Not monotheistic after all

A British theologian has come to the conclusion that the god of the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament had a consort, commonly known as Asherah or Astarte. Here is an article on the theologian’s findings.

According to Francesca Stavrakopoulou of the University of Exeter,

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,” Stavrakopoulou wrote in a recent article. “He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many … or so we like to believe.

Archaeological evidence as well as details in the Bible, indicate not just that he was one of several worshipped in ancient Israel, but that he was also coupled with a goddess, who was worshipped in his temple in Jerusalem.

This, of course, rips holes in the idea that Judaism was a monotheistic religion from the start. The idea that it could have been polytheistic just like almost all religions around at the time would be more typical of what we would find in ancient civilizations. In fact, this would also make a lot of sense on a purely logical level. As Stephen Fry has said, the idea of polytheism is a tenable position on some levels. We can understand that ancient people might have been compelled to make gods out of the ocean, sky, trees, the sun, etc., because this helped them to explain a highly complicated and hostile world. Here’s Fry on the matter of polytheism:

It appears from research others have done that Yahweh’s “wife,” as some are calling her, was an early addition to some of the current books that are now in the OT, but Asherah was later redacted because monotheism, not polytheism, was taking hold. But researchers say that we can still find traces of Asherah in the OT.

Here is a detailed look.

And here is archaeologist Amihai Mazar in The Quest for the Historical Israel:

An analysis of the biblical sources as well as the archaeological remains shows that Israelite religion passed through several stages of development. The worship of Yahweh alongside a consort named Asherah is known from the inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud, a fortified citadel-like structure in the eastern Sinai desert dated to about 800 b.c.e. This unusual and remote site, located on the main highway between Gaza and the Red Sea, seems to have been used as a roadside station, but was also a place of religious activity. It seems to have been utilized by people from both Israel and Judah, as can be detected by pottery types that represent both kingdoms. Ink inscriptions and paintings found on the white plaster of the walls, as well as on large pottery containers and a stone trough, contain dedications, prayers, and blessings. The most revealing is a dedication or prayer to Yahweh and “his Asherah.” A similar combination of Yahweh and Asherah appears also on an inscription from a cave at Khirbet el-Kom (biblical Makedah?) in the Shephelah. This combination probably reflects a theology that is substantially different from the pure monotheistic religion as it is preserved for us in the Hebrew Bible.

This evidence indicates a strong continuity with Canaanite religion, where El was the head of the pantheon and Asherah was his consort. While the worship of Asherah was condemned by the Jerusalem prophets, they probably represent the new theology that was emerging towards the end of the monarchy among the Jerusalem intellectual elite, while the popular religion embraced by the common folk was much more traditional, preserving indigenous ideas and beliefs rooted in Canaanite religion.