Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

 The problem is that the very same formulation , "to Yahweh and his asherah" 
-- WLASHRTH -- was also found in Judea proper, in Khirbet El-Qom. Read the 
literature.
 The argument can be made, and I support it, that because of the pronominal 
suffix the asherah in both cases refers to sacred wooden pole or some similar 
ritualistic accessory rather than to the famous godess. This is based on the 
known fact that no proper noun can be declined in BH. Others hold that 
regardless, the reference is to a female consort, which must have been 
prevalent in folk religion, based on the many denounciations of the Asherot 
in the biblical literatue, and now on the finding of two surviving 
extra-bilical examples of it.
 
 As against the above, one must weigh the evidence of the many occurrences of 
Yahweh alone in extra-bilical evidence from Mesha onwards, and in  many 
personal names where again it appears as a single theophoric compmonent; not 
to mention the official attitude of the biblical authors and editors.
 
Uri 

Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org> wrote, in part, quoting again in npart:
 Yitzhak Sapir


>So if we strike out the part about the establishment, what we get is: "some 
>folk
>in some parts of Israel thought that Yahweh had a consort". That's
>not much, but
>it's perhaps all we can say.
> 
>

No, we can't say this much, because Kuntillet Ajrud was not in the land 
of Israel, or at best on its borders, and there is no evidence that the 
worshippers there were Israelites. They could well have been Edomites or 
similar who had grafted the Israelite divine name on to their own 
polytheistic beliefs.

-- 
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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While I do not think that the Yahwist wrote at Kuntillet Ajrud - it's not
likely that such a major work of literature was composed at such a small
desert outpost, and J is much to Judahite in outlook - nor that the
inhabitants of that site were Edomites (the mention of YHWH of Samaria
etc.), it has been claimed (by John Bartlett et al.) that the Edomites may
have originally worshipped YHWH, and only later adopted the cult of Qaus (or
Qos/QWS). The fact is, that there are lots of biblical passages that reffer
to YHWH coming from Edom, Paran or Seir, that the Bible (that is, the
various authors of many biblical strands from J to Obadiah) considers the
Edomites to be Israel's "brother", reflecting a cultural similarity, and
that the Bible does not mention either Qaus or any other Edomite deity
(while it does mention the Moabite Chemosh and the Ammonite Milkom/Molech).
Qaus first appears (as a theophoric element of Edomite royal names) in late
8th century Assyrian documents, becoming more common during the Babylonian
and the Persian periods.

Yigal