A British scholar is claiming that the earliest worship of Yahweh, included that of a wife for God known as Asherah, a fertility goddess, reports Discovery News.
Francesca Stavrakopoulou, a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter, and who is leading the BBC’s latest series of programs on the Bible, believes that the earliest versions of the Bible featured Asherah, but her relationship with Yahweh was later edited out of the texts, except for one particular reference in the Book of Kings which links the goddess to being housed in the temple of Yahweh.
All that remains of God’s ‘other half’ now are the clues left in ancient texts, amulets and figurines. For example, inscriptions on pottery remains unearthed in the Sinai desert reveal that Yahweh and Asherah were worshipped as a pair.
J. Edward Wright, president of The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, supports Stavrakopoulou's claim, saying that several Hebrew inscriptions mention “Yahweh and his Asherah." Wright added that Asherah was not entirely removed from the Bible by its male editors.
"Traces of her remain, and based on those traces... we can reconstruct her role in the religions of the Southern Levant," Wright informed Discovery News.
Asherah, Wright goes onto to say, was a significant deity in the Ancient Near East, known for her might and nurturing qualities. She was also recognised by several other names, including Astarte and Istar. But in English translations Ashereh was translated as "sacred tree."
"This seems to be in part driven by a modern desire, clearly inspired by the Biblical narratives, to hide Asherah behind a veil once again," Wright says.
Aaron Brody, director of the Bade Museum and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, also confirmed this opinion. Brody says that despite contrary popular opinion, the earliest Israelites were actually polytheists, with only a “small majority” worshipping God alone. Brody details how is was only through the exile and the the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 B.C that a more "universal vision of strict monotheism" came into being.
(Image is a clay figurine representation of Asherah).