YHWH's Ashera: Consort or Cult Object

I decided to post about this topic after the comments thread from the last post. Hat tip to Tamir for giving me a link to an extremely ineresting article arguing against the YHWH consort theory and a thanks to Shalmo for bringing up the topic in the first place.

Many know by now the assertion that in Ancient Israel the Hebrew God YHWH had a consort Ashera. This view is expressed in these two books:

The Hebrew Goddess by historian and anthropologist Raphael Patai

Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel Syro-Palestinian archaeologist and biblical scholar William G. Dever

Already in the early twentieth century many Bible scholars asserted that the Israelite monotheism had evolved from some form of polytheism. They based this on the very significant fact that the Tanach describes a people who had very little fidelity for monotheism. The Biblical account, of course, describes the whole thing as an aberration from the true worship of YHWH. However, many believe that this is projection onto the past.

Yechezkel Kaufman is noted for arguing that the idol worship in the Tanach is not a theological belief in many Gods but merely the acceptance of idols as sort of "lucky charms"

This article sums up his position(derisively) as follows:

1. all Israelites were monotheistic (so much so that one might refer to them as genetically monotheistic),
2. all these monotheistic Israelites had no idea as to what polytheists–who often lived in their midst--really believed,
3. the Israelites worshiped idols without understanding what they signified (thus making them the most symbolically challenged people in human history),
4. there was no social change in ancient Israel insofar as the monotheistic idea was present from the time of Moses to the second temple period,
5. the Hebrew Bible represents the policies and positions of actual official religions in ancient Israel, and,
6. it is an accurate witness to all aspects of Israelite history, except when it refers to the depravity of the Israelite people (which just so happens to be one of its most central themes).

Now this debate remained basically theoretical until archaeologists discovered two very relevant inscriptions

The inscriptions from Qutilat Ajrud:
ב] רכת אתכם ליהוה שמרן ולאשרתה ... ] ליהוה התמן ולאשרתה [ ... ] ברכתך ליהוה תמן ולאשרתה יברך וישמרך ויהי עם אדני [ ...י] תנו ליהוה תימן ולאשרת[ה

Roughly translated (wiki) "I have blessed you by YHVH of Samaria and His Asherah" (or perhaps "... by YHVH our guardian and His Asherah", if "Shomron" is to be read "shomrenu")


The inscription from Khirbet el-Kom (near Chevron) reads:

1. ברך אריהו ליהוה נצרי ולאשרתה הושע לה לדניהו
2. ולאשרתה

Translated (wiki): "Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh and by his Asherah; from his enemies he saved him!"

Now the question is what is the meaning of "his ashera"

There are basically two possibilities

1. The Ashera refers to a Canaanite goddess Ashera. His Ashera means YHWH's consort Ashera.
2. The ashera refers to some sort of cult object (still considered idol worship to the writers of the Tanach). His ashera means YHWH's "shrine" or something of that sort.

Now lets look into this in detail:

The Tanach usually is discusses the ashera as some sort of object or monument. Such as these verses:
"לא תטע לך אשרה כל עץ אצל זבח ה' אלהיך" "You shall not plant an Ashere any tree next to God's altar" ". וישכימו אנשי העיר בבקר והנה נתץ מזבח הבעל והאשרה אשר עליו " "And the men of the city woke up early in the morning and behold he had smashed the altar of Ball and the ashera which was on it"

We almost never find the Tanach referring to "ashera" as a godess in the same way as it refers to Baal as a god.

This is one possible exception:
ויצו המלך את חלקיהו הכהן הגדול ואת כהני המשנה ואת שמרי הסף להוציא מהיכל ה' את כל הכלים העשוים לבעל ולאשרה ולכל צבא השמים וישרפם מחוץ לירושלם בשדמות קדרון... ויצא את האשרה מחוץ לירושלם לנחל קדרון וישרף אתה בנחל קדרון וידק לעפר... ויתץ את בתי הקדשים אשר בבית ה' אשר הנשים אוגרות שם בתים לאשרה" (מל"ב כג, ד-ז 4 And the king commanded Hilkiah the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the door, to bring forth out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels that were made for Baal, and for the Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron..... 6 And he brought out the Asherah from the house of the LORD, without Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and stamped it small to powder.... 7 And he broke down the houses of the harlots, that were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove coverings for the Asherah.

Here we see a reference to Ashera as some sort of goddess. The terminology here used in reference to Baal is also used in reference to Ashera. Based on this many archaeologists identify Ashera with the Ugarit goddess Athirat and the Akkadian goddess Ashratum/Ashratu.

What's important to remember is this verse in Malachim is AFAIK the ONLY reference to Ashera as a goddess. The references to it as some sort of cult object are much more common. Also this article asserts that the verse from Malachim is also not referring to a goddess but rather to a cult object. Basically the Tanach itself makes very little reference to a goddess Ashera.

Another argument against the identification of the inscriptions with a goddess is a grammatical issue. In Biblical Hebrew the "possessive suffix" (the "Hu" in "Ashrathu") is never used with a proper noun. So grammatically it would not make sense to identify the "his ashera" as the name of a goddess but makes more sense as an object. I cannot vouch for all Semitic dialects but I believe Arabic similarly has such a grammatical rule.

An interesting argument for the identification of the ashera as a cult object is the following prayer found in Tractate Sukka:

"When they departed, what did they say? 'Praise to you, O Altar! Praise to you, O Altar!'" (m. Suk. 4:5) According to Rabbi Eliezer b. Jacob, they said "To Yah and to you, O Altar! To Yah and to you, O Altar!" (t. Suk. 3:1 end).

In other words even in Mishnaic times when strict monotheism reigned a prayer was made to God and his altar extremely similar to the prayers we find of "YHWH and his ashera"

In conclusion I'm leaning towards the cult object theory. I have a feeling that archaeologists who already have decided that there was polytheism in Ancient Israel are a little bit too eager to find corroborating evidence. But I definitely need to do a little more research.

Here are some internet sources:

Ashera as goddess:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060916100221/http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/guest/Ancient+Israel/asherah.htm

http://mikranet.cet.ac.il/pages/item.asp?item=7885&str1=%u05D0%u05E9%u05E8%u05D4&find=1


Ashera as cult object:

http://lib.cet.ac.il/Pages/item.asp?item=13226

see here http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jwst/second.htm