Asherah

 

In the Book of Genesis, God discusses creating humankind “…in our image, after our likeness…” It is not the only instance in which the deity appears to refer to another being present by using the plural term. It is more than a passing use of language. What we know from earlier writings is that there actually was more than one, because God, or ‘El’ in the texts, had a consort, whose name was Asherah. While the Hebrew Bible does not explicitly state that Yahweh had a wife, there are references to Asherah in the context of worship and religious practices in ancient Israel and Judah.

What happened? The goddess who was God’s equal partner was quietly edited out of the texts so that the masculine deity could take the credit for creating everything. But it did not end there. Asherah was turned into a wooden idol that had to be destroyed, and her destruction marked the definitive end of any female deity in the whole of scripture. And so we speak only of “God the Father” and “God the Son”.

But in other beliefs we know that Osiris had his Isis, Odin had his Freya, Jupiter had his Juno, Zeus had his Hera, and Shiva has his Shakti. And yet Asherah was depicted as the very Tree of Life, nurturing her creatures who sought sustenance from her branches, for what she fed them from her leaves would always grow back in abundance.

Asherah, then, was seen as the provider and the sustainer of life, and not just as its co-creator. How much have we lost in what is now the world’s most widespread religion by banishing this vital sustaining female life force from scripture?

Art: 'Asherah' by David Bergen