Meet Asherah, God's Supposed Wife Out of the Bible

Did you ever imagine that God the Almighty could share your role as Universal Creator with a wife? The proponent of this idea was researcher Francesca Stavrakopoulou, a doctorate from Oxford University and a professor in the Department of Theology and Religion at Exeter University in England.

According to Francesca, Yahweh - another name for God, as well as Allah - was married to Asherah, an important goddess worshiped in Israel during antiquity. The scholar based her allegations on archaeological evidence that includes ancient texts, inscriptions and small idols discovered in the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit, located on the territory that today corresponds to Syria, as well as on details present in the Bible itself.

As he explained, God was not only one of the many venerated deities in Israel in antiquity, but He shared his "throne" with a wife who was worshiped with Him in a temple in Jerusalem.

But how so?

According to historians, the ancient Israelites were polytheistic, and only a small minority worshiped only Yahweh, the entity that corresponds to God followed by the Abrahamic religions. This changed in 586 BC, when a Jewish community was exiled in Babylon and the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed.

This event eventually gave rise to a strictly monotheistic vision, focused on the existence of a Universal Creator, not only for the kingdom of Judah, but for all nations of the world. Just for the sake of clarity, the Abrahamic religions rely on the belief that there is only one God and their common origin can be traced back to Abraham.

These beliefs make up one of the three major divisions in religion, along with the Indian and East Asian religions, and comprise Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Israeli Polytheism

Francesca spent several years analyzing the cultural and social contexts of the Bible, and concluded that Yahweh had to compete with so many deities — such as Molek, Baal, and El — until she gained the position of the Almighty among the ancient Israelites. As he explained, while God commands in one of his 10 commandments, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me, " the Bible itself provides evidence that other entities were worshiped with Him.

Moreover, according to the theologian, the Book of Kings points out that God had a wife, and that she was worshiped with Him. Asherah, Yahweh's companion, was presented as a deity who sat beside her husband, and the biblical text would also reveal that a statue of the goddess was housed inside a temple in Jerusalem, and that the local priestesses were responsible for creating ceremonial robes for her.

In addition to appearing in the Bible, the link between Yahweh and Asherah is also mentioned in inscriptions discovered in 8th century BC ceramic fragments found at Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai Desert. According to Francesca, the text refers to a request for the "Divine Couple, " and so many similar inscriptions were retrieved, strengthening the body of evidence that indicates that the ancient Israelites believed that God had a wife.

Goddess of fertility

In fact, although the Bible condemns such practices, the texts suggest that deity worship was very common in Jerusalem. And both idols and amulets, including ancient texts, reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.

Yahweh's “wife” was also known by the names Istar and Astarte, and was of great importance to the peoples of the past, being both a powerful and maternal deity.

Before being associated with the figure of Yahweh, Asherah was the consort of El, the supreme God of Canaan and father of Baal. In the Bible she often appears as ha asherah, and in these cases the scriptures do not refer to her as a deity but as a symbol on the altars of Israeli shrines dedicated to Yahweh, often in the form of trees. Hence his connection with the "God of the Hebrews, " as he was also known.

Sacred tree

Scholar J. Edward Wright, president of a Jewish Studies Center and Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, confirmed that several Hebrew inscriptions mention the link between Yahweh and Asherah. He said God's supposed wife was not completely erased from the Bible, and traces of her existence can still be found in archaeological evidence from countries bordering Israel and Judea.

Many translations refer to Asherah as "Sacred Tree, " and according to Wright, this reference was created to "hide" the goddess's existence. References to Asherah in the Old Testament are rare and have been greatly edited by the early authors who put together the texts that would be included in the scriptures.

Aaron Broody, director of the Bade Museum and professor of archeology and Bible studies, explained that Asherah's figure as a “tree” was even symbolically cut and burned outside the Jerusalem Temple by religious who tried to purify worship and worship. focus on the worship of one man God, Yahweh.

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Francesca is not the first scholar to mention the link between Yahweh and Asherah. In 1967, historian Raphael Patai put forward the theory that the ancient Israelites worshiped both - and many others - deities, and since then several other scholars have published studies and books on the subject. The theologian resumed research on the subject, and her work eventually became the subject of a controversial documentary produced by the BBC.