The answer to your theory is in what Yigal wrote:
...
I also think it is likely that a qadesha associated with a sanctuary may not have been a "temple prostitute" in the sense of a woman who commited sexual acts for cultic, ritual reasons. I am not aware of any evidence that ancient Israel practiced ritual sex for cultic purposes -- or even acknowledged for example any sympathetic magic of human sex encouraging agricultural fertility. (And if you say that all the evidence has been expurgated from the Bible, then why would the mention of qedeshot not also be expurgated?) Rather, I would suggest that a qedesha may have been a woman (presumably a slave) dedicated to the sanctuary, just as other items were dedicated to the sanctuary. Her income would then have belonged to the sanctuary. Thus, she may have been a prostitute, and a "holy" prostitute in the sense that her cost went to the upkeep of the holy sanctuary, but not a "temple prostitute" in the classic meaning of the term. (A qadesh -- whether performing homosexual or heterosexual acts -- would similarly have been a sanctuary prostitute but did not engage in sex for cultic purposes.) This would be just as deplorable in the eyes of the Bible as temple prostitution, but I suggest is more consistent with what we know of the theological environment.
In all of
these, it refers to something that the Bible regards negatively, some
forbidden practice. Since the root QD$ is usually related to things
"sacred", one would assume that here, too, the reference is to some
forbidden cultic activity.
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