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You're listening to Tim Bulkeley's 5 minute Bible Was God married?
part two
The death of the Goddess
So, Francesca Stavrakopoulou closed her article
"Why the BBC's new face of religion believes God had a wife." saying:
"I can't help but wonder what the world will be like if the goddess remained."
well, what I'd like to do in this podcast is to explore the evidence
and try to answer her speculation
My answer may be different from hers
but at least we should make the attempt
the evidence comes mainly
from the surrounding peoples
though the Bible may have some contribution to make
and his podcast can perhaps squeak into a series called 5 minute bible
most of Israel's neighbors
had pantheon which included goddesses
prominently alongside gods
in Egypt Isis was particularly important
and provided a kind of mother figure among the gods
she was widely venerated
by both men and women
in Babylon
Ishtar was
the most prominent goddess
and the huge and decorative gate, gave entry into the city and lead to the most
important temples
was named after her
more locally
the evidence from Ugarit, which is the strongest evidence we have about
Canaanite culture
shows the significant role of Anat sister and wife of Ba'al
she had a particularly important role to play in calling Ba'al back to life after he was
killed by Mot the god of the underworld and of the dry season
and therefore
in bringing rain
for the new year
basically Anat's job
was to cry and wail and mourn his death
slash herself with knives, in order to bring him back to life
So, Francesca Stavrapopoulou was musing
I wonder what Israel would have been like effectively she's say if
instead of
being erased
by the writers the Bible
Asherah the consort of Yahweh had been celebrated alongside Yahweh
first thing to say is that that word 'alongside'
is somewhat
weasley
the consorts of gods
seldom exercise the same power and authority
as their masters
notice that Baal's name
'master, lord or boss' as well as 'husband'
it was quite clearly that god, who was in control
and his wife like a good human wife assisted him aided him
and sometimes
was honored enough to stand in for him
it's also worth noticing that none of the surrounding cultures despite their
goddesses
gave to the actual women
in the actual streets
a significantly better role
than ancient Israel
though God knows, ancient Israel wasn't good in its gender relations relations
all of the ancient world oppressed women
all of the ancient world
perceived women as
more or less chattels
belonging to men
and Israel was really no exception
sadly
now let's turn to the Hebrew scriptures
suppose
alongside Yahweh running through Scripture
we read about Asherah
would this mean that we would have a view that god somehow included both
male and female in a way that Scripture doesn't
because many many readers of Scripture
have noticed the 'he'
and have chosen to notice the
king imagery and the other male imagery for God
and have failed to notice the female imagery for God in the Hebrew scriptures
but that's a choice that readers have made, its not present in Scripture itself
The Hebrew Bible
on the whole avoids human imagery for God
father imagery of God the Old Testament is remarkably rare
Mother imagery is pretty much as common as father imagery
and among the other images things like rock and lion
are probably more common than either of the
more human pictures
king is admittedly a common image
would a king who had a wife
have actually given a better status to women the ancient world
the evidence is no
in my next podcast in this series I'll draw your attention to some of that
imagery
and let you decide for yourself
bye for now