To: "Noam Eitan" <bhebrew AT yahoo.com>, "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Cc:
Subject: [b-hebrew] Ashera: ?Ashtoret Tzidon
Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 15:59:05 +0930
On Sun, 6 Jun 2004 18:20:23 -0700 (PDT), "Noam Eitan" <bhebrew AT yahoo.com>
said:
> Noam Eitan, Brooklyn, NY [who, for the sake of clarification, worships
> Ashera, the Great Queen of Heaven, as well as our LORD, Baal (as well as
> his dear consort Anat - also my sisters name) and a number of other
> deities, and who wails and mourns at the end of spring the god Tammuz,
> the faithful son of the fresh waters which come from the earth.]
LOL. Well Noam, maybe you're the person to ask whether Ashtoret of
Tzidon (1 Kings 11:5) is the same as Ashera, Queen of Heaven? I think
there's a word play on the fertility goddess in Deut 7:13, 28:4, 18, and
51, where "ashterot tzon" is translated as 'flocks of your sheep and
goats' in my Stone edition Tanach. As far as I can tell, this occurs
nowhere else, only in Deuteronomy in connection with fertility. As is
fitting for an all-powerful deity, YHWH subsumes the attributes of the
surrounding deities through the pen of the the Deuteronomist in this
example (I think).