Asherah: Goddess of the Bible?

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Asherah with two grazing ibexes 
Introduction: Who was Asherah?
     The concept of Asherah evolved through time in the ancient Near East.  She initially was known as a goddess from the Canaanite pantheon, and then remained in the religious vocabulary in the area of  Israel, appearing both in the archaeological record at Israelite and non-Israelite, Late Bronze Age and Iron Age sites, as well as in the Bible.  Scholars have debated heavily on whether or not the Israelites considered her to be an actual deity, or if the word asherah referred only to a symbol used by the Israelites in their worship of Yahweh, the god of Israel. 

     The evidence we have detailing Asherah's role in Canaanite religion comes mostly from thousands of cuneiform tablets of religious mythology found on the coast of Syria in Ugarit, from the 14th century BCE.  In these tablets, Asherah (Athirat) is identified as the chief goddess and the consort of El, the chief god.  The texts where she appears most prominently are the Baal cycle, and the Keret epic (Hadley,2000; and Maier,1986).  In the Baal cycle, her primary functions are as the “principal/senior wife/consort of El, the supreme deity, and [as] the mother of the gods.” (Maier,1986, 32).  In the Keret epic, she is shown interacting with the human realm.  A human king, Keret, appeals to her for help in obtaining a wife. Asherah supposedly helps in this endeavor, and then subsequently punishes Keret and his wife when they do not uphold the promises he made in exchange for Asherah’s help.  Keret also is told to give his son Yassib to be suckled by Asherah and Anat, the “wet nurses of the gods” (Maier,1986,37).  The roles of chief consort, chief goddess, and mother of the gods are all roles that scholars look for when Asherah is mentioned in the bible, and when representations of her are found in the archaeological record.

     There are 40 instances where Asherah is mentioned in the Old Testament, sometimes as a “sacred pole” and sometimes, apparently, as a goddess (Day, 2000, 42).   It can be difficult to tell which passages refer to Asherah the goddess and which to asherah the symbol, but both types of references tend to be written in a negative light.  Upon careful reading of some texts, however, there are a few examples where her image seems to have been incorporated into the jurisdiction of Yahweh and accepted into his cult. Why, when most other deities were rejected, was this so?  Evidence from archaeological sites as well as textual evidence from biblical and extra biblical sources can reveal much about who was worshipping Asherah during the Iron Age, and how the authors of the Bible may have incorporated or rejected her symbols.  By looking at these sources, we can draw some conclusions about the role of Asherah both in the Bible and in the lives of the Israelites (Becking et al 2001, 166).  The evidence strongly suggests that while popular religious practice held that Asherah was an honored and worshipped deity in her own right, at least in the earlier writings of the Bible, the biblical authors appropriated the qualities of hers that they could, and for the most part ignored her.  Then, as reforms were undertaken in the Yahwistic cult starting in the 8th century, the biblical authors argued strongly against her imagery, and possibly against the separate worship of her as a deity.  As time passed this argument became less about the actual worship of the goddess and more about the mere possession and use of images and symbols associated with her, now in the service of Yahweh and  no longer attached to the goddess herself, but still bearing the lingering aspect of an homage not directed at Yahweh.