My latest read was a book published in 2005 authored by William Dever entitled Did God Have a Wife? Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. A fascinating read that I would recommend in a heartbeat. I will say that the author seems a bit obsessed with Asherah so that every slight hint of a woman deity is attributed to her, but at the same time perhaps his exuberance is needed to wake up a religious community that seems unwilling to face up to the questions raised by this accumulation of research.
The quick summary: Dever tries to paint the picture of how religion was practiced in Ancient Israel based on the archeological remains of typical communities. In many instances this picture is quite different (or provides a more complete picture) than the traditional interpretation or picture painted by Christianity or Judiasm based on their reading of the Old Testament. His primary focus throughout is the evidence of a female counterpart to El (or Elohim) and Yahweh (the Hebrew words most often translated as God or Lord in the King James Bible) named Asherah.
Some general impressions:
First, the strongest message I got from reading this book is how much of the “expert” knowledge of archeologists is pure speculation, educated guesses at best. This is not to say the discipline is without merit or the evidence should all be dismissed. I think it suggests to us, as the consumers of information presented by the scholars, that we should be cautious, hear various interpretations, and that- taken as a whole- truth may be better approximated or deciphered. Dever’s text is full of “I will argue”, “I suggest this means” etc, which I actually appreciated as I think it shows his honesty, but it does puts a question mark behind any of assertions. One quote regarding the speculative nature of interpreting artifacts from Dever himself, in comparing the objectivity of the archeologist and the doctors of the text, he writes:
“There is no “objective,” real world out there to be known, no Truth, so we have only our perceptions, always flawed. We can never know “how it really was in the past,” as former generations of scholars are said to have assumed (some actually did so).” 82
Second general impression: “Cultic” practices were extremely common. As I’ve stated previously this word “cult” has been totally tainted by media sensationalism so that in common conversations it has a strongly negative connotation, but here we are using the word according to its first and proper definition referring to religious ceremonies and rites. The archeological remains in the temples of Ancient Israel indicate many rites and ceremonies not described in the Hebrew Bible. This first brings up the point that the archeology indicates that the Temple at Jerusalem was not the only temple for worshippers of El and Yahweh (92). Some of the artifacts: temple complexes with gradient rooms of “holiness”, “standing stones” representing deities, altars, references and artifacts speaking of this Asherah often represented by a tree or pole, special clothing including leapord skins and headware, as well as various figurines. I think the take home message being that there were many cultic practices that were common and practiced by the masses the meaning and details of which is speculation.
The third general take home message I came away with is that from those ancient times to the present day there has been a suppression of the idea of God having a wife or a female counterpart or element in the definition of God. This female counterpart was commonly venerated and part of religious ceremonies in Ancient Israel but does not have a representative presence in the Biblical text.
So that’s my summary. I will make one other observation: I was surprised that the author never tied or speculated as to the relationship of all these female figures with the character of Eve, seeing how prominent she is in the founding story of the Bible and especially considering all the references to trees in the artifacts. Some of those connections seemed fairly obvious to me as a lay reader. Overall, a fascinating read, I appreciate the large picture the author tries to paint, I do not think one has to agree with all of his interpretations but I hope his work will inspire further research and open dialogue about these artifacts.
I plan on writing a second post on this book: Some interesting tidbits from an LDS perspective
Some more reviews:
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