Talk:Asherah

Israelites

Why does the article make it sound like it was the norm and accepted thing to serve more that one G-d? It wasn’t the norm, it was looked down upon. And they didn’t start believing in one G-d only after the Babylonian exile. Whoever wrote this must check the sources again. As a Jewish historian I say this is completely false. Jake pres (talk) 14:06, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

What kind of historian ignores that Jewish monotheism is a relatively late phenomenon? Dimadick (talk) 16:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

G-d is the correct Jewish spelling of God. 2607:FB91:C6A:DC33:F537:8A0E:387A:CAA5 (talk) 15:02, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Original research

No "original research" at all. The Hebrew language is clear in its meaning, if you don’t like what it says it’s not my fault. We don't care about what you say, we care about WP:V: not printed anywhere, so it is you who drew such conclusion, textbook case of WP:OR.

Besides, "sacred prostitution" nowhere and "never took place". Source: Coogan, Michael (October 2010). God and Sex: What the Bible Really Says (1st ed.). New York, Boston: Twelve. Hachette Book Group. p. 133. ISBN 978-0-446-54525-9. OCLC 505927356. Retrieved May 5, 2011. Meaning: it was always just a rumor, and always spread by foreigners.

Page at Google Books: [1]. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:33, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

The names and traditions of prominent Canaanite deities are consistently misrepresented in Hebrew scripture to denigrate the traditional rivals to Yahweh. This is a common phenomenon. Another example is Baalzebul, which means something like "Lord of the high place", but which in Hebrew scripture is bastardized into 'Beelzebub' or "Lord of the Flies". Iskandar323 (talk) 06:43, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Coogan does not deny that there were prostitutes seeking clients around temples, he denies that the prostitutes were working for the temples. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:07, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Elijah

Shouldn't Elijah be mentioned in the "Worship and suppression" section of this article? 173.88.246.138 (talk) 06:23, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

WP:CITE your WP:SOURCES. Anyway, I don't believe that it was a one man show. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:04, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Probably not, but the anonymous is referring to the biblical narrative of Elijah supposedly defeating "450 prophets of Baal, and 400 prophets of Asherah" at Mount Carmel. It is typical biblical propaganda, but it is a surviving depiction of the cult of Asherah. Dimadick (talk) 10:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Fringe

Mount Ebal curse tablet is the WP:FRINGE of the WP:FRINGE. E.g. Christopher Rollston wrote: “This article is basically a text-book case of the Rorschach Test, and the authors of this article have projected upon a piece of lead the things they want it to say.” (copy/pasted from Mount Ebal curse tablet).

See also A "Mt. Ebal Inscription" in the Western Wall? An Example of Cognitive Priming on YouTube. Or The So-Called Mt. Ebal "Inscription" Publication: One Big Nothingburger on YouTube.

There are WP:FRINGE claims that are apparently cogent, and WP:FRINGE claims which are WP:CB. Mount Ebal curse tablet is WP:CB. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:39, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

That the claims are fringe is probably true, but what does this have to do with the Jewish goddess? Dimadick (talk) 18:23, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

See this edit. —Trilletrollet [ Talk | Contribs ] 18:31, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't get it. Even if the claims about the Mount Ebal curse tablet were true that would only mean that the Tetragrammaton is older than previously known. What does that have to do with the question of when Judaism became monotheistic? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:42, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Asherah is found 40 times in the Hebrew Bible

I added... "The term 'Asherah' appears 40 times in the Old Testament, with 33 of these occurrences referring to the sacred Asherah poles used in pagan and heretical Israelite worship. Only seven instances of 'Asherah' are references to the goddess herself."<ref] https://www.learnreligions.com/asherah-in-the-bible-6824125 </ref] 2607:FB91:C6A:DC33:F537:8A0E:387A:CAA5 (talk) 15:06, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Photos of the pots

Of top importance to Asherah and Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions pages are good clear illustrations and photos of all sides of the pithoi, plaster, and context. All the art. From the good sources available, which are few. Anybody'd like to help? Temerarius (talk) 00:48, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Tag / request resolution

I added the requested citation in the top for the Amorite spelling. Temerarius (talk) 19:32, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

What a bizarre article

It's written like a narrative. No "according to", no "he/she found", but a narrative as if this is gender theory, which it isn't.

"Episodes in the Tanakh show a gender imbalance in the Hebrew religion: the texts state their patriarchal nature. Asherah was patronized by female royals such as the Queen Mother Maacah (1 Kings 15:13). But Asherah was tremendously popular and was worshiped within the household and her offerings were performed by family matriarchs."

this is simply a lot of uncredited presuppositions which have no relevance to the article of Asherah.

Gender imbalance in the religion? Okay, says who? More importantly, what does it have to do with Asherah? There were dozens of female goddesses, if that's the raison d'etre for this paragraph at all.

"as yām (Hebrew: יָם) is a common western Semitic root that literally means "sea"."

this could have been "literally" summed up as "Yam, "sea" in Hebrew".

then there's even a picture of gold items, reading -

"Gold items are good to seek examples of continuity between middle and late bronze ages. A lesser example of the "plaque" goddess and fine examples of the Ω yoni, a general-purpose fertility charm. Pic"

you can't make this up. Absolute zero continuity between paragraphs.

Some of its references are of a biologist named Amzalleg which was critically panned (that is to say, everyone and their sister think they can be experts on biblical theory, while in reality it's very much based on actual diggings, historical linguistics and a some interpretation, at its core it's not a social studies subject) At this stage, this seems like a stream of consciousness original work, bordering on a hoax, not an actual article. 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 04:52, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Gérard Nissim Amzallag holds a PhD in biblical studies. So, regardless of his knowledge of biology, he is an expert in Bible scholarship. tgeorgescu (talk) 17:14, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

As you can read in his entry, he's highly contested. For a reason - there are capitalist, gay, Christian, feminist, you name it, readings of the Bible, because it's a very influential book.

This is great, but it cannot come at the expense of the dry facts.

A lone scholar reading into the Bible that Moses was actually feminist, is very interesting work, but it cannot be the core of the entry about him, without proper references and due credits. 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 01:26, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

True in general, false in particular. Why?

• Our article modestly calls his thesis a proposal.
• That specific claim is not particularly revolutionary, I could WP:CITE Baruch Halpern, who stated that monotheism wasn't "invention of tradition", but an obstinate refusal of tradition. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:33, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

That's a similar view to Doug Rushkoff. Andre🚐 06:35, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

"Proposal" is a good start, as it isn't particularly mainstream with regards to Asherah.

But enlighten me on this paragraph -

"posits that when the proto-Jews had a national god without a nation, there was a theological mismatch and a cultural trauma."

What does that even mean?

It's like the paragraph about "gender imbalance in the Tanakh" - it's a lot of hot air words with no explanation.

Like a sparknotes summary without the actual content -

What's theological mismatch?

Cultural trauma from what?

If it's included, it ought to be

A. Explained

B. Related in some way to Asherah.

Now, again, this isn't a very philosophical article.

It should talk about an actual object in the world - Asherah figurines, Asherah trees, and the deity they embodied.

So in the first place this isn't an article about Bible feminist theory (gender imbalance) or Bible minimalism (cultural trauma?).

But if it's in, it should be presented later on and at least explained. 2A02:6680:1107:7BB6:CCA7:ACD8:A8F3:9402 (talk) 01:06, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Ok, yeah, you're kind of right IP. It has to be Asherah-related to be on the article, we're getting a little into the weeds or clouds and it's a bit off-topic to talk about the origins of monotheism altogether. Here's my attempt to summarize where it is: 1) Jews and proto-Jews, or the denizens of ancient Israel and Judah and the surrounding environs who were Edomites or whatnot in a tribal polity or whatnot, at some point had a pantheon or at least a ritual practice involving Asherah worship, 2) the cultic aspects include the trees/poles, figurines, 3) we have a number of inscriptions and Biblical archeologists theorizing about their possible meanings and what it means for the extant texts, 4) there's reason to believe through the redactions of the Deuteronomists or others, the existence of a possible Yahweh consort or polytheistic/monolatristic existence of a female dualism or traditional fertility goddess in ancient Judaism or proto-Judaism was redacted and replaced with a patriarchal system theoretically, 5) as far as weight this all should not be considered the only part of Asherah since Asherah was an ancient pan-Babylonian deity with syncretic aspects and cognates in other Sumerian/Akkadian/etc material and possible connections to other Semitic and Mesopotamian groups. Is that all about right and did I miss anything? Andre🚐 01:19, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

"obstinate refusal of tradition" A curious way to describe either an innovation or a heresy. Monotheists were a lot different than traditional Israelites. Dimadick (talk) 12:27, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the ancient history of Jewish polytheism and Asherah worship in ancient Israel is not a hoax. Andre🚐 17:52, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

Don't twist my words. I said this article looks like a hoax - Asherah is very much an important Neareastern deity, and so this article is more noise than actual facts.

You seem to be having no knowledge on the subject, so picture this -

The article about historical Jesus, instead of talking Jesus, talking about gender theory of the Saducees, then changing halfway to be about Joshua instead, since their names are similar (what does Hathor have to do with Eve with Asherah? That all are feminine?) 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 01:20, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

OK, I get your point, but "hoax" is a bit much. The article is unfocused and rambling, and it needs a tighter scope to be about Asherah. Most of the discussion about ancient Semitic worship of Asherah is speculative, even in the reliable sources. Andre🚐 01:26, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

There's lots of speculation, but what we do know is fairly certain -

A. It's very much present in the Bible, likely the most described deity

B. It's attested in at least one 6th-9th century Hebrew inscription, at Kuntillet Ajrud, alongside Yahweh, which itself is no small feat (Yahweh should not have a consort. Is it a tree to worship Yahweh with, or it's an actual dual worship duo - Yahweh-Asherah)

C. There's a bunch of attested parallels in other languages, not like Baal but a lot more than Dagon

D. It might have played a big part in Josiah's reforms, meaning worship of Asherah might have been acceptable before, we do know for sure it was prevalent, as "the just kings" destroyed the altars and rooted out the Asherot (trees themselves)

E. Figurines of it seem to exist

So that's a lot. Much more than most Semitic deities.

No need to start with "Yoni symbol" and Patriarchy in the Bible as represented in Asherah worship.

It might be a good addition, but thoroughly credited, only AFTER the dry facts. 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 01:35, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

OP, you're right it's not 1.0 quality, and now (or soon for yours truly) might be a good time to get rid of some of that, hopefully along with that "undue weight" notice. A general smoothing of the tone and transitions is desired, but the... well, it's a moving target. I've been working on the article for two months, and I haven't felt yet it was mature enough to do "final editing" on. When I got here, the problem was far too little information about an important figure. Might be enough to prune now. Temerarius (talk) 21:07, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

It's more that it's an invented narrative, I'm not sure who introduced these parts but the problems are it's -

A. An invented narrative - nowhere in articles like Baal, Astrate, Hathor, do you see musings like "Episodes in the Tanakh show a gender imbalance in the Hebrew religion: the texts state their patriarchal nature." - this is pure speculation, and can, and should appear, but with due references, and with due "according to"s.

It can't be the core of the article, these original pieces.

It should be who Asherah was, how was she attested, how was she worshipped.

B. Absolutely zero connection between many segments. Good Wikipedia articles don't have "see gold picture later", rather incorporate them or have them in a gallery - this is how journals work, not scientific articles.

C. A lot of absolute rubbish.

There's a piece about Eve, Hawa in Aramaic, then it being linked to Hathor - because of Hwt-ur? These are different words, unrelated. You can't link just about any deity based on phonetic resemblance.

And what's this stuff about gold amulets providing good continuity between ages? Yoni symbol? This is Neareastern mythology, it's based on stones, steles, tablets, a note about gold amulets is as relevant to Asherah as saying "trees have long lifespans in Turkey".

I understand a more thorough article is preferred, but not at the expense of wrong stuff, or purely speculative stuff.

Other deity articles look nothing like it. 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 01:12, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm guessing that someone got all of that from somewhere. If it's original, it can be deleted. But I have seen that sources exist for some of the above stuff. Andre🚐 01:27, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Some of it, yeah. Some is just ramblings like the "gold amulet" part.

Even so, as I said there's literally any reading in the Bible you just desire - some of it far from reality, being pseudoscience.

So of course, it's a matter of scope - dry facts about Abraham first, only then you can read communist undertones into his familial structure in Egypt. 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 01:38, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

That the Hebrew Bible is thoroughly patriarchal: this is not disputed in the mainstream academia. Perhaps there are some footnotes to it rendering dissenting views, but no more. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:39, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. Andre🚐 06:44, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

The authors of the Bible can no longer be asked why they sided with Patriarchy, so in that sense we will never know for sure. But scholars like to attribute them intentions/motivations/purposes/agendas. tgeorgescu (talk) 07:00, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

As for fixing this, perhaps doing the according to's and proper references would be a star, I really don't think 80% of it should be there, but so long as it's presented as speculation (which it is), that's better 2A02:6680:1108:F608:62D6:ADD:8C3F:2815 (talk) 01:28, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

What you don't get: in Ancient history/archaeology there are very few hard facts, most of what we know about Antiquity are probability judgments about "what probably happened". tgeorgescu (talk) 06:43, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed as well. Andre🚐 06:44, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Not at all.

You fail to make the very obvious distinction, that should be clear to any Bible scholar, archaeologist or historian of the ancient near east -

there are -

A. Historical writing (cuneiform, hieroglyphics...)

B. Archaeological evidence (figurines, altars)

C. Non primary sources (the Bible, Herodotus)

D. Hypotheses.

Hypotheses cannot come before the actual findings.

We have lots of those regarding Asherah, as I've mentioned here already (figurines, writings, primary inscriptions in Hebrew AND Ugaritic for God's sake).

So Ashera isn't some obscure Neareastern concept like Walastin. There's a lot to work with.

You claiming "we don't know jack so we ought to go for the gender theories" is nothing but muddying the waters.

I suggest you hop on other languages to see that you can write a lot, based on mainstream theories without resorting to half baked hypotheses about societal pressures in Amorite society. 188.64.207.4 (talk) 01:17, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Easy easy, you can both be right and both coexist happily. We need all A B C and D, not necessarily segregated in separate sections and in that order, but interleaved, that's how Wikipedia articles typically do it. Andre🚐 01:21, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

that's generally true, but you run the risk of including absolute speculation as equal to actual, hard evidenced material. Or even instead of.

You wouldn't include a big section on feminism on the WWII article, even though women did serve in the war.

It's just too specific for a broader subject, a dedicated article could work.

So for ancient Neareastern archaeology, you have both HARD SCIENCE - writings, figurines, evidence in the ground.

And you have the hypothese to complement them.

Muddying the waters is when you say "well there's not enough evidence so let's have 80% of it speculative hypotheses",

When in fact you have massive amount of hard evidence regarding Asherah in writing.

So the actual science of real objects should always come before the speculation - even the speculation itself is based on the hard evidence.

Focusing on the speculation is like learning about WWII not from primary sources, basically, but from stuff written years after the fact.

Which you wouldn't do for WWII. 2A02:6680:1100:EDA6:E5D9:845C:E367:349D (talk) 01:33, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

The basics of Wikipedia: we parrot mainstream WP:SCHOLARSHIP. If a claim is considered relevant by mainstream Bible scholars, we render it, regardless of it being type A, B, C, or D. E.g. while this article isn't an article in feminist Bible scholarship, feminist Bible scholarship does make a valid point about Asherah, and Wikipedia isn't censored. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:51, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

That was a good call on the "gender imbalance in the religion" blah blah blah, which I cut I think yesterday. I had originally written it to ameliorate an editorial problem that's long since solved. As I said before, I'm working on this article on an ongoing basis and will continue to make small edits before embarking on a more comprehensive draft with improved flow. The current disjointedness is a hopefully temporary product of the process and if I can spread blame, perhaps the fracturedness of the scholarship. If you'd like to help, please send me papers I may not have read yet, for example a collection of all of Meshel's work would be very handy, I have not read all of it - and suggest open license images that could be of great demonstrative value: specifically, if anyone can get us complete images of all the art and inscriptions at Kuntillet Ajrud that we can use in the article, I'd love that. Those are the number-one top importance artifact for this article. (Though most of them would end up on the Kuntillet Ajrud Inscriptions article.) I'll also be posting another note here about some consolidation of references like the Tanakh references which are useful but currently quite messy. Temerarius (talk) 04:45, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

that's great to hear this is a work in progress. I think most of it could work if presented in the right context, with sufficient references, after the hard facts are described.

I agree with you that Kuntillet Ajrud, but perhaps more importantly Ugaritic mentions are the most important PRIMARY sources on the matter (something you cannot underestimate when talking about ancient deities - most are very poorly attested) 2A02:6680:1100:EDA6:E5D9:845C:E367:349D (talk) 01:24, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

My photo could be used as evidence, for example, to determine if 1) the water was higher than last week or 2) the winter ice was gone 3) the boat race was on some other lake or 4) if aliens were waterskiing that day. But, until you advance some relevant theoretical claim a photo is just a photo—it is not “evidence.”

— Karl W. Giberson, My Debate With an ‘Intelligent Design’ Theorist

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 21:31, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Park 2010

I removed an UNDUEWEIGHT mention of Park in the head. Etymology is not a solved problem that should go in the intro. It seems Park's idea is popular among editors, can I ask why? Scholarship on the etymology is mostly a jumble of opinions without trajectory or progress. If there's something superceding about that paper, I don't see it. The only conclusion on etymology is uncertainty, I think. Temerarius (talk) 16:01, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

@Temerarius: Sorry, I didn't receive any notification on this post before. I agree that the topic of Asherah's etymology remains debated. That said, Park's paper is one of the most recent studies on the topic. And the Etymology section is not a part of the intro of this article. So, I think we could present Park's theory while noting that it is only an hypothesis and citing it following WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV rules. Potatín5 (talk) 21:37, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you yes Park's hypothesis has been adequately mentioned on the page, even in inappropriate sections, like in Arabic section and again the intro. Recency is important on topics like DNA tests, but doesn't hold much weight in philology if scholarship isn't moving forward at a good speed, making progression toward consensus-es. Or even schools of thought with coherent borders and positions. I put that detail in its proper context a while ago, as a self-described extension of Margalit's theory, precisely because it breaks so little ground. When I read the paper I put it in that context and removed the UNDUEWEIGHT references. Removing your addition to the intro was the same operation. Can I ask you again why you find Park moving?

Temerarius (talk) 21:48, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

If I wasn't clear, I thought that the Ugarit section was the right place for Park 2010. Thank you for your points. Temerarius (talk) 02:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Spelling table

I've not yet checked this table for accuracy.

• Deuteronomist's spelling references table, after Anthonioz 2014

	עשתות	אשתרות	אשרות	אשרה	אשרים
Deuteronomy				16:21	12:3
Joshua
Judges	2:11-13		3:7		6:25-26
I Samuel	7:3-4 12:10 31:10
I Kings	11:5, 33			15:13 16:33 18:19	14:15,23
II Kings	23:13			13:6 17:16 18:4 21:3-7 23:4-6	17:10 23:14

Temerarius (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

"Title" section: cannot be trusted

AFTER me copy-editing what I could, now we have:

Title

Her titles often include qdš "holy", or elat, ba'alat, or rabat,{{sfn|Locatell|McKinny|Shai|2022|p=580}} all meaning Lady or goddess,<ref>Auth [Who?!] cites [[Keilalphabetische Texte aus Ugarit|KTU]] 1.3 I 23 "etc"</ref>{{clarify |Auth?! Meanig what? Author? Who? One big mess! |date= March 2034}} and consort of El, the qnyt ỉlm, "creator of the gods."{{sfn|Ahituv|2014|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=bLbkEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA33 33]}}

1. Locatell et al. is behind paywall.
2. "Auth" reference means nothing. It was initially set at the end, together with the Ahituv ref, but Ahituv only covers qnyt ỉlm, so this anonymous "Auth" must necessarily be the source for the translation of the titles ("meaning Lady or goddess"), although how can it give the translations w/o also mentioning the original Semitic terms?! But those are left to Locatell. Nonsensical.
3. I found the text like this: "all meaning Lady or goddess, and qnyt ỉlm, "creator of the gods." Total bullshit, grave misteading of the source, which speaks about her being the CONSORT OF El, qnyt ỉlm = "creator of the gods."

All this said, I'm now afraid to believe anything from this so terribly edited section and would like to remove it and place it here on the talk-page until it's been reworked and checked.

What I've been always saying: we cannot go on trust, period. Either ref is to a source that's available online, or the editor MUST make the effort and quote the exact passage they think to be referencing, so that others can check and convince themselves the source was comprehended & quoted correctly. Arminden (talk) 01:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Going back to 2014, one finds:

"Her other main divine epithet was "qaniyatu ʾilhm" (Ugaritic: 𐎖𐎐𐎊𐎚 𐎛𐎍𐎎 : qnyt ʾlm) which may be translated as "the creatrix of the Gods (Elohim)".<ref>{{citation |last=Gibson |first=J C L |year=1978 |title=Canaanite myths and legends |last2=Driver |first2=G R |publisher=T. & T. Clark |isbn=9780567023513}}</ref>"

But no page indicated, only snippet view on Google Books, and the search for "creatrix" comes out empty. So again,

1. Hard to trust, and
2. contradicts Ahituv, who allocates the attribute qnyt ʾlm, which he translates in the masculin, not feminine (!), to El, not to Asherah.

Arminden (talk) 01:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

If we're being honest, the entire page is a jumbled mess of incomplete citations, combined with widespread violations of TONE, OR, and SYNTH. As much effort has been put into expanding the page, the amount of work it would take to fix it would require the sustained effort of multiple individuals. Sinclairian (talk) 13:10, 21 March 2024 (UTC)