~ Asherah Informational Updates ~
Updates will be added here the first week of the month.
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November 2014:
~ Asherah is Eve ~
As archeology and ancient texts provide a more accurate history, we learn Asherah is Eve.
According to Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel author Saul M. Olyan, Eve is an “attested epithet” of Asherah’s during the first millennium BCE.*
Extrapolating further upon the Eve-Asherah identification, Olyan
suggests Asherah’s historical serpent association references a previous
myth embedded within the Adam and Eve/Garden of Eden narrative: “One
suspects that an early myth associating the serpent/sea dragon and
Asherah has been lost. Perhaps a reflex of this myth is preserved in the
Eden story in Genesis.”
*additionally, the goddesses Asherah and Eve are both analogous to the goddess Tanit/Tannit.
Olyan was writing for the Monograph Series by the Society of Biblical Literature. It was published by Scholars Press in 1988 and reviewed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society in 1990. This pedigree, along with other biblical scholars, pretty much establishes it as fact unless some contradictory data surfaces some time in the future.
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"Yahweh’s
Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden"
or
Was the Garden of Eden story created to
dishonor and defame Asherah?
The Garden of Eden story is a recycling of standard Mesopotamian myths.
It is no accident that the narrative includes a sacred Tree of Life (one of Asherah’s attributes) and a serpent (another one of Asherah’s attributes).
By deliberately interweaving Asherah representations into the Garden of Eden story, the authors were able to successfully defame Eve/Asherah – the Feminine component of religious worship.
Author Arthur George presents addresses this further in “Yahweh’s Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden."
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~Yahweh Blessing Inscription with "his Asherah" (3 times)~
Discovered at Khirbet el-Qom and dating to ~750-700 BCE, a Paleo-Hebrew inscription is depicted above a blessing hand.
The Israelite bench tomb inscription invokes the goddess Asherah with Yahweh 3 separate times.
Although a proclaimed bachelor god, this blessing inscription is yet another pairing Yahweh with "his Asherah."
For more information on the archaeology confirming Asherah as God’s wife see http://www.wifeofyahweh.com/ archaeological-evidence.
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October 2014:
~ Asherah’s story is slowly emerging! ~
In the last 2 years, 97 different countries have visited Asherah’s websites!
Some of the noteworthy visiting countries include:
Croatia, Russia, China, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Columbia, Guyana, Kenya,
South Africa and Slovenia.
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~ Constellation of Asherah: Sacred Tree, Nibbling Ibexes & Lion ~
A personification of the goddess Asherah, this drawing was discovered
on a 3-foot storage jar at Kuntillet Ajrud.* It depicts nibbling ibexes
flanking a stylized, sacred tree,** all positioned above the back of striding lion.
The ancients would have immediately identified this symbolism with the goddess Asherah.
The ibexes-flanking-and-nibbling-on-a-sacred-tree is an
established Asherah motif throughout ancient Palestinian pottery. It
dates back over 1,000 years before Kuntillet Ajrud's drawings.
The stylized sacred tree** is Asherah's sacred Tree of Life/Tree of
Knowledge (the Pomegranate Tree^). Throughout antiquity, stylized,
sacred trees were called asherahs after the goddess Asherah (reflected
also in biblical text).
Epithets of Asherah include "Lion
Lady," and "the One of the Lion." The lion was one of Asherah's ancient
epiphanies and serves as the foundation of this configuration.
The numerous references to Asherah presented here, provide a window
into the past and a clue to understanding the importance of Asherah
worship in a forgotten time long ago.
*an Israelite-Judean
Sinai way-station with an attached shrine and "religious center."
(Although a southern complex under Israelite control, neutron analysis
of Ajrud's storage jars reveal they were produced by Judeans around the
Jerusalem area, affirming it had a far reaching northern presence also.)
**Fossilized chunks of wood, discovered at Israelite, archaeological
sites, were initially identified as "posts" and "tree trunks."
Scholars have recently re-identified these remains as "Asherah-images."
^As the "Source of All Life," to eat the fruit of the pomegranate tree
was to "become one with the goddess" in communion. A tradition
continued today by Catholics as they receive the body of Christ in
communion.
More information of Asherah and the Kuntillet Ajrud drawings can be found here at http://www.wifeofyahweh.com/archaeological-evidence or in History’s Vanquished Goddess ASHERAH!
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September 2014:
~Vegetation Goddess Asherah~
Dating
to the 12th century BCE, this hammered gold-foil plaque depicts a naked
Vegetation Goddess standing upon the back of an armored, prancing horse.
Stylistically similar to Egyptian Qds representations (one of Asherah's
epithets), the Encyclopedia of the Holy Land identifies this goddess as
"Ashtoreth[/Asherah]."
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~ Asherah - Hebrew Semitic mother Goddess ~
who appears in Akkadian writings as Ashratum/Ashratu and Hittite as Asherdu and Ugaritic Athirat.
She is the wife/consort of Sumerian Anu or Ugaritic El, the oldest deities in the pantheons. Allat is "goddess par excellence".
In book of Jeremiah (628 BC) calls her queen of heaven. In Ugaritic texts (1200 BCE) she is 'lady of the sea'."
Photo and quote from en.wikipedia.org
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~ Asherah haElah ~
" ' Asherah, the
Goddess', is a short movie which presents a conjectural reconstruction
of the original Hebrew text of Proverbs 31:28.
One of the most common methods which was used by the priestly editors of the Tanakh (the
basis of "the Old Testament") in order to obfuscate all traces of
earlier polytheistic tradition was to replace words which they intended
to suppress with others that had similar-sounding syllables. . . .
The memory of Asherah was never fully erased from Jewish mystical tradition.
It resurfaces in Qabalistic works such as the Pardes Rimmonim ("The
Orchard of Pomegranates") and the Book of Zohar as one of the earliest
names of the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit who is the Bride of God.
The
Shekinah is still invoked in Sabbath hymns which contain the chorus of
"Bo-i Kallah, Shekinah" (come to us, O Bride, Shekinah)."
Photo and quote from http://vimeo.com/9256708
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~ Palestinian Goddess is the "Creator of Vegetation and Life Itself" ~
According to Gods, Goddesses and Images of God In Ancient Israel, ancient images often depicted female goddesses with vegetation and/or water symbols.
The goddess-and-vegetation/water symbols were actually personifications of generative life forces and sustenance.
In the Syro-Palestinian area "the image of a goddess served as an
amulet which was venerated as a creator of vegetation, if not of life
itself.”
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pre-September 2014:
~ Asherah as Vegetative Goddess ~
Vegetation was a matter of live or death in ancient cultures, your family lived or perished dependent upon a bountiful vegetation season. Blessings offered through the goddess were essential.
Stylistically similar to, and identified with, the Egyptian goddess Qds, this plaque is one of hundreds discovered in the Syro-Palestinian corridor.
This Masmiyeh plaque dates to ~1500-1150 BCE.
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'Why the BBC's new face of religion believes God had a WIFE’
Kuntillet Ajrud's "ceramic inscription that suggests ancient Israelites worshipped a God AND Goddess in the same temple." - Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363113/Why-BBCs-new-face-religion-believes-God-WIFE.html
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'Did YHWH have a wife?’
by Andrew Stehlik
This informative presentation encapsulates several dimensions of the Asherah-as-YHWH's-wife controversy.
A Doctor of Theology and a pastor,Andrew Stehlik discusses archaeology, biblical religion, Asherah
in Ugarit's religious texts, Khirbet el-Qom, Kuntillet Ajrud, Asherah
iconography, Asherah in the Bible, Asherah as Lady Wisdom and biblical
divine androgyny.
Through his analysis of this historical data,
Stehlik describes the evolution of Asherah and YHWH as a divine couple
prior to the rise of monotheism.
Dr. Stehlik’s analysis can be found at http://andrewstehlik.blogspot.com/2012/03/did-yhwh-have-wife.html
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Although not one goddess of “Ugarit, ‘Israel’ and the Old Testament,” Asherah is the “number one goddess in the relevant cultures.” - Tilde Binger author of Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament
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Holding vegetative stalks, a crowned Asherah stands atop her signature lion on this bronze plaque/pendant.
Dating to ~1300 BCE, this is a depiction of Asherah in her aspect as Qds, a Vegetative Prosperity Goddess. See Facebook for a detailed analysis of this bronze pendant.
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Finds in Israel add weight to theory God “had wife”
Female figurines and inscribed prayers to a "divine couple" found in temples in Israel suggest that the “one God” of the Bible may not have been entirely alone.
A find by Jerusalem at Tel Motza, "suggests that Iron Age religion in the area around Jerusalem may not have been monotheistic just before the time the Hebrew Bible – the basis of the Old Testament - started to be written."
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~ Rational Faiths: Biblical Illusions to Asherah ~
“Taken together, all this evidence suggests that the title ruach Elohim/Yahweh is a symbolic name that underscores the goddess’ indissoluble relationship to eh Israelite chief male deity and her life-giving qualities.
She is, as it were, God’s breath, something he could not live without.” -www.rationalfaiths.com
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According to both the Bible and archaeology, the ancient Jews and early Christians worshipped a Mother God alongside Father God.
Framed by epiphanies of Asherah (lions and a dove), this double-throne, temple model shrine attests to Asherah worship alongside another deity.
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The Bible reveals “that the worship of Asherah, which had been popular among the Hebrew tribes for three centuries,was introduced into the Jerusalem Temple by King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, in or about 928 BCE. . . . of the 370 years during which the Solomonic Temple stood in Jerusalem the statue of Asherah was present in the Temple, and her worship was a part of the legitimate religion approved and led by the king, the court, and the priesthood, for no less than 236 years (almost two-thirds of the time).” - The Hebrew Goddess
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“. . . it is clear, as most other scholars now acknowledge, that Asherah
was a full-fledged deity, and that her cult did flourish in ancient Israel alongside the cult of Yahweh, even as part of it.”
Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel
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Asherah as Goddess of Animals & Queen of Heaven
Standing upon her signature lion, the goddess Asherah is depicted on this gold pendant as the ‘Goddess/Mistress of Animals’ and the
‘Queen of Heaven.’
The lion, elevated ibexes and snakes (which cross behind her waist) are frequent attributes of Asherah as the ‘Goddess/Mistress of Animals.’ The pendant's starry, astral background is a reference to Asherah’s aspect as the ‘Queen of Heaven.’
Dating to ~1450-1365 BCE, this gold pendant was discovered in the tomb of a princess in the ancient port city of Minet el-Beida.
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“The view of ancient Israelite religion as monotheistic has long been traditional in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, religions that have elaborated in their own way the biblical image of a single male deity.
But recent archaeological findings of texts and images from the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their neighborhood offer a quite different impression.”
-Only One God?
Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah
Photo and book description from amazon.
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Was Asherah god's wife?
Archaeological evidence reveals ancient Israel worshipped goddesses and the goddessAsherah was Yahweh's primary wife.
Although a disturbing and blasphemous notion to some, the archaeological and historical evidence indicates that Asherah was actually but one of Yahweh’s wives:
“Not only does Yahweh have a consort[/wife], but he's got one every town.”
-The Goddess in the Hebrew Bible
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This Israelite Paleo-Hebrew blessing inscription invokes the goddess Asherah with Yahweh 3 times.
Discovered at Khirbet el-Qom, this bench tomb inscription dates to ~750-700 BCE.|
Although this Khirbet el-Qom discovery was made in 1967, details of this inscription remain largely unacknowledged.
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Website visitors first 2 weeks of March 2014:
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