The essential conflict in the Hebrew Scriptures is not between God and Satan but between Yahweh and the Goddess Asherah
The essential conflict in the Hebrew Scriptures is not between God and Satan but between Yahweh and the Goddess Asherah
Right at the beginning, Yahweh tries to isolate her. Her guardian, the serpent, is replaced by the bizarre and monstrous Cherub (usually connected with political centers)[11] who is to keep humans from the tree of life, i.e. the Mother. No sooner does the family of humanity begin, however, than Cain, the agriculturalist, sacrifices his brother to the earth who opens her mouth to receive Abel’s blood.[12] Yahweh punishes Cain by alienating him from the earth, but the problem for Yahweh continues. The Mother, whose offspring is always some form of Eros, tempts the sons of God so that they come down and cohabit with the daughters of men.[13] This leads God to decide to destroy the whole earth with a great flood. The earth is cleansed, but the conflict does not go away. Noah’s drunkenness[14] results from imbibing of the earth’s secret mysteries.
Throughout the historical books and the prophets we see Israel repeatedly “going after” other deities. In particular, it is the Goddess Asherah who tempts the Israelites to be unfaithful to Yahweh. Even one of the tribes of Israel, Asher, seems to have been named after her. The great southern seaport was also given her epithet, Elath. Archaeology has confirmed through the discovery of the many images of Asherah and her sister goddess Astarte, that the prophets did not exaggerate.[15] The Goddess, in her several forms, remained until the end of the Biblical period a major divinity for the people. Jeremiah, an eye-witness to the final destruction of the nation of Judah in 587 BCE, laments that even then Israelites were still “baking cakes for the Queen of Heaven.”[16] In a sense, one could interpret the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the kingdom of Judah as the ultimate example of the Goddess’ victory.
The official dogma of Israel was that Yahweh is the one God who creates and rules all. Heaven completely triumphs over Earth. In the second version of the ten commandments, Israelites are specifically commanded to “cut down their Asherim.”[17] In actual fact, however, Asherah did not vanish at all.
We have known for sometime about the Jewish community on the isle of Elephantine in the Nile River that worshipped both male and female deities., but new examples continue to be found. In The Old Testament in Archaeology and History[18] there is a fascinating account of artifacts from Kuntillet Ajrud in the Sinai Peninsula and Khirbet el-Qom east of Hebron in which Yahweh and Asherah seem on good terms. In fact, Yahweh even refers to Asherah as “his.
Sometimes Yahweh and Asherah seem very close. Her image and a bronze serpent[19] were even to be found within the temple, probably next to the Ark of the Covenant.[20] At other times, however, her cult stood opposed to the official cult. Although there was much criticism and even persecution, however, the cult of Asherah persevered. Perhaps it is time to ask with some seriousness what it was that Asherah offered which attracted so many away from Yahweh? What is the wisdom of the serpent?
To answer that question, let us begin by looking at the Goddess’ sometime adversary. Yahweh is of the heavens, heavenly, surrounded by the hosts of heaven. He rules over the world but his true throne is located in the realm above. When he appears, he descends from that higher realm. In other words, like all the celestial beings he transcends the earth and stands in judgment over it. As the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it, “God is in heaven and you upon earth.”[21] To use a metaphorical ratio, God is to the world as the immortal soul is to the mortal body. Although the Hebrew Scriptures are not extreme in this regard, this metaphor, when followed out, leads eventually to a sense that the heavenly soul is everything and that the body is the enemy which must be controlled or escaped . The end of radical transcendence and disassociation is gnostic flight.
It is the New Testament that takes the Hebrew metaphors to their inevitable conclusion. Jesus comes from above, the offspring of the Holy Spirit, and in the end he returns to heaven. And he calls his followers to renounce this world---family, possessions, even life---in order to enter the kingdom of heaven.[22] He teaches his disciples to pray to the Father who is in heaven, whose will must be obeyed, whose compassion is shown by forgiving the debts owed to him. It is not surprising that many of his early followers understood Jesus as teaching the denial of the body and the supreme importance of the soul.
We know much less about Asherah, because her worship was officially repressed and with her worship whatever teaching she had to offer. Our picture, therefore, must be conjectural, based not only upon specific references to her but upon our knowledge of goddesses in general.
What we can be sure is that Asherah is a wholly different sort of deity from Yahweh. Though connected to the Moon as Yahweh is to the Sun and sometimes identified with the morning star,[23] she is of the earth, earthly. She affirms the body and its desires; her symbol is the tree of life, an organic, growing cosmic reality. Like Yahweh she too can punish and destroy---the serpent who intimates immortality also threatens a venomous bite---but both her immortality and her mortality are of this world. To find immortality in her is to be absorbed in her perennial cycles, to know yourself as one with her body. Spring is a metaphor for Yahweh; it is her reality.
To worship the goddess is to participate in those cycles of the seasons that constitute the rhythm of life. For Yahweh the seasons are but occasions to remember historical (or perhaps pseudo-historical) events in which he is said to have acted and revealed himself. For the Goddess spring is spring, a time of renewed warmth, fecundity, birth. If Yahweh represents civilization---the tribe, history, the forefathers---Asherah is nature in both its creative and destructive modes. In her is life and death. Yahweh is particular and unique; Asherah is universal and non-discriminating.
Yahweh’s salvation is historical and elective. The exodus from Egypt only happens once, to one group of people. Great emphasis then is put upon remembering with gratitude what happened in the past. Asherah also provides salvation, but it is cyclical and available to all. To live in harmony with her rhythms is to find peace. Death is not her enemy but simply an aspect of her rhythm. Moreover, her salus (health) is not metaphorical and spiritual but real and practical. Paracelsus in the 16th Century expressed his faith that Natura contains within her a cure for every human illness.[24] It simply is up to the physician to find it. Her secrets, he saw, are not historical but botanical
The wisdom of Asherah’s serpent is medicinal, healing wisdom. That is why her serpents coil themselves around the cadeuceus, the physician’s symbol. Her mysteries are the mysteries of herbs and poultices, of recipes and draughts. Jesus cures “from above,” through the spirit, by faith. For him, it would seem, disease is directly connected to disobedience and lack of faith. For Asherah, harmony with her rhythms is also healthful, but she offers the leaves of a particular tree to ease persistent headaches, the bark of a special shrub that grows high in the mountains to cure a skin disease.
Many of the mysteries of the earth, of course, are dangerous. There are poisons as well as healing draughts, though even the poisons may have some healing use if their secrets are known. The Goddess hedges in her mysteries with ritual sanctity and orally transmitted lore. Each of her gifts must be used with specially prescribed care.
This is particularly true for those psychotropic substances---soma, peyote, fly algaric, jimson weed, tobacco, the water of life (whiskey) et al---which can devour and kill but which, if imbibed with appropriate ritual, can also be revelatory. The Huichol of Mexico, who go to the land of the Mothers to hunt and collect peyote, do so with specially prescribed rituals and with a leader who knows the secrets of that land.[25] Therefore, the result is not just a psychodelic high but a deeply transforming religious experience. Through peyote, the Mother allows the pilgrims “to see their own lives.”
Along with plants and herbs, the Goddess also produces metals and other minerals from her telluric “womb.”[26] The miner and the smith know her mysteries that must be handled with ritual care. Forging in the ancient world was a sacred process, not just as secular job, for the mysteries of ores and metals belonged to the Goddess. This may be the reason why the Philistines mastered the art of iron work before the Israelites and why the latter had to go to their goddess-worshipping neighbors for the smithing of iron implements.[27]
Perhaps most important, the Goddess is revealed in eros, in that most powerful of earthly urges. For heavenly Gods and transcendant philosophies, eros frequently appears as the great enemy. We must be rid of desire: Buddhism, Upanishadic Hinduism, and many forms of Christianity agree with that. Eros leads us into illusion, breaks up the patriarchal family, pollutes the mind.
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