Many figurines have been discovered that are considered to have been representations of Asherah. However, as no figurine has yet been found with a plaque identifying her with Asherah there is always a measure of doubt as to exactly which of the several goddesses attested to ancient Israel at the time they do actually represent....Therefore
Asherah is often associated, in a syncretistic way, with (among others) Anat, Astarte, Ishtar,
the ‘Queen of Heaven’, Ashteroth and Qudshu.42 It seems likely that Asherah was
synonymous with one or two of these, but much less likely that she was associated in any
way with most....Qudshu is a “Name of Athiratu, mother of the
gods. Both Athiratu and Qudshu mean ‘holy place, sanctuary’.” Johannes C. de Moor, A Cuneiform Anthology of Religious Texts from Ugarit, edited by Johannes C. de Moor and Klaas Spronk, (Leiden: Brill, 1987), 32, n. 140. A similar note on KTU 1.16.I.11 is made by de Moor on 212, n. 73. That Asherah was also known as Qudshu is also supported by Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan,
engorged breasts has led some scholars to conclude that the figures represent
pregnancies successfully carried to term, and place further emphasis on the role of the
mother as the one who suckles the infant and provides further sustenance and growth....The Judean Pillar-Figurines, 41. While arguing for a rather
broad spread in dating, beginning with the 10th century BCE, Engle placed the majority of figurines in the 8th
century, extending into the 7th. James Robert Engle, “Pillar Figurines of Iron Age Israel and Asherah/Asherim,”
(PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 1979), 18-26. He has also noted that the majority of JPFs have been found
in locations belonging to the southern kingdom and during the divided monarchy
https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/76301889/viewcontent-libre.pdf?1639511155=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DEconomic_implications_of_the_Deuteronomi.pdf&Expires=1793802919&Signature=fo6frFqxGFoYjlhmjmiNysRW-DSNPfH614ZpirHoMARoLRLPirAWcjSgnkJkSQFqaLgHKdQMw5PxHFmDsO-WsGKRcTWgwU0JytniTBd75GGWNmtrPOQuXjBx6uVfEHxo1DHXa1D-r-pP0ioh5oXOPmh88Apq7P8SeOtpBc59uT30lpR7wQW13ioS8eZrxXVPhqSyX6sS1PKRkK23D4Njs14PxPgSA0t6a-8~JMxaSQF0YAcbPZRXRsI6dXBI5cwO1ujOo-VAlIDg6B2O10wQItcMMVwQ0Lj2wnlOP5lmzGPs-mwM6YeM5MOiCsevcuVNrhrXlWfXxnT8zJM7yzGF5Q__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA Economic Implications of the Deuteronomistic Reform and the Elimination of the Goddess Asherah. Lucienne Elise Breingan. A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree Doctor of Philosophy School of Theology (Strathfield) Faculty of Theology and Philosophy Office of Graduate Research PO Box 968, North Sydney NSW 2059 Australia Date Submitted: 31st December 2014 "Is it beyond question that there is not much more of Deuteronomy that was authored in Judah as opposed to imported from Samaria? It is evident that at first glance at least some of the text appears to have a considerable northern influence, but in view of the northern propensity towards a traditional cult (and here bull and Asherah worship is referred to specifically, " The symbol of the Canaanite god El was the bull, or calf.132 If it is to be considered that YHWH and El are the same deity (or one the syncretistic form of the other),133 it follows that their iconography would also be ‘transferable’.... Yahweh’s appropriation of El’s consort, Asherah, fits naturally into this schema, and like the bull symbolism, it was something which the Old Testament rejected.”....YHWH and El, right down to their common symbol of a calf or bull. This could be the very reason why Asherah is also the consort of YHWH – perhaps at some stage in the pre-history, YHWH was synonymous with El and then later emerged as a separate entity.” Miller, The Religion of Ancient Israel, 25; Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 44-75.....archaeological excavation has uncovered a limited number of sites at which imagery, or at least maṣṣeboth thought to be associated with YHWH, are present – least of all are the bull figurines from the northern sites such as the Bull Site at Dothan....Many bāmôth contain maṣṣeboth of different sizes in close proximity to one another, which could well be representations of the divine pair YHWH and Asherah...Many biblical characters are accused of having erected an asherah, to the chagrin of the Lord. The most notable of these are Maacah in 1 Kings 15:3 and Manasseh in 2 Kings 7....the serpent was directly related to the worship of Asherah, who is included in the official worship of the deity YHWH....Nehushtan was representative of YHWH’s healing powers, especially from the venom of serpents....Ze’ev Meshel, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (Ḥorvat Teman): An Iron Age II Religious Site on the Judah-Sinai Border, (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2012). The question of the significance of Asherah in ancient Israel is one which has fascinated scholars in recent years. A major catalyst for such a fascination was the discovery of inscriptions linking Asherah with YHWH at sites at Kuntillet ‘Ajrud (of which the final report has recently been released)3 and Khirbet el Qom. These discoveries brought biblical references to Asherah into sharp focus,
Asherah was also linked to sacred fertility rites, which may have included women of status in ritual activities, though the association with temple prostitution is now debated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah
eel and Uehlinger have argued that although
אׁשרה takes a definite article in the biblical text, this can be seen as a Deuteronomistic
technique to associate Asherah with Baal, paralleling her with הבאל instead of with the
name of YHWH which never takes a definite article.8 The plural form of the name is also a
device used by Dtr to associate Asherah with Baal. These are often pluralised in conjunction
as ‘the Baals’ and ‘the Asherahs’, but never is there an instance of ‘the YHWHs’.9 Such a
method increases the ‘common’ nature of the deities and in doing so devalues them.
According to Keel and Uehlinger, this is “to be understood as the Deuteronomistic technique
for slandering ‘Canaanite’ deities.”10
Meindert Dijkstra, “I Have Blessed you by Yhwh of Samaria and His Asherah: Texts
with Religious Elements from the Soil Archive of Ancient Israel,” in Only One God? Monotheism in Ancient
Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah, edited by Meindert Dijkstra, Bob Becking, Mario C.A. Korpel
and Karel J.H. Vriezen, (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001),
the worship of the asherah as a cultic symbol beside the shrine of YHWH, with its
golden calf iconography, resulted in the long term in an amalgamation of the roles of these
two deities. As people came to make sacrifices to the god YHWH, they were also presenting
them to the asherah, intimately associated with the goddess Asherah.
Olyan states that: “The
patriarchal narratives of cult founding at Bethel, Hebron and Beersheba indicate that the
sacred tree and the pillar (maṣṣeba) were legitimate in the Yahwistic cult early on, and were
not considered illegitimate in the time of the Yahwist or Elohist.”55 Thus the biblical texts
clearly show that there is no syncretism with the “Canaanite” cult, and that Asherah was a
legitimate member of the Israelite pantheon from its earliest times. Conversely, Day
concludes that YHWH and El are syncretistic, rather than one god known by different
appellations.56 Day states that “It is interesting that the Old Testament has no qualms in
equating Yahweh with El, something which stands in marked contrast to its vehement
opposition to Baal (cf. Hos. 2.18).”
Margalit, “The Meaning and Significance of Asherah,” 277. He also states that “This hypothesis, if
demonstrable, would explain the lack of explicit reference to Athirat's consortship as a redundancy eschewed
by the Ugaritic poets, and at the same time extricate the Hebrew epigraphist from the horns of a dilemma at
both Kh. el-Qom and Kuntillet ‘Ajrud.” 269
some suggesting that
it refers instead to the cultic symbol of the asherah, citing the one next to the altar in the
Jerusalem Temple as precedence. One is hard pressed to find a scholar who disagrees that
this is somehow linked with the cult of Asherah in one way or another.72
There has been much discussion regarding the linkage between Yahweh and
Asherah/ the asherah in the inscription, and whether or not the pictographs on the same
pithos are somehow related to the inscription. Do they illustrate the inscription in some
way? Some have made an argument for this, citing details in the picture – such as the
second figure planting (its?) foot in the footprint of the first – that could indicate that the
two figures are husband and wife.73 This supports the theory that in this context the
inscription is referring to the goddess Asherah, who is the consort/wife of the god Yahweh
(of Samaria).74
Asherah is portrayed throughout the DH as a threat to
Yahwism in a way that constantly conflated the deity herself with her iconography.146 Thus,
it is clear that while her iconography is endemic to an environment in which worship can be
conducted away from the Temple in Jerusalem, it is potentially ‘robbing’ that Temple
complex of valuable revenue. In this sense it is her, and not YHWH’s, images and other cultic
paraphernalia that are widespread throughout the land. Prior to Dtr’s reforms, the cult of
YHWH had not been entirely austere and image-free
as it is known that there were asherim dedicated
to YHWH by the altar in the Temple by this time, and that it is clear from other biblical
passages and archaeological evidence, such as the Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el Qom
inscriptions, that YHWH and Asherah were commonly worshipped together, and by logical
extension even in the Temple in Jerusalem.
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