a fool sees not the same tree

Asherah

Yahweh had a wife who was edited out of holy books

jonathan-cunningham:

“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.

“The inscription is a petition for a blessing,” she shares. “Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from ‘Yahweh and his Asherah.’ Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife.”

Also significant, Stavrakopoulou believes, “is the Bible’s admission that the goddess Asherah was worshiped in Yahweh’s Temple in Jerusalem. In the Book of Kings, we’re told that a statue of Asherah was housed in the temple and that female temple personnel wove ritual textiles for her.”

J. Edward Wright, president of both The Arizona Center for Judaic Studies and The Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, told Discovery News that he agrees several Hebrew inscriptions mention “Yahweh and his Asherah.”

“Asherah was not entirely edited out of the Bible by its male editors,” he added. “Traces of her remain, and based on those traces, archaeological evidence and references to her in texts from nations bordering Israel and Judah, we can reconstruct her role in the religions of the Southern Levant.”

This blows my mind. Three of the largest religious traditions in the world have erased the female counterpart of their God. These are the same religions often accused of passing memetic sexism to their adherents- I don’t think this is at all a coincidence.

Arabic is a language that seriously likes to muck about with gender, especially since it only has two:

1) Masculine Haqeeqi, used for things that are alive and male, e.g. humans, animals.

2) Masculine Majazi, masculine gender ascribed to objects, or things that are beyond human/animal, e.g. door, angel.

But then you can use hiya (she/it) to refer to God instead of huwa (he/it). There’s rules for ascribing feminine gender to objects:

a) female by nature, i.e. mother, or daughter. are feminine.

b) Ends with ta marbuta.

c) Ends with Alif Mamduda

d) Object occurs in pairs, e.g. eyes, legs.

“Allah” is none of these things, so has to be ascribed masculine gender of (2), unreal. So that’s why ‘huwa’ is used for God. Limiting, but what did I tell you, MUCK ABOUT WITH GENDER.

Things in Bible != Things in Qur’an, ok? ok.

That said, this is an interesting, does anyone have followup links? Something like it MUST have generated controversy somewhere.

∞Posted on March 20, 2011

Reblogged from: Merf. Thinking is Hard.

Source: jonathan-cunningham

Notes: 275 notes

Tags: religion,sexism,