Well, it’s only been about 2,500 years in the making, but finally the wife of God is getting her due. Many of us have known for decades what Discovery “News” is now reporting. Of course, it hasn’t been polite for the mainstream media to reveal such important faith-challenging facts, so it was up to people like Barbara Walker (and me) to be on the front lines all these years. I wrote about this subject in the 90s, including in my book The Christ Conspiracy, published in 1999. Could it be that we just might have gotten some other things right as well? I wonder if anyone in the MSM will ever ask for our opinions on these subjects.
That being vented, it’s a good article – and about time.
God’s Wife Edited Out of the Bible — Almost
THE GIST
* God, also known as Yahweh, had a wife named Asherah, according to a British theologian.
* Amulets, figurines, inscriptions and ancient texts, including the Bible, reveal Asherah’s once prominent standing.
God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.
In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.
Information presented in Stavrakopoulou’s books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe, where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah connection.
“You might know him as Yahweh, Allah or God. But on this fact, Jews, Muslims and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are agreed: There is only one of Him,” writes Stavrakopoulou in a statement released to the British media. “He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many … or so we like to believe.”
“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.
Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on ancient texts, amulets and figurines unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now modern-day Syria. All of these artifacts reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.
Asherah’s connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud….
Further Reading
Why the BBC’s new face of religion believes God had a WIFE
Goddess Studies
The Christ Conspiracy