The Cult of the Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess

Abstract

Did the God of Israel have a wife? Posed in the context of monotheistic Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity this is, of course, a nonsensical question. However, even in the heavily edited Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible there remain traces of an earlier stage of belief in which Yahweh was accompanied by other beings. Among these para-human figures is Asherah, the form of whose name clearly indicates her feminine gender. In recent years numerous scholars have addressed the ticklish question of the original relationship between this lady and the Lord of Hosts, a problem that involves probing into the prehistory of the Hebrew scriptures. © 2003, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.