Historical Perspectives on Divine Femininity

Did you know that God used to have a wife?

I did not.

It's the kind of thing they don't teach you in SBC Sunday school.

Go figure.

And no, before you dismiss it, it's not some fringe internet theory

or influencer trying to be edgy. This is actually a widely

accepted theory in the world of historical religious scholarship.

The story goes like this.

The God character we know from Hebrew and Christian myths,

He wasn't always like we imagine Him now.

And I am gonna call Him a Him for this service because we are talking about

a literary character here, and that character has a specific gender,

and it

matters for this story.

See, thousands of years ago, there was an ancient Canaanite religion

that worshiped several gods,

two of which were a couple.

This is the goddess Asherah

and her partner El.

As Israel was developing as a nation and starting to write their own

mythologies

and sort out their own theology, it turns out they borrowed significantly

from the gods and myths of the cultures around them.

And so this Canaanite El became part of the

template for what would become who we know as

Yahweh,

and that included El's partner,

Asherah. I know it's not what

most of us were taught,

but ancient images and inscriptions indicate

that for a very long time,

a lot of Israel worshiped not only Yahweh,

but Yahweh and Asherah.

And in all the prophetic literature we have from this period,

it doesn't look like

anybody had a problem with that.

There were male gods, and there were female gods. And why not?

Why would we reduce the divine to just one thing?

I'll tell you why.

Because in the seventh century BCE, a man came to power named

Josiah,

and it seems like Josiah had this ambitious

political vision as king.

We can't be exactly sure of his motives, but it looks like he wanted to

consolidate power on a massive scale to ensure

that he and his family held all the cards in this area,

and the best tool he could use to do that

was religion.

See, up to that point, there had been shrines in virtually every

city, so

religion was localized, and religious leadership was

democratized, but Josiah, wanting to put all the power in one

place, declared there was only one temple,

and it was in Jerusalem,

where he worked.

And there was only one god,

a male and a king,

like Josiah,

and that was Yahweh.

And every other shrine was to be torn down,

all the other idols destroyed, all worshipers of anyone but

Yahweh

condemned.

And so over a few years, Asherah, the female balance of Yahweh,

went from being a god

to being a false idol.

From a textural criticism perspective, we can see the scriptures

were modified and

new ones introduced. History was awkwardly rewritten to

sound like it had always been this way,

and the heavens were moved to make way for fragile

male egos.

And can you imagine

for a minute

being a woman in seventh century BCE Israel?

Someone who, since they were children, were taught by their mothers to cry out to

the Queen of Heaven

and bring offerings to the divine woman who understood you.

And then suddenly she was gone,

exiled.

Not just banished, but somehow

evil now.

Does that make you mad?

'Cause it makes me mad.