The True ORIGIN of God's Wife Asherah Will BLOW Your Mind!

Unlock the mysteries of Asherah's origin, God's hidden wife, in this thrilling YouTube documentary. Discover her true origins and lasting impact on Judaism and Christianity through ancient texts and archeological finds.

Travel back to Mesopotamia during Hammurabi's reign, where Asherah, known as Ashratu or Ashiratum, emerges as the consort of Amurru, the Babylonian 'lord of the mountain.' Her influence spanned beyond Mesopotamia, featuring in Hittite and Canaanite myths alongside the high god El.

Trace Asherah's presence in the Old Testament until she is denigrated by the Deuteronomist. Yet, her legacy endures in Lady Wisdom, the Menorah, and Christian art depicting Mary and Jesus.

Subscribe to @InquisitiveBible For creating such an awesome script! He works tirelessly to make great critical scholarship on the Bible accessible to everyone. I hope more viewers subscribe to his channel.

Subscribe to our second channel
@mythvisionTV

SIGN UP FOR RECOMMENDED ONLINE COURSES HERE

Kipp Davis: Real Ancient Israelite Religions -
Richard Carrier: New Testament Studies For Everyone -
Dale C. Allison Jr: The Quest For The Historical Jesus -

SIGN UP FOR BART EHRMAN COURSES BELOW:

Please support MythVision by joining the Patreon or making a one-time donation through the links below:

Cashapp: 👉 $rewiredaddiction
Venmo: 👉 @Derek-Lambert-9

👉👉 Check out MVP Courses for new and upcoming online courses:

Chapters:
00:00:00 - God's Wife
00:02:52 - Asherah - Goddess of Israel
00:07:26 - The Creatrix of the Gods
00:14:09 - Asherah and the Old Testament
00:15:55 - King Asa and the Queen Mother
00:17:38 - The 400 Prophets of Asherah
00:18:46 - Manasseh's reforms
00:20:47 - Josiah’s Counter-Reforms
00:24:04 - Asherah in the Temple
00:28:21 - Almonds and the Tree of Life
00:31:15 - Aaron’s Flowering Staff
00:37:40 - Yahweh’s Divorce
00:41:59 - Asherah’s Legacy

Sources for this video:
Ackerman, S. (2008). “Asherah, the West Semitic Goddess of Spinning and Weaving?” JNES 67/1.
Barker, M. (2014). King of the Jews: Temple Theology in John’s Gospel.
Binger, T. (1997). Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament.
Dijkstra, M. (2001). “I have Blessed You by YHWH of Samaria and His Asherah.” In: Only One God?
Eichler, R. (2019). “The Priestly Asherah.” Vetus Testamentum 69.
Hestrin, R. (1987). “The Lachish Ewer and the Asher.” IEJ 37/4.
Keel, O. & Uehlinger, C. (1992). Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel.
Korpel, M.C.A. (2001). “Asherah Outside Israel.” In: Only One God?
Taylor, J.E. (1995). “The Asherah, the Menorah and the Sacred Tree.” JSOT 66.
Van der Toorn, K. (2018). God in Context: Essays on Society and Religion in the Early Middle East.
Whitt, W.D. (2008). “The divorce of Yahweh and Asherah in Hos 2, 4–7.12 ff.” SJOT 6:1.
Wiggins, S.A. (2007). A Reassessment of Asherah.
Worthington, R. (2018). “The Hebrew Goddess Asherah in the Greek Septuagint.” Feminist Theology 27(1).
Wyatt, N. (2007). “Word of Tree and Whisper of Stone.” Vetus Testamentum 57.
Wyatt, N. (2014). “A Royal Garden: The Ideology of Eden.” SJOT 28/1.

#mythvision #Mythology #Religion

[MythVisionPodcast]

What was your favorite part of this video?

I want to thank Paul Davidson from the YouTube channel "Inquisitive Bible Reader" for crafting such an amazing video!

[adralia]

Once a scripture was altered, there's no stopping after that.. I'm not surprised.

[courtneybrown]

My favorite part is seeing the tablets of Asherah, which are so obviously the symbolic root for the story of the garden of Eden, with the tree of life. I appreciate you telling Asherah's story, which has been purposely left out of Western history.

[MarisaP]

For quite a few years, I'd say, at least for 25 years or so, I knew that God had a wife. For a long time, I knew that the Bible wasn't telling us everything. Alot was removed by the Catholic church, and other male dominated religions. I'm glad to see that this is being corrected. Thank you for posting this.

[AGoddess]

Ok, well you just made me bawl at 11:25 ❤ There's so much history that has been twisted and hidden from us. We are the revealers ❤

[EricaFiore]

I have know Asherah for a long time. She is the mother of all life of all Gods and Goddess.

[terrencetech]

Engrossing! And it's refreshing to hear a real human performing the voice over rather than a monotone A.I. voice overlay. Thanks! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[anjodosol]

If everybody has a pair, why wouldn’t the highest being of the whole universe has his pair as well

[waderogers]

I found it interesting that the menorah, the 'seven branched candle stand' is probably linked to the stylized almond tree and therefore to Asherah. Not unusual for one religion to borrow the iconography of another and therefore hide it in plain sight.
I don't remember the verse but there's a quote in the O.T. about how the wives of Hebrew men were complaining after the reforms of Josiah that they were better off when they were worshipping Asherah than they were under YHWH. It's well known that Hebrew men during the 1st temple period often married Canaanite women as a form of cultural assimilation and that these women kept worshipping Asherah, even having votives of her or her sacred tree in their homes. Showing the henotheistic nature of early Israel prior to the 2nd temple period.

[epicofgilgamesh]

According to the general consensus of scholarship *(even critical Christian scholars), * YHWH was originally incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the Canaanite high god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms "divorced" them. El's pantheon in Ugarit (modern day Ras Shamra in Syria) is called the *Elohim, * literally the plural of El. Interestingly, the Biblical god is also referred to numerous times as Elohim. If you want to see if El is fictional, just read his mythology in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts.

"The mysterious Ugaritic text Shachar and Shalim tells how (perhaps near the beginning of all things) *El* came to shores of the sea and saw two women who bobbed up and down. *El* was sexually aroused and took the two with him, killed a bird by throwing a staff at it, and roasted it over a fire. He asked the women to tell him when the bird was fully cooked, and to then address him either as husband or as father, for he would thenceforward behave to them as they called him. They saluted him as husband. He then lay with them, and they gave birth to Shachar ("Dawn") and Shalim ("Dusk"). Again *El* lay with his wives and the wives gave birth to "the gracious gods", "cleavers of the sea", "children of the sea". The names of these wives are not explicitly provided, but some confusing rubrics at the beginning of the account mention the goddess *Athirat (Asherah), * who is otherwise *El's* chief wife, and the goddess Raḥmayyu ("the one of the womb"), otherwise unknown."

*"First, a god named El predates the arrival of the Israelites into Syria-Palestine.* Biblical usage shows El was not just a generic noun, but often a proper name for Israel’s God (e.g., Gen 33:20: “El, the God of Israel”)."

"I should add here that it is very clear from the grammar that the noun nachalah in v. 9 should be translated “inheritance.” *Yahweh receives Israel as his “inheritance” (nachalah), just as the other sons of El received their nations as their inheritance (nachal, v. 8).* With this verb, especially in the Hiphil, the object is always what is being given as an inheritance. Thus, Israel is given to Yahweh as his inheritance. ((Here I’m indebted to Dan McClellan.)) It would make no sense for Elyon to give himself an inheritance. Moreover, as I’ve argued elsewhere, it is not just the Gentile nations that are divided up according to the number of the *sons of El.* It is all of humankind, i.e., “the sons of Adam.” This clearly includes Israel. And the sons of Adam are not divided up according to the number of the *sons of El, * plus one (i.e., plus Elyon). They are divided up, according to the text, *solely* according to the number of the *sons of El.* *Thus, that Yahweh receives Israel as his inheritance makes Yahweh one of the sons of El mentioned in v. 8. Any other construal of the text would constitute its rewriting.*

A Sumerian hymn speaks to the goddess: “Nanshe, your divine powers are not matched by any other divine powers.” *Does this mean that Nanshe was the high goddess, that there were no gods above her? No, it does not.* Nanshe was the daughter of Enki, the high god. *In Sumerian mythology, as with Ugaritic, Israelite, Babylonian, and others, in the ancient past, the high god (Enki, in this case) divided up the world and assigned his children certain domains.* Nanshe was given a limited domain (the modern Persian Gulf) and was tasked with maintaining social justice there. *This is exactly what we see in Deuteronomy 32 with Yahweh. Yahweh is given a limited domain (Israel) and is given authority over his people, to punish them, as well as to protect and defend them against foreign enemies.* That Yahweh, like Nanshe, is said to have incomparable divine power *does not* mean that he is not subordinate to the high god who gave him his domain. *It is also of note that Nanshe, like Baal, Yahweh, and so many other deities, evolved over time. Her domain increased, and she was promoted in the pantheon (although she never became the high goddess)."*

*"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
(Written by Thom Stark who is a Christian)

*"Michael Heiser: A Unique Species? - Religion at the Margins"*
(A second response to Michael Heiser)

*"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."*

*"The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10"* - TheTorah.com
(Excluding the short narrative on Nimrod (vv. 8–12), *which appears to be a later addition, * Genesis 10 contains *70* names of nations or cities, a number that was symbolic of totality. Similarly, the descendants of Jacob were *70* in number (Gen 46:37; Exod 1:5), *as were the sons of the supreme Canaanite god El, with whom YHWH became equated.)*

*"Polytheism and Ancient Israel’s Canaanite Heritage. Part V | theyellowdart"*
(Of course, much of this [i.e., that Israel worshiped El and Asherah alongside YHWH] is really to be expected given that recent syntheses of the *archaeological, cultural, and literary data* pertaining to the emergence of the nation of Israel in the Levant *show that most of the people who would eventually compose this group were originally Canaanite. As the Hebrew Bible notes, the Hebrew language itself is a Canaanite language, literally the “lip of Canaan” (שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן; Is. **19:18**), and so it cannot often be distinguished by modern scholars from other Canaanite inscriptions on purely linguistic grounds.)*

*"Ugarit - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, Ilu or El, whose titles included "Father of mankind" and "Creator of the creation." The Court of El was referred to as the (plural) 'lhm or ***Elohim, *** a word ***later used by the biblical writers to describe the Hebrew deity*** and translated into English as "God, " in the singular.
El, which was ***also the name of the God of Abraham, *** was described as an aged deity with white hair, seated on a throne.)

*"Mark Smith: Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh’s Ascendency – Lehi's Library"*
(Mark Smith is a Catholic)

*"God, Gods, and Sons (and Daughters) of God in the Hebrew Bible. Part III | theyellowdart"*

*"02 | December | 2009 | Daniel O. McClellan - Psalm 82"*
(Daniel McClellan is a Mormon)

*"Elohim | Daniel O. McClellan"*
(Refer to the article "Angels and Demons (and Michael Heiser)")

*"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."*
(Pay attention to whose wife Asherah (Athirat) is in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts and how she became the wife of YHWH/Yahweh)

*"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."*

*"Asherah, God's Wife in Ancient Israel. Part IV - theyellowdart"*

*"The Gates of Ishtar — El, was the original god of the bible."*

*"The Gates of Ishtar — Anath in the Elephantine Papyri"*
(In addition to Asherah (Athirat) being the consort of Yahweh, it appears some Israelites also viewed the Canaanite goddess Anat(h) as Yahweh's consort)

*"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Refer to the section "Relationship to Biblical Religion")

*"The Syncretization of Yahweh and El : reddit/AcademicBiblical"*
(For a good summary of all of the above articles)

Watch Professor Christine Hayes who lectures on the Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Watch lecture 2 from 40:40 to 41:50 minutes, lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards, lecture 8 from 12:00 to 17:30 minutes and lecture 12 from 27:40 minutes onwards.

Watch *"Pagan Origins of Judaism"* by Sigalius Myricantur and read the description in the video to see the scholarship the video is based on.

Watch *"How Monotheism Evolved"* by Sigalius Myricantur and watch up to at least 21:40.

Watch *"Atheism - A History of God (The Polytheistic Origins of Christianity and Judaism)"*
(By a former theist)

Watch *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica.

[donnalowe]

The mentioned 'TREE Symbol' in jewelry actually refers to THE TREE OF LIFE.
The Name / Title of JOPHIEL & HANIEL will interest you. They are the Archangels. In GENE SIS - Genisis.
The Joy of THE FATHER - or of - FAT HER. As ABOVE High Priestess or High Priest is Energy - Frequency not either female or male - but in Balance equal.
Many know The HOLY SPIRIT is a small female Voice that speaks to us quietly deep Within our SACRED HEARTS. As Emm or Mother Goddess over all CREATION.
Inanna, Anet, Anat, Aanath, Hathor, Athena, Artimus, Lilith, Eve, Hannah, Helen of Troy, Joan de Arc, Lady Godiva or actually Lady God Diva, Davi, Danu, Dawn Aurōra etc.etc.
Also, THE WEST WIND -
a statue and a poem.
The west wind is a warm wind full of bird cries
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes
For it comes from the west lands the old brown hills
Its April in the west land and the daffodils

She is also known by many other Titles/ Names.
SHE loves Her beloved Children. God is LOVE.
We were made with LOVE, by LOVE, to become LOVE.
Archaeological evidence suggests that God was considered female for the first 200, 000 years of human life on earth, even if male-dominated religions sought to displace the matriarchal order. And there was Peace when She ruled with LOVE.

[katherineperry]

Amazing video!!! it's a shame many of those who follow the Christiam religion are still very ignorant about many things. Religion and culture tend to go hand and hand and plays a role in how religion can be formed. Unfortunately, the Goddess Asherah feel pray to those who only served the father god, El she had to be downsized and shamed for false one-sided women blaming reasons. Modern women still fall victim to being shunned and hurt by men and male- thinking in society. I practice Goddess-only Nature worship but i see many sides of the same face of our ancient Mother!!! Your research is commendable and goes on to explain many facets of the Asherah worship in ancient times Cant wait for more videos )0(

[Azupiru]

Note also the mandorla, which is the name of the geometric form from which the Christians showed Jesus emerging. However, I think one of the big problems with the current understandings of Asherah and the Asherah pole is that the pillar capitals of the City of David clearly depict the form of these trees as represented on contemporaneous metal bowls from Idalion, as well as on numerous other pieces of religious art, with many examples displayed on ivories (the material used is important). Many of these depictions look nothing like a tree, and there are many examples of mosaics across the ancient world that show this "Mandorla" shape emerging from flowers that do not grow from trees. Also, an exhaustive consideration of these forms across the ancient world shows that they derive ultimately from geometric/metaphysical assumptions regarding the method for constructing equilateral triangles and six-petaled rosettes. This vesica piscis is the central symbol of the pillar capital orders of the second temple and was eventually covered over by the Acanthus of the Corinthian order. It is not a coincidence that the pillar upon which the Christians claim Jesus sat while being crowned with "akanthe" is flanked by Corinthian columns that display the acanthus covering up the symbols of the Ionic and proto-Aeolic orders, which are directly referential to the forms of the tree in question. How can Israel have rid itself of this symbolism if it was right there on their capitals all along. Some early Christian mosaics even depict this form on capitals surrounding an altar. The Almond tree's flowers have 5 petals, not 6.

If I had to take a wild guess at the Asherah pole, I'd say that it was a date palm that was bound up with crocus corms (as a lattice) and its blooming signaled the beginning of the saffron harvest, which is the true first fruit.

[exoplanet]

Fascinating discussion of scholarly research on the origin of the Menorah 28:15. If that idea is correct, the Menorah may have been created or styled to absorb and co-opt Ashera worship in the same way that the Christmas tree would later become a way to absorb 'pagan' worship into Christianity.

[mudvayne]

7Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: 8For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Pray and ask him who she is.

[hueym]

The connection is plainly there. Asherah is derived from Inanna. Her tree resembles the growth of the mind. Seven branches=7sins+7virtues in balance. Often depicted as mastery over two lions of emotion violence resembling the expression through the male and the female.
The Maccabean removed the male and female role of the mythologies replacing it by the initiated.

[kunimitsutezuka]

Well documented stuff from Ugarit will always be mindblowing, one of the best videos you made so far ! (along with the Adam & Eve origins), keep up the good work!

[melbied]

I love how she couldn’t be scrubbed from the Nevi'im. She is, and forever will be, part of Hebrew/Christian scripture.

[faithk]

This is lovely! People have been worshipping the goddess for thousands of years. I just wish the mainstream would see it and accept it. ❤

[quothannoyed]

Excellent, thank you very much. I have had an interest in Asherah for quite some time, mainly because so little has been known that I could find; this video really helps!