Sunday Thought - December 22, 2013: God's Wife

Asherah - God's Wife.

God's wife?  Looks just like her!

I'm sorry, but this looks like a woman telling her seamstress she'd like something that will "lift and separate", a hood ornament for a chariot, or a memento from a wife to her soldier husband lest he forget what's waiting back at home.  God's wife?  Not so much, although, I wouldn't know.  Neither does anybody else for that matter.  This was Semitic mythology, several thousand years BCE?  

I suppose the archeologists made the quantum leap to this conclusion because they found several of them, and maybe a temple.  Maybe she was just very good at what she did, for the soldiers, and they erected a temple to her.  Easy to see how a beautiful, buxom, woman might have a legion of soldiers under her spell.  Who knows, this woman may even have run a brothel as well.  You can just hear the soldiers reminiscing around the camp fire, "What a goddess!"  The archeologist that found these is probably reading this thinking how very happy he is that he didn't mention statues these little statures were all found around the same fire pit.  For that matter, the "temple" the think they found might have been a glorified souvenir shop and these might have fallen from the shelf during some ancient police raid.  We have to make a lot of assumptions but, in the end, we really don't know.  It's a "best guess."

What the hell, let's muddy the water a bit.

Let's throw in another image of "God's consort."  Has she changed her hair dew?  No problem there, women are finicky, might be a bad hair day.  And, my goodness, she's had a boob job!  I guess this statue was from the period when large breasted fertility goddesses fell out of favor.  The problem here is, we have no "happy snaps" with little notes on the back stating the subject's name, date and location of the photo.  We don't know who this is, and the variety of differing images confirms this conclusion.

Does this mean Asherah didn't exist?  No, of course it doesn't.  Where there's smoke, or a smokin' statue, there is usually some basis for believing in possibilities.  Besides, there's the fact Asherah was "forcibly" removed from Hebrew scripture.  That in itself is telling.  Only a woman could piss the Hebrews off enough to get themselves removed from history, or stoned.  The question really centers around what she did to deserve it, and what made the Hebrews think they had the authority to disown God's wife.  Did God tell them to do it?  Did God send angels to decree, "Disowneth the harlot!"  She might have flaunted some ironclad prenuptial agreement, but wouldn't God have seen that coming?  Hmmm.  It would seem the only item left off of the prenup was the "No Removal from Religious Scripture" clause.  This probably explains why we've never heard of her attorney, either.

It is interesting that, after the Hebrews removed her from texts, she is never mentioned again in anyone's Holy Scripture.  God and North Korea's Kim Jon Un, or "Lil' Kim" as he is affectionately known, seem to be proficient in the art of making people disappear from historical record.  Dennis Rodman better watch his back while he's over there schmoozing Kim.  If he'd ever met Lil' Kim's uncle he may have to be erased as well.  Although, removing Rodman from historical record, well...would anybody ever notice?   Sorry, Dennis, that was a low shot.  I had to make it low since you seem to have your publicity seeking lips planted so firmly on Kim's human rights violating ass I'm not so sure his chubby cheeks aren't covering your ears.  But, I digress.

It ultimately rests on each of us to determine for ourselves, in the absence of physical proof, whether Asherah deserves consideration.  Abrahamic scholars would probably have us buy into monotheism, and that's fine.  "You shall have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:3).  What does this really mean?  I offer that God intended we hold none of the other gods and goddesses in His realm in higher esteem than Himself.  He is the one true God...of gods.  If you are a Christian and believe in Satan, you must concede in lesser beings that have godly powers.  If we agree on this point then the possibility of a consort goddess is still in play. 

What was there, before there was nothing?  Very possibly, there existed the realm of heaven.

Where do you stand on Asherah?  Where do you stand on God?  Not belief or disbelief but, rather, what God is.  If you believe there is a God, and we were created in His image, then how hard is it to wonder why He wouldn't make Himself a companion?  Or, is everything metaphorical? It is something to ponder for this Sunday.

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky.  I believe that what people call God is something in all of us.  I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right.  It's just that the translations have gone wrong."  --  John Lennon