[b-hebrew] re: their altars
Jack Kilmon
jkilmon at historian.net
Sat Mar 5 15:52:33 EST 2005
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______________________________________________
Dakma daEBadton l'chad min hoLEYN AHi zeUOreh ly haw EBadton
Jack Kilmon
San Marcos, Tx
jkilmon at historian.net
http://www.historian.net
sharing a meal for free.
http://www.thehungersite.com/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim West" <jwest at highland.net>
To: <b-hebrew at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 10:16 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] re: their altars
> Dora Smith wrote:
>
>> Just one thing it sounds like you may not be aware of;
>>
>> Asherah was Yahweh's wife. She was also Ba'al's wife.
>
> Hold up there Dora. You make it sound like the "popular" religion of the
> folk at Kuntillet Ajrud represented the same religious sensibilities as
> those held by the priests and prophets in Jerusalem. Just because some
> "am ha-aretz" hold an odd and aberrant view of Yahweh does not mean we are
> allowed to make such a stunning blanket statement as "Asherah was Yahweh's
> wife". That's rubbish. At most what can be said is "some folk in some
> parts of Palestine thought that Yahweh had a consort- but this was clearly
> not the view of the establishment".
>
> Jim
Yahwism was not a monolithic belief. It is common in many belief systems
that some sectors maintain a more primitive and ancient form. In the case
of Yahweh, there are some in ancient Palestine who held on to the primitive
"bull" and his heifer consort, Asherah. The names EL (also Ba'al) and YHWH
may have been merged as an hypocoristicon. The Qal of hwh taken from a
TITLE phrase as a hypocoristicon of EL, ala Albright and Cross? A title
like "El causes something to come into
being". The use of HWH, therefore appears to be WAY down on the trunk of
the NWSem tree where it became a loan word from Aramaic to early Hebrew.
The bull YHWH of the pithoi depicted with his heifer consort Asherah
probably reflects the early hypocoristicon of EL. I believe the ashes of
the red heifer are related to this very early form and to Asherah. Asherah
continued to be special to women even into late 2nd temple times. The
Yahweh of the Bronze Age Canaanites and the Yahweh of the Rabbis may have
had a common ascendancy but were no longer the same.
Jack Kilmon
-----
______________________________________________
Dakma daEBadton l'chad min hoLEYN AHi zeOreh ly haw EBadton
Jack Kilmon
San Marcos, Tx
jkilmon at historian.net
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