The Goddess of the Israelites

[Guest guest]

"Dr. Frank Gaetano Morales" <fmorales@d...> wrote:

The Goddess of the Israelites

Colin Bower

 

Mail & Guardian Online

Monday, October 3, 2005

 

 

The discovery that the deities of ancient Palestine were female

ought to be

good news for all of humanity, not just women. Even the increasingly

beleaguered monotheistic religions might find reason to be pleased,

for it

gives them opportunity to reinvent a deity that will represent the

yin and

the yang, the yoni as well as the lingam, the mother as well as the

father,

the wife as well as the husband.

 

In his newly published book, "Did God Have a Wife?", archaeologist

William

G Dever brings the record of matriarchy worship up to date. His

findings

will not be new to the world of scholarship, but they will be to the

general public -- and their significance should reverberate in

church

councils and congregations for they thoroughly subvert conventional

Christian and Judaic beliefs.

 

Dever finds that 90% of the people of ancient Palestine -- of the

second

millennium and the early centuries of the first millennium BCE --

lived in

scattered and isolated rural communities, even after Jerusalem had

emerged

as the capital of a united monarchy. These communities practised a

folk

religion quite different from the monotheistic, patriarchal,

literary and

theoretical religion we find in the Old Testament and the Hebrew

scriptures. It was characterised by what people did, rather than

what they

thought; polytheistic, not bound by written rules, and egalitarian.

But,

most importantly, it was matriarchal.

 

Their principal goddess was Asherah, consort of the most senior of

the

ancient deities of the area. Also in the pantheon of goddesses was

Shapsh

(Sun), Yarih (Moon), Astarte (androgynous) and Anat (warrior), some

of whom

were also sometimes identified with Asherah.

 

The cult of Asherah is confirmed by the archaeological record, which

allows

us to reinterpret previously incomprehensible passages in ancient

texts.

These include the Bible itself, which provides ample evidence of

attempts

to suppress information of the widespread worship of Asherah and

other

polytheistic practices.

 

She was a central deity to whom women and men both gave allegiance.

Jewish

Kabbalistic writings also confirm an early goddess called Shekinah,

and

testify to the holy act of sexual union between her and Yahweh,

sometimes

graphically described. Under the matriarchy, sex is not just holy,

it is

also very sexy; under the patriarchy it is regulated, controlled

and,

finally, under Paul, barely tolerated.

 

Of course, the existence of the matriarchy as predating patriarchal

deities

in many ancient civilisations is commonly accepted, and some argue

for the

one Great Mother as the original deity of all. But what is new and

controversial is the discovery that the matriarchy was so firmly

entrenched

in the heartland of the world's three great monotheistic religions.

 

Dever finds evidence of folk religion in cultic shrines all over

Palestine,

and of goddess worship in unmistakable terracotta figurines, in

graphic art

depicting stylised emblems of female worship and in the many

disguised

biblical references to Asherah.

 

The figurines invariably depict a nude female figure with large

breasts and

an often graphically displayed pubic triangle. The Bible refers to

the

shrines as "high places" characterised by Asherah -- typically

translated

as "groves" or wooden poles, but now believed to have been symbols

of the

goddess. Asherah was fully identified with trees -- the embodiment

of

wisdom in ancient Canaanite religion -- and many depictions show her

growing from a tree trunk.

 

What will most challenge Christian and Judaic belief is Dever's

assertion

that their holy scripts are the product of a tiny, but increasingly

powerful, Jerusalem-based male literary and theological elite.

 

Monotheism was a late development, possibly as late as the Persian

or

Hellenistic periods, well after the Babylonian exile, and,

therefore, a

back-projection of the writers and redactors of the Bible.

 

This contradicts the conventional understanding of biblical texts as

describing the universal story of the founding of mankind by a male

god,

Yahweh, of his exclusive guidance of a promised people to

nationhood, and

of the common destiny of the people who be came known as Israelites.

 

Post-modern critical theory has long taught us that texts are never

quite

what they seem to be. As a result of Dever's work, we can now see

more

clearly that the religion of the Old Testament and the Hebrew

scriptures is

a humanly contrived narrative written to serve the interests of a

particular group with a vested interest to propound and defend. That

interest was monotheistic, elitist, priestly, literary and male. It

conferred prestige and power upon those who served it.

 

Monotheistic, patriarchal narratives have largely enslaved the human

consciousness for 3000 years or more.

 

Dever's work helps us understand that the Old Testament is one of

these,

and that it rightfully belongs in the mythical realm of the

Gilgamesh epic

and the Odyssey.

 

Did God Have a Wife? Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel

by

William G Dever is published by William B Eerdman Publishing Company

 

 

---

-

 

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