This recent Discovery article:
http://news.discovery.com/history/god-wife-yahweh-asherah-110318.html
‘reveals’ that God had a wife named Asherah.
Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou, an Oxford theology scholar has found that:
After years of research specializing in the history and religion of Israel, however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife," she added.
I find this reporting odd in that it completely omits the research of William G. Dever who has written extensively about this very same idea. The article correctly points out that the theory was first posited by Raphael Patai in 1967. But since then the theory has been dramatically reinforced and expanded in Dever’s book: “Did God Have a Wife?” (This book has been out since 2005)
You can even read extensive parts of this book (preview) on Google Books:
In his book Dever explores the female deity Asherah – a goddess of fertility – which poses a tremendous problem to the pioneering monotheistic religion (Judaism) which claims that monotheism began with Abraham. Here we have a counter example of polytheism continuing well into the Babylonian Exile (after the destruction of the first temple).
Yairah Amit makes a poignant summation of the theological implications of Dever’s work in her review:
Here he concludes, by examining the historical sequence, that monotheism is an artificial phenomenon, the “ideal of most of the orthodox, nationalist parties who wrote and edited the Hebrew Bible” (252) that was adopted as a way of life only in a late stage of Israelite history, during the Babylonian exile. According to this view, monotheism — as expressed in the “Book religion” — was preferred to the folk religion because many of the exiles in Babylon, as well as the remnant in Judah, learned the painful and fundamental lesson “that Yahweh was indeed a ‘jealous god’, punishing those who flirted with other gods.” Dever supports this position with archaeology and notes that the archaeological evidence also shows that the polytheistic practices disappeared in the Israelite community during and after the Persian period.
The idea that God had a wife isn’t new, nor is the idea that monotheism evolved as a result of the pressures endured during the Babylonian exile.
This idea was central to a recent NOVA special: “The Bible’s Buried Secrets”. You can watch chapter 11 – ‘The Birth of Judaism’ here:
Watch the full episode. See more NOVA.
