Did god have a goddess or just hired help?
ASHERAH: The Lord God's Lady?
The goddess Asherah was the consort of El ("god"), the supreme god of
Canaan and father of the popular Baal. In the Bible her name often
appears as ha asherah, meaning "the" asherah. In such instances the
reference is not to the goddess but to a symbol of her, an object (in
the plural asherim) that was apparently a sacred pole, tree, or group
of trees (hence the translation "groves") at Israelite sanctuaries or
"high places" as well as by altars of Baal. The erecting of asherim
was among the "evil" deeds of kings like Ahab and Manasseh, and
cutting the things down was a regular chore of "right" kings like
Hezekiah and Josiah.
The presence of Asherah or her symbol at places where Yahweh, the
biblical God of the Hebrews, was worshipped raises the question of
whether the Canaanite goddess was considered also to be the consort of
Yahweh. We know from references to "the sons of God" (Gen. 6:1-4; Job
1:6, 2:1, 38:7), "the host of heaven" (1 Kings 22:19), "angels" (Gen.
19:1; Ps. 103:20), and God's statement "Let us make man in our image"
(Gen. 1:26), that Yahweh was not alone in his heaven. We know also
that Yahweh supplanted the Canaanite El to the extent that God's other
names in the Hebrew Bible include El, El Elyon ("God Most High"), El
Shaddai ("God Almighty"), and the (originally) plural form Elohim (as
in Gen. 1:1). But did Yahweh take El's woman too?
The answer may well be found, appropriately enough, in some graffiti,
inscriptions dating from the eighth century B.C.E., found on walls and
storage jars at two sites, Khirbet el-Kom and Kuntillet Ajrud, in
Israel. (See Dever's Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical
Research.) The graffiti includes blessings such as "I bless you by
Yahweh of Samaria and by his asherah," and "I bless you by Yahweh of
Teiman and by his asherah." Does this mean by Yahweh and by his
goddess? Or is it saying "by Yahweh and by his sacred pole"?
All we may safely assume at this point has been well put by the French
epigrapher Andre Lemaire: "Whatever an asherah is, Yahweh had one!"
(See also BAALIM AND ASHTAROTH and YAHWEH: "THY MAKER IS THINE
HUSBAND".)
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