This blog should be read in conjunction with the novel on this site: "The Gospel According to Lilith" wherein the argument is made that recent archeological evidence is clear that God, in early Israel, had a wife.

I have written a historical novel spinning how that fact may have played out in both heaven and in the bible. I stress that the novel is historical fiction, not fact.

But the factual basis of the novel is identified below. God's early wife, or consort was real, was a fact, and she played a key role in the bible and in its writing and interpretations. See what you  think. But first who was Asherah?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah

Quote from the above article.

"Scholars have claimed that Asherah was edited out of the Bible and that most Israelites worshiped multiple gods, including Asherah, before 586 B.C. ^[8] The majority of biblical scholars the world over now accept that Asherah at one time was worshiped as the consort of Yahweh (the national god of Israel).^[9] The evidence includes, for example, an 8th century combination of iconography and inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai desert^[10] where a storage jar shows three anthropomorphic figures and an inscription that refers to "Yahweh … and his Asherah".^[11][12] Further evidence includes the many female figurines unearthed in ancient Israel, supporting the view that Asherah functioned as a goddess and consort of Yahweh and was worshiped as the Queen of Heaven.^[11]"

Another quote from Queen of Heaven reference above.

"Asherah was worshipped in ancient Israel as the consort of El and in Judah as the consort of Yahweh and Queen of Heaven (the Hebrews baked small cakes for her festival):^[11]

"Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger." ^[12]

"... to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem ..."^[13]"

My novel "The Gospel According to Lilith" integrates the ideas above into the novel and into the bible itself.

In the coming weeks lets discuss this idea, the history and the actual arechological evidence.

More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah_pole

Images of Asherah

http://www.freewebs.com/fairypage/asherah%202.jpg

http://bgsahajayoga.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/ashera.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Hecht_Museum,_Israel_%E2%80%93_figurines_004-crop.JPG/220px-Hecht_Museum,_Israel_%E2%80%93_figurines_004-crop.JPG

http://www.goddiscussion.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/asherah-pole.jpg

I think the pole representing Asherah appears as The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the genesis story.Readers are being told by the early Israelite rabbis to give up their pagan god Asherah who was widely seen as the consort of Yahweh. This succeeded making Yahweh and god without a wife.
This all took hundreds of years and makes for a fascinating story.

"Lilith"  tells the tale of Asherah in heaven as God's wife and her arrival on earth becoming Lilith and Adam's first wife who was (in the novel) the namesake of God's actual erstwhile wife in heaven.

See quote the article above on the idea of "poles" as trees

"Deuteronomy 16:21 states that YHWH (rendered as "the LORD") hated Asherim whether rendered as poles— "Do not set up any [wooden] Asherah [pole]^[8] beside the altar you build to the LORD your God"— or as living trees— "You shall not plant any tree as an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God which you shall make".^[9] That Asherahs were not always living trees is shown in 1 Kings 14:23: "their asherim , beside every luxuriant tree".^[10] The record indicates, however, that the Jewish people often departed from this ideal. King Manasseh for example is said to have placed an Asherah pole in the Holy Temple. (2 Kings 21:7) King Josiah's reforms in the late 7th century BC included the destruction of many Asherah poles. (2 Kings 23)

Exodus 34:13 states: "Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles."

More:

http://news.discovery.com/history/god-wife-yahweh-asherah-110318.html

What is the Jewish version?

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1942-asherah

You see much to discuss.

  Did Jesus have a wife?

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/news/a-gospel-of-jesus-wife-on-a-coptic-papyrus/?mqsc=E3334429&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDDailyNewsletter&utm_campaign=E2B920