Asherah: God’s Forgotten Wife

Those raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition may be surprised to learn that the god we were told was singularly sacred once had a wife. How do we know? Asherah figures prominently as the wife of El—the supreme god—in a treasure trove of cuneiform texts found in the second millennium port city of Ugarit (in today’s Northern Syria). For perhaps hundreds of years before Abraham migrated to what would become known as Israel, Asherah was revered as Athirat, Earth Mother and Fertility Goddess. Upon entering the region, the ancient Israelites soon adopted her and gave her the Hebrew equivalent name of Asherah. The Ugarit excavation of 1928 put Asherah, the goddess, on the map again, after having lost her place for thousands of years.

Asherah, Partner of Yahweh

But who was Asherah to the ancient Israelites? And why is she often found paired with Yahweh, the Hebrew god? Historians and archaeologists have pieced together Asherah’s narrative and found large chunks of it interwoven in the artifacts from the region and in the scriptures of the Hebrew Bible itself. Evidence suggests that Asherah was observed in ancient Israel and Judah as early as the 12th century BC, to a few decades before the fall of the southern kingdom of Judah (587-588 BC), a time known as the pre-exilic period.

Were the pre-exilic Israelites and Judeans polytheistic? In fact, the very notion of polytheism is inherent in the quest for Asherah. After all, Asherah’s place in the pantheon is alongside Yahweh’s, the supreme deity. Furthermore, the many artifacts representing Asherah and her cult from the region belies the biblical prohibition against the creation of idols. How then did they worship?