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Onderwerp

Asherah

Literatuur

Tilde Binger , Asherah, Goddess in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament, [1997], ,
Ferdinand van den Bosch , De voorstelling van de godin Atiratu in de Ugaritische alfabetische teksten, Een bijdrage aan de beeldvorming van de West-Semitische godin Asjera, [2018], ,
Izak Cornelius , The Many Faces of the Goddess, The Iconography of the Syro-Palestinian Goddesses Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet, and Asherah C. 1500-1000 BCE, [2008], ,
Gerhard Herm , De Feniciërs, het purperrijk uit de oudheid, , [1974], 107-113,
Ernest Klein , Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, , [2015], p. 133,
Marjo C.A. Korpel, Prof. Dr. Bob Becking , Only One God?, Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah, [2001], ,
Richard J. Pettey , Asherah, Goddess of Israel, [1990], ,
Karel van der Toorn , Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, , [1999], p. 99-105,
- - , Algemeen, , David Steinberg (david@adath-shalom.ca), Asherah in Deuteronomy 33?; Dukstra wrote^[1] "The oldest (biblical) text in, which we meet the goddess Asherah is probably the ancient hymn I Deut. 33:2-3: YHWH came from Sinai
and shone forth from his own Seir,
He showed himself from Mount Paran.
Yea, he came among the myriads of Qudhsu,
at his right hand his own Asherah,
Indeed, he who loves the clans
and all his holy ones on his left. Accepting a minor correction to the text, it is possibly the only passage in which Asherah is mentioned as YHWH's spouse or companion under her own name, and under her title Qodesh/Qudshu.^[2] In it, YHWH leads the myriads of Qodesh, which apparently may include gods and men, the heavenly and earthly family of El. This image closely resembles the mythical descriptions in the Ugaritic texts."
I would like to suggest a slightly different treatment of this text^[3] YHW msn b'
   zrH^[4] mś^cr lm
      hwp^c mhr prn
't mrbbt qdš^[5]
   mymn 'šrt lm I would translate this as YHWH came from Sinai
   He shone forth from his own Seir,
      He showed himself from Mount Paran.
Yea, he came out from among among the myriads of Qodeš (= Asherah),
   at his right hand his own Asherah^[6], Nb. Each of the verse sections has 3 stressed syllables.
[1] Meinhardt Dukstra El, the God of Israel - Israel the people of YHWH: On the Origins of Ancient Israelite Yahwism in Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah (Biblical Seminar ) by Bob Becking, Meindert Dijkstra, Marjo C. A. Korpel, Karel J. H. Vriezen, Sheffield Academic Press 2001

[2] Weinfeld, 'Kuntillet ' Agrud Inscriptions and their Significance', p. 124; Dijkstra, 'Yahweh, EI and their Asherah', pp. 68-69 van der Toorn, 'Yahweh', DDD', p. 918.

[3] I am accepting the Cross-Freedman view that the original contained no vowel letters. See p.97 in Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry by Frank Moore Cross, Jr. and David Noel Freedman, SBL Dissertation Series 21, Scholars press 1975.

[4] see note 4 p.105 in Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry by Frank Moore Cross, Jr. and David Noel Freedman, SBL Dissertation Series 21, Scholars press 1975.

[5] see note 7 p.105 in Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry by Frank Moore Cross, Jr. and David Noel Freedman, SBL Dissertation Series 21, Scholars press 1975.

[6] "The discussion of these texts revealed that scholars differ about the interpretation (of the Kuntillet el-'Ajrud inscriptions), reading either 'Asherata' or 'his Asherah' and also about the question whether only the sacred pole is implied. The initial objection to the rendering 'his Asherah' that a possessive pronoun could not be attached to a proper name, is increasingly proved to be unfounded by a great deal of comparative material (Especially P. Xella, 'Le dieu et «sa» déesse: I'utilisation des suffixes pronominaux avec des théonymes d'Ebla à Ugarit et à Kuntillet 'Ajrud', UF 27 (1995), pp. 599-610). Furthermore, this objection is no longer valid if one accepts that 'asherah', like Babylonian istaru might also mean a synonym or title for a goddess, in particular, the divine spouse." Meinhardt Dukstra El, the God of Israel - Israel the people of YHWH: On the Origins of Ancient Israelite Yahwism in Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah (Biblical Seminar ) by Bob Becking, Meindert Dijkstra, Marjo C. A. Korpel, Karel J. H. Vriezen, Sheffield Academic Press 2001, p. 117
I am reading 'ašerato lamo assuming: (a) an original r got corrupted to d (see Cross-Freedman ibid. p. 106). This can easily happen in either the old Hebrew or the Aramaic script. (b) a construction similar, to the admittedly much later, Song of Songs 1:6 karmi šelli.
- - , Algemeen, , [0], ,
- Mike Heiser, Yahweh and Asherah: More Archaeo-Porn for the Masses, 22 maart 2011
- Mike Heiser, Ancient Origins Writer Inserts Asherah into the Biblical Text, 27 augustus 2018
- M. Heiser, "Yahweh and his Asherah" op The Unseen Realm http://www.moreunseenrealm.com/?page_id=24
- Johanna H. Stuckey, University Professor Emerita, York University, Asherah Supreme Goddess of the Ancient Levant
- Richard Worthington, "The Hebrew Goddess Asherah in the Greek Septuagint", in
  Feminist Theology, Volume: 27 issue: 1, page(s): 43-59 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0966735018794478
Blog , Abnormal Interests, January 15, 2007, Ba'al and El at Kuntillet Ajrud
Blog , Abnormal Interests, January 14, 2007, Is it "His Asherat" or Simply "Asheratah"?
Encyclopedie , Jewish Encyclopedia, Asherah, Asherah
A Hebrew word occurring frequently in the Bible (R. V.) and signifying, except in a few late passages noted below, a wooden post or pole planted near the altars of various gods. In the Authorized Version the word is rendered "grove."
It has often been inferred from Deut. xvi. 21 that the Asherah was originally a tree, but the passage should be translated "an asherah of any kind of wood" (compare Moore, "Ency. Bibl." and Budde, "New World," viii. 734), since the sacred tree had a name of its own, el, elah, elon, and the Asherah was sometimes set up under the living tree (II Kings xvii. 10). This pole was often of considerable size (Judges vi. 25), since it could furnish fuel for the sacrifice of a bullock. It was found near the altars of Baal, and, down to the days of Josiah, near those of Yhwh also, not only at Samaria (II Kings xiii. 6) and Beth-el (II Kings xxiii. 15), but even at Jerusalem (II Kings xxiii. 6). Sometimes it was carved in revolting shapes (I Kings xv. 13), and at times, perhaps, draped (II Kings xxiii. 7). It is most often associated in the Bible with the pillars ("maẓẓebot") that in primitive days served at once as a representation of the god and as an altar (W. R. Smith, "Religion of the Semites," 2d ed., p. 204). It was proscribed in the Deuteronomic law and abolished in Josiah's reform (II Kings xxii. 23).
In a few passages (Judges iii. 7; I Kings xviii. 19; II Kings xxiii. 4) Asherah appears to be the name of a goddess, but the text has in every case been corrupted or glossed (compare Moore and Budde, as cited above). In the first of the three passages the name Ashtaroth should stand, as it does elsewhere, in the case of similar charges of defection from Yhwh (compare Judges ii. 13, x. 6; I Sam. vii. 4, xii. 10). In the other two passages, the term Asherah is superfluous. These passages may indicate, as Moore suggests, that the Asherah became in some localities a fetish or cultus god.
Asherah the Name of a Syrian Goddess.
Asherah was also the name of a Syrian goddess. In the El-Amarna tablets of the fifteenth century B.C. her name appears with the determinative for deity as a part of the name Arad-Ashirta (or 'Ebed-Asherah). It also appears in a Sumerian hymn published by Reisner ("Sumerisch-Babylonische Hymnen," p. 92), on a hematite cylinder ("Zeit. f. Assyr." vi. 161), and in an astronomical text of the Arsacide period (ib. vi. 241). She appears to have been the consort of the god Amurru, a Baal of the Lebanon region (compare Jensen, "Zeit. f. Assyr." xi. 302-305). Arad-Ashirta in the El-Amarna tablets represents not only a sheik, but a clan, and is possibly the one which afterward became the tribe of Asher. Possibly a trace of this goddess is to be found in an inscription from Citium in Cyprus, which dedicates an object to "My lady mother Ashera" (compare Schröder, "Z. D. M. G." xxxv. 424). Many scholars, however, interpret the passage otherwise (compare Moore, l.c.). Hommel has recently announced ("Expository Times," xi. 190) that he has discovered in a Minæan inscription a goddess Athirat. phonetically equivalent to Asherah. This would indicate that Asherah was a name for an old Semitic goddess long before the fifteenth century B.C.; but for the present this must be regarded merely in the light of a possibility. The relation of this goddess to the pole called Asherah in the Bible is a difficult problem. The name in the Bible is masculine; the plural "Asherim" occurring sixteen times, and the plural "Asherot" but three times. The latter is clearly an error. Asherah must be a nomen unitatis. G. Hoffmann has shown ("Ueber Einige Phönizische Inschriften," pp. 26 et seq.) that these posts originally marked the limits of the sacred precincts, and that in the Ma'sub inscription it is the equivalent of "sacred enclosure." Moore finds in this fact the explanation of the use of the word in Assyrian (ashirtu, ashrâti; eshirtu, eshrâti), in the sense of sanctuary. Hommel fancies that he sees in the original form of the ideogram for Ishtar (compare Thureau-Dangin, "L'Ecriture Cunéforme," No. 294), a post on which hangs the skin of an animal.
Quite apart, however, from Hommel's somewhat imaginary conjecture, the Assyrian and Phenician use of the word in the sense of "sanctuary," taken in connection with the Arabian and Syrian use of it as the name of a goddess, indicates that the posts were used at the sanctuaries of the primitive Semitic mother-goddess, and that in course of time their name attached itself in certain quarters to the goddess herself, and has survived in South Arabia and Syria. When, therefore, the late editors of the Old Testament books made of the Asherah a fetish or cultus god, history was but repeating itself.
J.P. van de Giessen , Blog Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel, July 27, 2011,
Vegetarische Asherah