YHWH And His Consort Asherah !!

Asherah was the great Caananite Mother Goddess since about the 13th century BCE. Abraham of the Bible grew up during these times and as his culture group was nomads, they adopted many beliefs from surrounding cultures 

as their own.

In Ugaritic myths Bull-El or El dwells in the depths of a mountain, at the source of the double deep (tehom), that is the source of the fresh and salt water oceans. The Hebrews have drawn from the Ugaritic imagery in associating Yahweh in the opening lines of Genesis with tehom (English: "the deep").

Well its less of miraculous more plagiaristic in nature as the Hebrew scribers copied the ancient Ugartic – Sumerian & ancient Mesopotamian myths and amalgamated various G-ds under one heading i.e Elohim . Thereby transferring all the folk tales and powers and epithets of various Dieties under single Heading ELOHIM(Literally : Plural dieties).

Question is Why Ashera worship was soo frequent? The Answer is :

1. There was an almost innate need for people to recognize a divine mother as well as a divine father. It was difficult for the religious leaders in early Judaism to suppress Asherah because of this seemingly universal desire to recognize a nurturing, compassionate, Mother Goddess.
2. Stature of Women was quite low in those times. No priestesses.What could Yahweh know about childbirth without epidurals?


What did Yahweh know about being beaten by a husband or raped by a neighbor? And Hebrew men slightly understood this dilemma that their wives and sisters faced and they were more lenient on Asherah worship than they were of Ba’al worship or other gods . In the Temple of Jerusalem Asherah statue was housed there for two-thirds of the time that the Temple stood during Biblical times.

When Prophet Elijah wanted to prove the power of Yahweh, he called out the 450 priests of Ba’al and the 400 priestesses of Asherah. Although he was there to disprove both Ba’al and Asherah, he focused on the priests of Ba’al and derided them during their prayers, eventually killing them all, but he does nothing to the priestesses of Asherah.

In Genesis G-d El says “Let Us Create”.Why? In Dead Sea Scroll 4Q says and I quote :

Deut 3:8- “When Elyon gave the nations as an inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God” .
Verse 9 –“ For Yahweh's portion was his people; Jacob was the lot of his inheritance"

Masoretic text which was written only in 5-6 CE deliberately tempers it and calls verse 8 as “Sons of Israel ”.

Canaanite belief in Ugaritic texts state clearly that “El” fathered “70 Sons” through Goddess Asherah , and the number of the nations in Genesis 10 also mysteriously add up to exact 70.Coincidence?
YHWH is but one of 70 sons of G-d El and his beautiful G-ddess wife Ashera.