Asherah

Resumo: o presente artigo propõe realizar um levantamento acerca do culto da fertili-dade e os papéis das sagradas (qedoshot) de Asherah, e também dos sagrados (qedoshim) que faziam parte deste ambiente cultual, tendo em vista a religião popular e estatal no Antigo Israel. Para tal, se faz necessário um breve comen-tário acerca da dinâmica entre religião popular e estatal no Antigo Israel e os indícios arqueológicos e textuais sobre o culto à Deusa Asherah, para que então, se possa discorrer sobre o culto da fertilidade e as mulheres sagradas a serviço da Deusa. Palavras-chave: Sacerdotisa. Asherah. Culto. Deusa. Culto de Fertilidade.

O presente artigo pretende demonstrar que Israel nem sempre foi monoteísta. Essa crença em um único Deus se deu de uma construção cultural-religiosa que ocorreu entre os séculos IX e V a.C. O panteão israelita passou por diversas fases até chegar a síntese teológico-cultural mais propagada. A consolidação desse monoteísmo patriarcal representa também a dessacralização da sexualidade e do erotismo. E nesse desenvolvimento o monoteísmo suplantou Deuses e Deusas, en-tre elas está Asherah. Nessa exposição trataremos de elucidar alguns pontos a respeito da construção do monoteísmo javista-masculino, a supressão da imagem da Grande-Mãe, focada em Asherah, e as consequências de um Deus assexuado para a tradição judaico-cristã. Palavras-chave: Asherah. Monoteísmo. Erotismo. Javé.

ABSTRACT This article aims to demonstrate that Israel has not always been mo-notheistic. This belief in a single God came from a cultural-religious construction raised the 9th and 5th centuries BC. The Israeli pantheon went through several phases until the most propagated theological-cultural synthesis. The consolidation of this patriarchal monotheism also represents the de-sacralization of sexuality and eroticism. And in this development monotheism supplanted Gods and Goddesses, among them is Asherah. In this exposition we will try to elucidate a few points about the construction of the Yahwist-male monotheism , the suppression of the image of the Great Mother focused


* Mestranda em Ciências da Religião na Universidade Metodista de São Paulo (UMESP). Teóloga pela Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie. Pesquisadora das temáticas: diálogo inter-religioso, teologia feminista, gênero.

Resumo: A profecia de Dêutero-Isaías é marco importante dentro do desenvolvimento do monoteísmo hebraico. Categoricamente os profetas e profetisas afirmam que não existem nenhum outro Deus além de Javé. Tendo esta afirmação como ponto de partida, juntamente com o pressuposto de o texto trazer consigo uma memória cultural, o presente artigo tem por objetivo evidenciar a influência das Deusas Asherah e Ishtar na construção da imagem materna de Javé em Dêutero-Isaías. Palavras-chave: Maternidade de Javé; Asherah; Ishtar; Dêutero-Isaías; Monoteísmo. Abstract: The Deutero-Isaiah prophecy is important milestone in the development of Hebrew monotheism. Categorically the prophets and prophetesses claim that there is no other God besides Yahweh. Taking this statement as a starting point, along with the assumption of the text bring a cultural memory, this article aims to demonstrate the influence of the Goddess Asherah and Ishtar in the construction of the maternal image of Yahweh in Deutero-Isaiah.

A brief exploration of the ancient names for tree and almond introduces this entry. “The Semitic name for tree is Amygdala from the botanical word Amygdalus communis meaning Great Mother, archetypical Mesopotamian goddesses of life and renewal” (TL: 41, n. 9). The biblical name for tree is Luz. Prior to the Hebrew Bible, “Luz was synonymous with the old Canaanite ‘City of Almond,’ later renamed Bethel.” (TL: 41.) Relative to Bethel, both Asherah and El, essential components of Canaanite religion, were co–worshiped at Bethel/Luz.

Remarkable Eye Idols were dug up in Tell Brak, an ancient city in Northern Syria.
In 1937 Max Mallowan began to excavate this city and there he found a ruin that he called ‘Eye Temple’ because thousands of these ‘Eye Idols,’ were found there.
I suppose that these Idols represent various deities, such as the mother goddess Asherah and the father god ʼĒl.
And I also suppose that some of them represent temples.

The goddess Asherah is designated as ‘Lady of the Sea’ several times in the Baal Cycle. In this papre I will focus on the description of Asherah in KTU 1.4, ii, and propose a new reading for a few of its passages. Until now scholars have assumed, based on the reading of column ii, that Asherah is a goddess who represents women and women’s domestic labor, since according to this passage, she is described as weaving, laundering, cooking, and serving food to El, her consort. These scholars have not explained the connection between this description and Asherah’s epic epithet as ‘Lady of the Sea’. Similarly unexplained is the connection between the description of Asherah engaging in domestic chores and the following passage, which deals with fishing and with Ashera’s fisherman Qudshu-wa-Amruru.
Closer examination of the Ugaritic word npnyh, accompanied by an alternate verse division of the text in question, raises the possibility that Asherah is portrayed here in the act of weaving a fishing net, which also serves as her garment. In light of this passage and additional textual references (including the Kirta Epic), as well as archaeological findings from Ugarit (a drawing on a drinking mug and a figurine of a goddess), the argument can be made that in the coastal city of Ugarit, alongside her other attributes, Asherah was also regarded as a goddess of fishing. She is described as a lady and as the consort of El, the head of the pantheon, as well as the goddess responsible for feeding the inhabitants of Ugarit.

There are many elements at play in the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden, all of which instigated a multitude and diverse range of interpretations. However, the text has only rarely been interpreted as possibly having a link to an ancient ritual. Remarkably, all of the elements present in the tale of Adam and Eve can be found in several Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean sources, many of which have been interpreted as being associated with rituals. What I propose for this thesis is that the written account of the Eden narrative could be both a record of an historical ritual, and an attempt to standardize a choice women's rite of passage that was used to attain an exalted status within the Israelite religious and social institutions. For this, I investigate the development of the sacred marriage ritual in the nations surrounding Israel by defining its history, its purpose, and its main religious experts. I then explore the Israelite religious landscape around the time the text was composed to find the proper circumstances that would lend themselves to the existence of a Judahite sacred marriage rite akin to that of these other ancient cultures. Finally, using a comparative approach to the Eden text, that mainly relies on the Ritual School, I briefly explore the many elements at play in the tale and define their purpose in the ritual.

Paper done for Religious Studies Old Testament/Hebrew Bible undergraduate course at Indiana University Southeast.  Paper examines and contextualizes Old Testament passage from the Book of Jeremiah.  Explains how its focuses on the ancient Near Eastern goddess Asherah and her place in ancient Hebrew and Israelite religion along with the history of the book itself.

Christianity teaches its followers about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The deity is described as a father to his children and the world. In churches across America, the people are taught that there are no female aspects of the Divine. Thus, there is an overall lack of independent feminine presence in the teachings of the biblical texts. That is not to say that there are no female characters in the Bible; there are many named women in the books. Still, these women are rarely discussed as central characters, and instead, they are referenced in context with their male family members or husbands. This male-centered reading of the Bible makes it the perfect instrument of patriarchy. It becomes a sacred text and guide which has ignored or downplayed the very existence of women. However, Biblical scholars know that there are independent women in the Bible and that some of these women are what we identify as demigods.

In this paper, we try to locate and recognize in King Solomon’s temple
the architectural and decorative elements linked to the presence of the goddess Asherah.
Built during the polytheistic phase of the Israelite religion, the temple at first would not have been originally dedicated to the male deity of Israel, as the Deuteronomic editors of the Hebrew Bible wanted  the Israelite people to believe, butconsecrated to the goddess Asherah, the  protectress of the Davidic dynasty.
At a later stage, the temple would be occupied by the divine couple formed by the gods Yahweh and Asherah, and, from then, on Yahweh's presence in the temple would become ever more powerful, to the point of imposing the expulsion of the image of the goddess.
In the absence of any mention made by the Bible of the divine pair Yahvehand Asherah, we were forced to raise a series of theological hypotheses to justify not only the type of decoration and furniture employed inside and outside of the religious building, but also the strategic points in which these decorative and liturgical elements were situated.
From a certain historical moment, the divine essence for the Israelites began to express itself through the union of two cosmic principles, contrarian but equivalent and independent.
The cosmic masculine principle (Yahweh) took refuge within the temple, permanently immersed in the darkness of the Holy of Holies, where it was inaccessible, while the feminine cosmic principle (Asherah) appeared in full daylight, installed on the outer face of the temple, in the sight of men, assuming at night the  form of the Trees of Life in flames, called menorahs,  located in the intermediate space of internal construction.
In addition, to seeking to understand the divine functions assumed by Asherah during the period when she was considered a collaborator of Yahweh, we sought to recover the meaning and appearance of the famous bronze columns, which originally were to be considered the materializations of the goddess, as Tree of Life, and, later, symbols, as she was the protectress of the dynasty, of the unified monarchy of Israel and more afternoon of the monarchy of Judah.

As divine epithets, the terms baal and baals are always definite in HB.  The same holds for the divine designations, asherah and its basic plural, ashtarot.  "The baal" is used as a collective plural frequently; "the asherah" can serve the same function.  The possessive suffix on asherah, as in blessing formulae at Khirbet el-Kom and Kuntillet Ajrud, also reflects the nouns' inherent need to be marked for definiteness in such contexts (much like elohim when it does not function as an exclusive soubriquet).  The collectivization of the subordinate gods (including astral and ancestral gods at different times) comports with the identification of the chthonic gods as Rephaim, extinct mythic aboriginals, and of the celestial as foreign, in the march to monotheism of the 7th century.  Cross-ref. Brisker Pipes; Jerusalem and the Lineages.

Course Description: Gender Issues in Religion introduces the students to various religious traditions and investigates prevailing attitudes toward women. The course deals with the role women play in religion and society, and the way women were and are portrayed by the world's major religions. It illuminates the impact patriarchy had on the lives of women worldwide and depicts their contemporary responses in creating new religious movements and institutions.

Four Minoan glyptic images from the Neopalatial period portray sacred trees in conjunction with boats and seascape. The Mochlos Ring depicts an elite female figure seated upon a stepped ashlar altar that includes a tree, inside a self-propelled hippocamp-headed boat. The Makrygialos Seal depicts a female figure performing a cultic salute toward a tree situated inside a boat. In the Amnissos Ring elite figures communicate with a hovering epiphanic tree deity in the vicinity of a boat. A female figure in a hippocamp-headed boat upon the sea is surrounded by three cult structures in the Ring of Minos. These images have traditionally been interpreted in three main ways: as a representation of Minoan cosmological concepts; as depicting a vague “Goddess from the sea” who is either a metaphor for a Minoan “thalassocracy” or else symbolic of a sequence of seasonal festivals; and as a ritual scene involving the literal transport of a tree in a ship from one cult site to another. While each of these interpretations incorporates degrees of validity, they are only partial explanations of these images. This paper proposes that the religious aspects of the images can be understood through the examination of their iconography in light of both Minoan religion and contemporary Canaanite seafaring religion. In his early analysis of Minoan culture, Arthur Evans attributed Minoan religious concepts to cultural diffusion from the Levant and Egypt. Acculturation is often discernible within art and material culture connected to cult and such evidence can provide information on the imitation or adoption of foreign religious concepts. It is argued here that the four Minoan glyptic images that combine trees, human figures, boats and the sea represent a combination of native Minoan with Canaanite religious ideas concerning a tree goddess who also had power over the sea. Each image is thus a glyph of the protective power of the Minoan tree deity over maritime voyaging, whether to a nearby Cycladic trading partner, a colony, or to a distant eastern Mediterranean destination. The empowerment of the expedition through supernatural patronage emphasises Minoan land-based power over the sea and extends the Cretan landscape outward to incorporate the seascape. It is further proposed that the images functioned in a protective talismanic capacity and that the containment of the iconographic motifs within the confines of gold rings and a stone seal linked the Minoan elites who owned these objects with the exotic aura of transculturality and power associated with overseas trade.                                             

[Kindly read at the conference by Louise A. Hitchcock 

Now available here: https://12iccs.proceedings.gr/el/proceedings/category/38/32/381

King Solomon began preparations for the construction of the First Temple  in 970 BCE in the old city of Jerusalem. This was done in conjunction with Hiram, King of Tyre, who provided timber from as far as Lebanon. The temple was to house numerous treasures including the menorah, the Ark of the Covenant, and the goddess Shekinah who dwelt in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle. In Yamashita’s dissertation, The Goddess Asherah, he also discusses that sacred prostitution was practiced. (GA: 128.) Women had a special recognition in the temple and were actively engaged in the cult [culture] of Asherah, including the weaving of the battim as possibly a type of baldachin (canopy). (II K 23.7.) (COA: 29; II K 23.7; GHW: 213.) (WRSA.)

Discoveries made at the archaeological sites of Kuntillet Ajrud in the north Sinai desert and Khirbet el Qom near Hebron date from 800 to 700 BCE, ancient pre–exilic Israelite era. (AH: 392.) These discoveries have had significant impact on validating Asherah as a goddess in her own right. In addition to Asherah represented as a seated cathedra deity or ilhm ksat, (chair goddesses) (GA: 44, n. 54), inscriptions associate Asherah and Yahweh in a cultic capacity and signify that she was greatly respected and widely revered. (AGL: 210.)

There are many elements at play in the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden, all of which instigated a multitude and diverse range of interpretations. However, the text has only rarely been interpreted as possibly having a link to an ancient ritual. Remarkably, all of the elements present in the tale of Adam and Eve can be found in several Ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean sources, many of which have been interpreted as being associated with rituals. What I propose for this thesis is that the written account of the Eden narrative could be both a record of an historical ritual, and an attempt to standardize a choice women's rite of passage that was used to attain an exalted status within the Israelite religious and social institutions. For this, I investigate the development of the sacred marriage ritual in the nations surrounding Israel by defining its history, its purpose, and its main religious experts. I then explore the Israelite religious landscape around the time the t...

The book develops a diachronical typology of the goddess Asherah by doing a comprehensive survey of the second- and first- millennium B.C.E. Near Eastern sources. After a brief introduction, the volume comprises four chapters: chapter 1 treats attestations of the goddess in second-millenium B.C.E. Mesopotamia; chapter 2 surveys attestations of the same period from Ugarit and Ras Ibn Hani in four categories of texts: divine lists, ritual and religious texts, mythological texts, and personal names; chapter 3 deals with the scarce Mesopotamian attestations in the first millennium; and finally, chapter 4 discusses Palestinian attestations of the first millennium, that is, those from the Bible, Qumran, and epigraphic texts. Finally, after a short conclusion there is an appendix discussing the problem of Asherah's iconography.

Popular religion in ancient Israel is not identified with the ‘one and only’ religion presented as the norm in the text of the Hebrew Bible. The popular religion practised by the people is condemned by the representatives of the official Israelite religion, i.e. the Deuteronomistic Historians, the priests and the prophets of the state of Judah. These are the three groups that produced most of the biblical texts and formed the direction of Israelite monotheistic religion. Therefore, popular religion in Judah is something hat is characterized as heterodox or heretical. The rule is that every cult or manifestation not following the path of the Hebrew Bible is condemned. Within this context, we will try to discuss one aspect of the popular religion of monarchic Judah in the 8th and 7th centuries BC. We will present the so-called Judean Pillar Figurines (JPFs) and attempt to examine the relationship of those figurines with popular religion, as well as their use and function in the religious life of the ancient Jews during this period.

The article presents Semitic and Canaanite people in Egyptian sources, and Canaanite mythology and it´s reflections in the Bible

The Canaanite, the Amo, the Hyksos, the Shasu and the Habiru / Apiru; are all Semitic people that were documented in ancient Egyptian sources and could be related to the ancient Hebrews of the Bible.

The Canaanite mythology has many gods; each has his own role to ensure the proper functioning of the world. The prose and poetry written in Ugarit was found in the ruins of Tel Ras Shamra in 1928 by a local peasant. The text was written on clay tablets and tells about the deeds of the gods, lists people and their roles in the city and has some administrative documentation.

SUMMARY: Lecture 13 continues the discussion of the Middle Minoan to Late Minoan palace centres on Crete, including the eruption of Santorini and slow decline on Crete leading up to the ca. 1450 BC "Mycenaean" domination of Crete --politically? versus culturally? This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources.  REVISED: March, 2024, some revised formatting, text and images, plus many selected sources.

"submersible" usually means a manned untethered vehicle which moves about under the water, however this article includes the advantages and disadvantages of underwater television and towed manned capsule, and the functional requirements and specifications of a manned untethered submarine. The theory and practice of submersibles in photo-surveying also discussed.

NON-FICTION COMIC

Forget about the peaceful story of the patriarch tending his sheep. You are about to learn of the untold story of Sodom. The forgotten story that no one knows about because, well, losers don’t get to write history. Still, it is a story everyone needs to come to grips with because, unknowingly, by perpetuating the worship of Abraham’s Lord, it is the oppressor’s memory we continue to celebrate. Ironically, the Sodomite’s cry for freedom, which continues to resonate in the scriptures thousands of years later, enables us to reconstruct the story behind the myth today.

This non-fiction comic explores the possibility that Abraham existed and made an earthly covenant with a Mesopotamian ruler who sought to control the valley of Siddim, an important trade corridor between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Such a covenant would have been decisive for the descendants of Abraham. Could the worship of this lord, over time, have turned into a local cult that would have given rise to the God of Israel?

This possibility has been neglected for too long.

NOTE: This non-fiction comic complements my monograph "An Everlasting Quid Pro Quo"

La constatación de que durante la mayor parte de aquel nuestro pasado remoto nos hemos relacionado con la dimensión transcendente de un modo encarnado en la naturaleza, percibiéndola femenina- mente como Madre nutricia, providente y acogedora, no es una curiosidad científica, ni un dato irrelevante despreciable por haber sido ya olvidado de la memoria colectiva ancestral, sino que desafía nuestro axioma moderno de la masculinidad y la espiritualidad del Dios-theos, el «Ente» en el que de hecho imaginamos depositada y personificada la dimensión divina de (toda) la realidad. Hasta en esta zona más honda de la religiosidad humana, las dimensiones masculina y femenina inciden decisivamente en la forma de entender, encarar y vivenciar tanto la realidad del mundo como a nosotros mismos.

SUMMARY: Lecture 12 discusses the end of Early Minoan period, the rise of Middle Minoan period, and the emergence of palace centres on Crete. This lecture is designed mainly as an educational resource for college students (i.e., normally posted only on my institution's course website), the public (e.g., people auditing my course), and interested colleagues from other disciplines (to whom I provide copies privately).  I am posting it here, both as a broader access, educational tool, and especially to promote the study of this region and its past societies.  For further knowledge about this region and period, I refer interested parties to the textbooks and other sources from which the materials were extracted (see syllabus), and/or the bibliographies in these works and my online resource guides (see other files in my academia folders).  The lecture summarizes the pertinent materials in the course textbook(s), adding in other data, and furnishing numerous images to clarify information encountered within the textbook(s).  Some generic imagery (usually indicated as such) is posted to aid in transmitting various concepts visually, and/or when a specific image remains not located (temporarily).  I update and revise such lectures each time, with such elective courses normally being taught once every two years.  I try to cover the most current, mainstream views, and usually place summary notes at the end of each lecture alongside some of the key sources used for compiling the ppt.  Over time, each lecture is improved, errors rectified, and additional data placed within the lecture.  These ppt. lectures take many hours to compile, but they have proved useful to many of my more serious students and I hope they can be of benefit to others as well.  My apologies for any errors I may have made, and my liberal usage of educational imagery from professional sources and vetted internet sources. REVISED: Feb., 2024: Some new formatting, revised text, images, etc.

The site of Kuntillet Ajrud in the ancient kingdom of Judah, the construction of which predates the reign of Josiah by two centuries (-639 to-609), has a fortress in which are carved in plaster in Hebrew as well as in Phoenician : "Teman's YHWH and his Ashera greet you" We notice a female character who seats in the background (playing with a sort of lyre?) And two male characters with marked genitals in the foreground (Yahweh and Baal?) The tripartite deity seems to be symbolized by the bull and the calf at the bottom left. The bull is in Mesopotamia traditionally associated with Ishtar with the dragon and the Lion, just as the lady with felines of Çatal Höyük (VIIIth millennium BC) is accompanied by the bull, one also found in Meskéné-Emar quantity of images of bulls associated with the Syrian Baal. One can be challenged by the calf which instead of maternal udders seems to "suck" the genitals of the bull, its father, not mudders of a cow.
In Arslan Tash ivories, the calf is represented suckling its mother, this one presents the hind leg releasing its udders in an open way whereas in the representation of Kuntillet Ajrud one notices a certain ambiguity with the leg of the progenitor advanced on the front like the
classic representation of the bull of Ishtar.

Scholem sought textual evidence of the evolution of the feminization of the Shekhinah, starting with the earliest Kabbalistic text, the Bahir.  His conclusion that myth was neither employed nor preserved in rabbinic Judaism led him to seek origins for the Kabbalah in Merkabah mysticism and Gnostic cosmology, rather than in ancient or contemporary myth and ritual. In this paper, five images of the feminine were examined for possible similarities to the feminine Shekhinah: Lilith, Wisdom, the Gnostic Sophia, the Virgin Mary and Asherah.  Each of these appears to influence one or two of the feminine qualities of the Shekhinah, but none of them convey a majority of attributes.  This may support Scholem’s premise that mythic images are used by mystics to clothe mystical insight, rather than evolving through an historical progression that can be traced textually or ritually; however, his silence on the tree symbolism of Asherah, in particular, seems to indicate an a priori rejection of survival myth and ritual in favor of revival mystical symbolism.