28:64, 65; 2 Ki.15:29; Isa.1:7; 7:20).
In the Southern Kingdom, it was Manasseh that introduced and even placed an Asherah in the Temple (2 Ki.21:7). Some may argue that Solomon started this, and indeed he paved the way for this to happen. But it is Manasseh that desecrates the Temple dedicated to God by placing the Asherah in it. During the last 25 years of the prophet Jeremiah’s life, the nation’s decay of moral and spiritual values had reaped its harvest. The reason for the exile is plainly stated (2 Chron. 36:14-16). “They mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words, and misused His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people until there was no remedy.”
Even the inscriptions of the kings Merodachbaladan II and Nabonidus of Babylonia, as well as the Erra myth, contain references to a type of revolution in Uruk around 765, during the reign of the king Eriba-marduk. This revolution was not caused by social conditions alone, but rather was directed AGAINST the cultic practices of the temple of Eanna and the cult prostitutes there; it had only temporary success." In the return of the people of Israel to the land under Zerubabbel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, shows the influence that this idolatry had (Ezra 10:2) and knew that this was the reason for the captivities of their ancestors. So, he sets out to make sure that this does not happen again.
Someone may say that Abraham was polytheistic; after all, he came from Mesopotamia the region that engaged in these practices. Yet one, who would make a claim as this, again has not read the Bible itself. Abraham’s expressions of God are centered in his faith in one God, who, because believed by him to be possessor of heaven and earth (Gen.14:22;24:3), sovereign judge of the nations (Gen.15:14) of all the earth (Gen.18:25), disposer of the forces of Nature (Gen_18:14;19:24; 20:17), exalted (Gen_14:22) and eternal (Gen_21:33), was for Abraham at least the only God.
It is always interesting to me, that when people want to sway thinking, they always present things as one sided. They do not divulge all of the facts, lest it skew their theories. Yet, as we have seen – when brought together the evidence is clear. What is the lesson in this? Not everything stated is true! Only from careful examination, study, and gathering of all the facts can one then claim the truth. So - be careful! Just because someone claims to be a Doctor of this, or Professor of that, does not mean that what they are saying should be taken as "gospel."
Did or does God have a wife? Not if we let the Bible speak for itself and let history and archaeology speak their facts.
Is this in anyway female bashing, a conspiracy to cover up, or eradicate anything? No. No more than saying that our own historical documents of our own times do so. They are what they are and should be understood in that context. What of archaeology? DIG ON! I believe it is exciting! Just be sure to interpret things in the context of the whole, rather than making presumptions.
[1] Francesca Stavrakopoulou (born Bromley, 1975) is a senior lecturer in the University of Exeter's department of Theology and Religion. The main focus of her research is Israelite and Judahite history and religion. She is noted for her academic and media roles: presenting a three-part television series on the BBC The Bible's Buried Secrets (2011; not to be confused with the 2008 NOVA program of the same name), and for contributions to series The Bible: A History. She describes herself as 'an atheist with huge respect for religion' and regards her work as 'a branch of history like any other’ Her PhD from the University of Oxford, which examined the creation of an imagined past within the Hebrew Bible, was subsequently published with the title King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities. Her second book was Land of our Fathers: The Roles of Ancestor Veneration in Biblical Land Claims. She has also co-edited Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah and Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives. She was a junior research fellow at Worcester College, Oxford, before moving to Exeter. She is the secretary of the British-based Society for Old Testament Study, and a member of the European Association of Biblical Studies and of the US-based Society of Biblical Literature
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42154769/ns/technology_and_science-science
[3] Ibid
[4] Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor Para 154-158;110-111 as do the Hittite law codes (laws 189-191; Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia:236)
[5] It must be remembered that the religious rituals of ancient cultures were generally 'reenactments' of divine activities. For example, when a religious myth would have one god impregnating another--producing "spring"--the humans would "re-enact" this with the cultic prostitutes.
[6] Nelson's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Bible Facts: 130
[7] The Semitic root qdsh means "sacred, holy, set-apart, or tabooed." Thus, qedesh (masc.) and qedeshah or qedeshet (fem.), both of which occur in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) in singular and plural forms, mean "Sacred or Set-apart One," almost certainly referring to religious functionaries, though usually translated into English as "sacred prostitute." Keel and Uelinger 1998: 68 state that she had "a Canaanite origin."
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