March 22, 2011

News flash: Men censored the Bible

by

Ashera

According to a report on Discovery.com, male editors of early drafts of the Bible made a rather startling cut, according to several Biblical scholars: They cut almost all mention that God — Yahweh — had a wife.

The theory was first proposed by historian Raphael Patai in 1967, and new reasearch by Oxford scholar Francesca Stavrakopoulou backs it up: her name was Asherah.

According to Stavrakopoulou, the editing missed a few mentions — she says “the Book of Kings suggests [Asherah] was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel.” But Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on “ancient texts, amulets and figurines unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now modern-day Syria.” She says one of her key pieces of evidence is “an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert.”

She explains,

“The inscription is a petition for a blessing. 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.”

Other scholars aggree: J. Edward Wright, of The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, says “several Hebrew inscriptions mention ‘Yahweh and his Asherah.’” And he concurs that “Asherah was not entirely edited out of the Bible by its male editors. 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.” Aaron Brody, director of the Bade Museum and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, says “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.”

 

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.

  • http://www.biblicalarchaeologytruth.com abchrysler

    A grove (sacred tree) was removed from the Temple, not the goddess Asherah. II Kings 23:6 “And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord…and burned it at the brook Kidron.” When speaking of the goddess Asherah, Stavrakopoulou states,”In the book of Kings, we’re told that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her.” II Kings 23:7 says, “And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.” How does Stavrakopoulou get “ritual textiles” out of hangings? How does she say the women wove them for the goddess Asherah, when it plainly says for the grove?

    • Rflanner

      In the English translation it clearly says grove. The question is whether this is the best translation. This is lifted from wikipedia:

      Tilde Binger notes in her study, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament (1997, p. 141), that there is warrant for seeing an Asherah as, variously, “a wooden-aniconic-stela or column of some kind; a living tree; or a more regular statue.” A rudely carved wooden statue planted on the ground of the house was Asherah’s symbol, and sometimes a clay statue without legs. Her cult images— “idols”— were found also in forests, carved on living trees, or in the form of poles beside altars that were placed at the side of some roads. Asherah poles are mentioned in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. The term often appears as merely אשרה, Asherah; this is translated as “groves” in the King James Version and “poles” in the New Revised Standard Version, although there is disagreement about the translation of the ancient Hebrew as “poles.”

      • http://www.biblicalarchaeologytruth.com abchrysler

        There is an awesome article in `Atiqot (a publication of the Israel Antiquities Authority) titled, “A Carin Field on the Northern Periphery of Jerusalem”. Dating to the Iron Age II, these stone pits all contain a smaller pit in the middle which is filled with earth. They found no bones and the archaeologists are suggesting that each of these pits contained a pole or tree! The view is magnificent from the site as it is a “high place”.

  • http://www.biblicalarchaeologytruth.com abchrysler

    A grove (sacred tree) was removed from the Temple, not the goddess Asherah. II Kings 23:6 “And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord…and burned it at the brook Kidron.” When speaking of the goddess Asherah, Stavrakopoulou states,”In the book of Kings, we’re told that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her.” II Kings 23:7 says, “And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.” How does Stavrakopoulou get “ritual textiles” out of hangings? How does she say the women wove them for the goddess Asherah, when it plainly says for the grove?

    • Rflanner

      In the English translation it clearly says grove. The question is whether this is the best translation. This is lifted from wikipedia:

      Tilde Binger notes in her study, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament (1997, p. 141), that there is warrant for seeing an Asherah as, variously, “a wooden-aniconic-stela or column of some kind; a living tree; or a more regular statue.” A rudely carved wooden statue planted on the ground of the house was Asherah’s symbol, and sometimes a clay statue without legs. Her cult images— “idols”— were found also in forests, carved on living trees, or in the form of poles beside altars that were placed at the side of some roads. Asherah poles are mentioned in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. The term often appears as merely אשרה, Asherah; this is translated as “groves” in the King James Version and “poles” in the New Revised Standard Version, although there is disagreement about the translation of the ancient Hebrew as “poles.”

      • http://www.biblicalarchaeologytruth.com abchrysler

        There is an awesome article in `Atiqot (a publication of the Israel Antiquities Authority) titled, “A Carin Field on the Northern Periphery of Jerusalem”. Dating to the Iron Age II, these stone pits all contain a smaller pit in the middle which is filled with earth. They found no bones and the archaeologists are suggesting that each of these pits contained a pole or tree! The view is magnificent from the site as it is a “high place”.

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