# Did Yahweh ever have a consort? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 16, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221 "2014-04-16T01:10:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/1 "2014-04-16T01:10:48Z")
From [_King Jesus,_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Jesus) by Robert Graves: > [@](#): > > The fact [says Agabus the Decapolitan, writing in 93 A.D.] is that the Jews as a nation have persuaded themselves that they differ in one particular from all others that live on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea: namely, that they never owed any duty to the Great Triple moon-goddess who is generally reputed to have mothered the Mediterranean races, or to any other goddess or nymph whatsoever. This claim is untenable, for their sacred books preserve clear traces of their former attachment, notably in the accounts that they give of their heroes Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Moses. . . . [The Jews] have proclaimed Jehovah as the sole Ruler of the Universe and represented the Goddess as a mere demoness, witch, Queen of Harlots, succuba and prime mischief-maker. > > Jehovah, it seems clear, was once regarded as a devoted son of the Great Goddess, who obeyed her in all things and by her favour swallowed up a number of variously named rival gods and godlings . . . Later (if it is permitted to write in this style) he did exactly what his Roman counterpart, Capitoline Jove, has done: he formed a supernal Trinity in conjunction with two of the Goddess’s three persons, namely, Anatha of the Lions and Ashima of the Doves, the counterparts of Juno and Minerva; the remaining person, a sort of Hecate named Sheol, retiring to rule the infernal regions. Most Jews hold that she still reigns there, for they say, “Jehovah has no part in Sheol”, and quote the authority of the 115th Psalm: “The dead praise not Jehovah, nor do any that go down into silence.” . . . God without Goddess, the Romans and Greeks agree, is spiritual insufficiency; but this the Jews deny. > > In a somewhat obscene passage in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel is to be found Jehovah’s bill of divorcement against his two partner-Goddesses, who are there named Aholah and Aholibah. Nevertheless, the Trinity continued undissolved in a Jewish Temple at Elephantine in Upper Egypt until five hundred years ago. The Scriptural reference is to Ezekiel 23 – but “Aholah” and “Aholibah” are expressly allegories of Samaria and Jerusalem respectively: > [@](#): > > 23 The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, > > 2 Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother: > > 3 And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity. > > 4 And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah. > > \ > > 18 So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then my mind was alienated from her, like as my mind was alienated from her sister. > > 19 Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. > > 20 For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. [Ashima](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashima) was a real Semitic goddess but I can find no references to Anatha. There really was a Jewish temple at Elephantine, and some interpret the [Elephantine papyri](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine_papyri) as proof of surviving polytheism: > [@](#): > > **Anat-Yahu** > > The papyri suggest that, “Even in exile and beyond, the veneration of a female deity endured.”[9] The texts were written by a group of Jews living at Elephantine near the Nubian border, whose religion has been described as “nearly identical to Iron Age II Judahite religion”.[10] The papyri describe the Jews as worshiping Anat-Yahu (or AnatYahu). Anat-Yahu is described as either the wife[11] (or paredra, sacred consort)[12] of Yahweh or as a hypostatized aspect of Yahweh.[13][14] See also [Asherah.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asherah#In_Israel_and_Judah) > [@](#): > > **In Israel and Judah** > > Between the 10th century BC and the beginning of their exile in 586 polytheism was normal throughout Israel;[9] it was only after the exile that worship of Yahweh alone became established, and possibly only as late as the time of the Maccabees (2nd century BC) that monotheism became universal among Jews.[10][11] Some biblical scholars believe that Asherah at one time was worshiped as the consort of Yahweh, the national God of Israel.[10] There are references to the worship of numerous gods throughout Kings, Solomon builds temples to many gods and Josiah is reported as cutting down the statues of Asherah in the temple Solomon built for Yahweh. Josiah’s grandfather Manasseh had erected this statue. (2 Kings 21:7) Further evidence includes, for example, an 8th-century combination of iconography and inscriptions discovered at Kuntillet Ajrud in the northern Sinai desert[12] where a storage jar shows three anthropomorphic figures and an inscription that refers to “Yahweh … and his Asherah”.[13][14] The inscriptions found invoke not only Yahweh but El and Baal, and two include the phrases “Yahweh of Samaria and his Asherah” and “Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah.”[15] There is general agreement that Yahweh is being invoked in connection with Samaria (capital of the kingdom of Israel) and Teman (in Edom); this suggests that Yahweh had a temple in Samaria, and raises a question over the relationship between Yahweh and Kaus, the national god of Edom.[16] The “Asherah” is most likely a cultic object, although the relationship of this object (a stylised tree perhaps) to Yahweh and to the goddess Asherah, consort of El, is unclear.[16] It has been suggested that the Israelites might consider Asherah as a consort of Baal due to the anti-Asherah ideology which was influenced by the Deuteronomistic History at the later period of Monarchy.[17] > > 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.[13] > > Asherah poles, which were sacred trees or poles, are mentioned many times in the Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/2 "2014-04-16T01:45:55Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Ashima](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashima) was a real Semitic goddess but I can find no references to Anatha. Anat was a Canaanite goddess of war. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/3 "2014-04-16T02:24:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > …and whose issue is like the issue of horses. This is my new favorite insult – mainly because nobody will have any clue what it means. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/4 "2014-04-16T02:51:54Z")
Maybe it means they’re contrarian. Neigh-sayers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/5 "2014-04-16T02:58:20Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > This is my new favorite insult – mainly because nobody will have any clue what it means. 🆒 That’s KJV – NIV renders it as, “There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses.” I mean, really! Like you can blame her! ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/6 "2014-04-16T04:50:41Z")
King Jesus is a fun book, but no more to be taken seriously than The Da Vinci Code. Graves had some very severe problems in his interpretation of female divinity figures. His “White Goddess” hypothesis is a monsterpiece of overstatement. He takes some ideas of real value, and exaggerates them beyond all reason. I have his book on the Greek Myths, and, while his retelling of the original stories, and his first level of footnotes, are both excellent, his second level of footnotes, trying to shoehorn everything into his White Goddess hypothesis, is a load of centaur manure. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/7 "2014-04-16T04:57:09Z")
Yahweh had an ancient consort that was a part of the ancestral religion that Judaism evolved from. There have been sacrificial offering pottery shards found in the Levant that have “To Yahweh and his Asherah” and similar inscribed on their sides. Yahweh is a disambiguation of Judaism that sprung forth when the Israelites were identifying themselves as “us” and their neighbors as “them”. The elder stories of the bible in the original texts all refer to “El Shaddai” and the newer documents refer to Him as “Yahweh”. The original name of their god was “El Shaddai” from the Canaanite pantheon who was the father diety of Baal, which was the favored god of the Canaanites after Isreal followed their own beliefs and diverged from the pantheon of their forebearers. (Interesting fact: The original form of Isreal, “Yisra’el” means “El Contends”.) Asherah was excised from the religion as belief in Isreal and it’s people being “married” or “betrothed to” Yahweh took shape. Between a hundred years before and upto the first part of the monarchy, priests were working to stamp this out. Asherah was also later linked to Baal by their neighbors, which is another reason they wanted to stamp out her worship as part of their identity. Here is an interesting rebuke to the notion of stopping offerings to Asherah in Jeremiah 44:17-19: > [@Jeremiah 44:17-19](#): > > We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.” > > 19 The women added, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cakes impressed with her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?” At this point, there was a down turn in Israeli fortunes, and this led to some prophets/priests attempting to stamp out the “bad” practices that were angering Yahweh and causing their misfortunes. The women, who are sometimes said to be the primary worshipers of Asherah, were not terribly pleased with the idea. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/8 "2014-04-16T05:45:56Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > Yahweh had an ancient consort that was a part of the ancestral religion that Judaism evolved from. There have been sacrificial offering pottery shards found in the Levant that have “To Yahweh and his Asherah” and similar inscribed on their sides. > > Yahweh is a disambiguation of Judaism that sprung forth when the Israelites were identifying themselves as “us” and their neighbors as “them”. The elder stories of the bible in the original texts all refer to “El Shaddai” and the newer documents refer to Him as “Yahweh”. The original name of their god was “El Shaddai” from the Canaanite pantheon who was the father diety of Baal, which was the favored god of the Canaanites after Isreal followed their own beliefs and diverged from the pantheon of their forebearers. (Interesting fact: The original form of Isreal, “Yisra’el” means “El Contends”.) > > Asherah was excised from the religion as belief in Isreal and it’s people being “married” or “betrothed to” Yahweh took shape. Between a hundred years before and upto the first part of the monarchy, priests were working to stamp this out. Asherah was also later linked to Baal by their neighbors, which is another reason they wanted to stamp out her worship as part of their identity. > > Here is an interesting rebuke to the notion of stopping offerings to Asherah in Jeremiah 44:17-19: > At this point, there was a down turn in Israeli fortunes, and this led to some prophets/priests attempting to stamp out the “bad” practices that were angering Yahweh and causing their misfortunes. The women, who are sometimes said to be the primary worshipers of Asherah, were not terribly pleased with the idea. You mean to tell me that Judaism wasn’t invented, unsullied, in the 4,000 years or so of the Old Testament? That it didn’t evolve from an earlier tradition that would appear alien to modern Jews and Christians? Well, that is… that’s just… That is to say, it makes complete sense! If you’re not a Creationist, how can you imagine otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/9 "2014-04-16T10:55:11Z")
Yudh-Hey-Vav-Hey, hereafter known as “HaShem” did not have a consort, in any recognizable conception of this deity. If the question is, "Did the people who became the Hebrews/Israelites ever worship a god-goddess pair, that’s a different question, and one I can’t answer. However, part of the definition of the Jews, even back when they were called Hebrews or Israelites, was that they were monotheistic. I can tell you that there is evidence in the E strand of the creation story in Genesis, and in the Psalms, that there was once a tradition that HaShem killed off an earlier god or goddess in battle. I read a convincing thesis that this was Tiamat (obviously, not that HaShem literally kiled Tiamat, but that the goddess in the story was understood by readers at the time to be Tiamat). I don’t remember the details, though. I’m in a hurry, so let me get back later with specifics, but I’ll say quickly that “darkness was on the face of the deep” seems to be, in the Hebrew text, a pretty clear picture of death on the face of the dead goddess. If HaShem was interested in a consort, it would have been easier to court Tiamat, rather than kill her, but HaShem seems to be interested in being the one and only even back when it meant doing so by conquest. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/10 "2014-04-16T12:05:44Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That it **didn’t evolve** from an earlier tradition that would appear alien to modern Jews and Christians? I’m fairly sure I just said the complete opposite. :dubious: > [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Yudh-Hey-Vav-Hey, hereafter known as “HaShem” did not have a consort, in any recognizable conception of this deity. > > If the question is, "Did the people who became the Hebrews/Israelites ever worship a god-goddess pair, that’s a different question, and one I can’t answer. However, part of the definition of the Jews, even back when they were called Hebrews or Israelites, was that they were monotheistic. > > I can tell you that there is evidence in the E strand of the creation story in Genesis, and in the Psalms, that there was once a tradition that HaShem killed off an earlier god or goddess in battle. I read a convincing thesis that this was Tiamat (obviously, not that HaShem literally kiled Tiamat, but that the goddess in the story was understood by readers at the time to be Tiamat). I don’t remember the details, though. > > I’m in a hurry, so let me get back later with specifics, but I’ll say quickly that “darkness was on the face of the deep” seems to be, in the Hebrew text, a pretty clear picture of death on the face of the dead goddess. > > If HaShem was interested in a consort, it would have been easier to court Tiamat, rather than kill her, but HaShem seems to be interested in being the one and only even back when it meant doing so by conquest. The later interpretations of Judaism certainly were. In my opinion, I can’t say that semantically saying that before it was just Yahweh that they weren’t practicing Judaism is anything but evasive. It’s similar to some Christians saying that Christianity has never actually been tried. While, yes, it is true on some level that the full teachings of Christ have never been put into full practice, what everyone (including the practitioners) have seen for 2,000 years is still “Christianity”. I can’t really buy into that argument, either. The proto-Judaic people, while possibly not practicing what modern Jews would consider “Judaism” were practicing it’s earliest forms. The change to modern Judaism was an evolutionary process - some of which was brought along with them from previous and contemporary cultures in the past. An example is the fact that a lot of ancient (and even modern) cultures/religions have a flood story. There was a kernel of an ancestral story that grew with the varying cultures over time. Another issue is that the Old Testament was written over a millennium or so and several of the books make reference to source documents that we haven’t found copies of, yet. We may find more complete ancestral information in one of those tomes, should we ever find one. Back to the Bible, both Deuteronomic authors E and P emphasized the connection the ancestral god to Yahweh to create a sense of continuity. At some point, the priests/prophets/scribes rewriting the bible (for copying purposes) realized that who they worshiped was fairly different than their oldest religious stories and they made efforts to emphasize that these stories referred to their god as well as the contemporary literature. You can see this emphasis fairly clearly in an E verse in Exodus: > [@Exodus 3:13-16](#): > > 13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” > > 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.[a] This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” > > 15 God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord,\*\* the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ > > “This is my name forever, > the name you shall call me > from generation to generation. > 16 “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. You can see the special emphasis placed on the historicity of the continuing God. Additionally, the verse of revealing God as Yahweh to Moses in Exodus 6 further reinforces this link to the ancestral religion: > [@Exodus 6:2-5](#): > > 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord\*\* I did not make myself fully known to them. 4 I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant. For whatever reason (a sojourn to Egypt? The relative isolation of the high plains? Aliens?) the Canaanites that worshiped El split off and didn’t evolve their religion along side the primary population base. Eventually, this religion became a separate entity from it’s ancestral forebearer and later became modern Judaism. The steps between the split and modern Judaism are a long chain of adaptions to circumstances. For instance: Why do modern Jews not sacrifice animals to God in the Temple? This was a central practice in the monarchy. But that was also a change from earlier forms: Older sacrifices could be done at regional properly sanctified altar or temple sites. It was also a change from newer times: Isreal and Judea (the states) both had their own Temple for sacrifices. But with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, sacrifice became prayer. We could also say that Solomon and David weren’t practicing Judaism because they made sacrifices while prayer is practiced, today. But that’s really not that useful and I’m sure a significant set of Jews (and probably Christians) would not accept this delineation of Judaism. Ancestral Judaism, while not what the religion is today, is still Judaism. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/11 "2014-04-16T13:44:31Z")
Sorry, not buying it. If you go back far enough, at some point, proto-Judaism becomes not-Judaism, and I would argue that monotheism (or, at least monolatry) is necessary for what we are looking at to be at least proto-Judaism. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/12 "2014-04-16T14:04:53Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Sorry, not buying it. If you go back far enough, at some point, proto-Judaism becomes not-Judaism, and I would argue that monotheism (or, at least monolatry) is necessary for what we are looking at to be at least proto-Judaism. That’s just semantics. Fact remains that there took place a devellopment from polytheism to monotheism and thus that at one time the pantheon of “the people living in Canaan-Judah-Israel” consisted of more than one God. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/13 "2014-04-16T14:14:16Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Sorry, not buying it. If you go back far enough, at some point, proto-Judaism becomes not-Judaism, and I would argue that monotheism (or, at least monolatry) is necessary for what we are looking at to be at least proto-Judaism. If you expand it to Monolatry than the ealiest proto-Judaists were practicing Judaism, though. El’s worship predated the Baal worship of Canaan and he was the exclusive diety for some period of time for that pantheon. Asherah and, as I said above, the Baal and other gods came later but the El worshipers for reasons that we can’t pin down remained in the service of El with the addition of Asherah as the rest of Canaanite society moved on. As for monotheism, I have the greatest issue with that as a determining factor because Asherah was worshiped (over time dropping to “honored” and then all practice falling away entirely) into the monarchy, which is sometimes referred to as the “Golden Age” of Israel. The logical extension of this is that Judaism did not form until after that period. But common interpretation to both Judaism and Christianity is that Judaism extends back to Abraham. Indeed, the extermination of Asherah worship was a later effort, as at the time of Moses the priesthood was concentrating on keeping the worship focused on Yahweh and not having the population move to Baal as their neighbors did. It’s easiest to use the Judaic and Christian teachings as the basis for argument and study: Abraham was the division between ancestral religion and the Judaic teachings that evolved over time. But realize that this barrier isn’t a hard line and that ancestral practices bleed into Judaism for quite some time. Later organized efforts of the rulers and priesthoods evolved Judaism from it’s roots and contributed changes for much of Jewish/Israeli history. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/14 "2014-04-16T14:24:43Z")
“Is that your girlfriend Yahweh?” “No, she’s just a friend.” “She said she was your girlfriend.” “She wants to be my girlfriend, but we just hooked up once.” “Can I ask her out then?” ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/15 "2014-04-16T15:26:32Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > Sorry, not buying it. If you go back far enough, at some point, proto-Judaism becomes not-Judaism, and I would argue that monotheism (or, at least monolatry) is necessary for what we are looking at to be at least proto-Judaism. According to the Old Testament chronology, the Israelites were told to practice monotheism shortly after the escape from Egypt. That’s generally held to have been sometime between 1700 and 1300 BC. The Old Testament also holds that the Israelites were still practicing polytheism sporadically during the eras of King Ahab (~850 BC) and Manasseh (~650 BC). Based on archaeology, there’s no particular indication of a movement towards monotheism until the 650-550 BC time period (probably starting with Josiah). The core of the Old Testament was basically formed before 500 BC. So basically, the Israelites were polytheists for roughly 1000 years and then in a 100 years had converted to monotheism. Overall, I don’t think it’s very reasonable to say that Israelites are only Israelites if they’re monotheists - the Bible certainly didn’t seem to think so, when they wrote it. Polytheistic Israelite history isn’t a brief period of transition before the long great age (unless you skip to moden day). The transition period was really just a few decades. They were hardcore, full-believer polytheists for a millenia. Even including all of history since then, we’re looking at 1000 years as polytheists and 2500 as monotheists. Obviously monotheism wins, but polytheism was hardly college experimentation. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/16 "2014-04-16T16:07:43Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > El’s worship predated the Baal worship of Canaan . . . Cite? ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/17 "2014-04-16T16:38:32Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The Old Testament also holds that the Israelites were still practicing polytheism sporadically during the eras of King Ahab (~850 BC) and Manasseh (~650 BC). To be fair, though, the Old Testament calls out Ahab and Manasseh for being unfaithful. Some of the great prophets in the Jewish tradition were prophesying during their reigns - Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah. They were be castigated for their non-monotheistic beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/18 "2014-04-16T16:44:45Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > El’s worship predated the Baal worship of Canaan and he was the exclusive diety for some period of time for that pantheon. Asherah and, as I said above, the Baal and other gods came later but the El worshipers for reasons that we can’t pin down remained in the service of El with the addition of Asherah as the rest of Canaanite society moved on. Either your phrasing is confusing or you’re confused about how pantheons work. El was the leader of the pantheon of gods. Baal is one of the sub-gods among that pantheon. Saying that one predates or post-dates the other isn’t very meaningful, since they were worshipped at the same time. Similarly, talking about El-worshippers vs Baal-worshippers is silly since both were worshipped. I’ll grant that per town, per tribe, etc. the makeup of the Canaanite pantheon was probably quite different. There likely is no one “Canaanite” pantheon. Without a central government and written source to maintain consistency, whatever formed the basis of the Canaanite religions was constantly being evolved as people moved around, were conquered, conquered others, etc. Chemosh, Amurru, Baal, Moloch, Yahweh, Kaus, etc. all share the same traits as a god - powers, living situation, etc. - a sort of mountain-dwelling weather/war god who was traditionally a #2 to El Elyon. It seems like each tribe basically took that god and made him their patron saint, then to make sure that he was THEIR patron saint and not the patron saint of the tribe on the other side of the mountain, each tribe gave him a different name. Eventually, the tribe who called him Baal become dominant at a pan-tribal level and so a lot of tribes ended up with their tribal god + Baal, even though traditionally they were probably the same guy. When the move to monotheism started to happen, demonizing Moloch, Kaus, Chemosh, etc. became strictly necessary because the Canaanite/Jewish people were at last trying to unify their pantheons into one (and also trim it down to monotheism) for the first time. But previous to that, each tribe was allowed to have their own particular variant of the Canaanite pantheon with whatever gods by whatever names they wanted, but generally you see these three/four: 1. El 2. A Baal-like god with a unique name as patron OR Baal + a Baal-like 3. Astarte (or similar name) married to either El (earlier eras) or the Baal-like (later eras) Everything after that was pretty flexible and probably varied from town to town. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/19 "2014-04-16T17:07:23Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > To be fair, though, the Old Testament calls out Ahab and Manasseh for being unfaithful. Some of the great prophets in the Jewish tradition were prophesying during their reigns - Elijah, Elisha, and Isaiah. They were be castigated for their non-monotheistic beliefs. It does, but all the way from the Golden Calf to Manasseh, there’s constant mentions of the Israelites practicing polytheism. So according to the OT, you’ve got God sending locusts, plagues, mana from the sky, parting the waters, smiting people, winning the wars for the Israelites, etc. and yet over the course of ~1000 years the Israelites are steadily unconvinced. But really, the fact that the OT even mentions polytheism at all was as a vehicle for demonizing the gods of people who the writers of the Bible wanted to convert to Yawhist monotheism, not because they were trying to tell a solid, well-researched history of the Israelites. The only reason to use the OT to argue for Jewish polytheism is because it supplements archaeology. The OT is, effectively, archaeology, in the same way as finding Ugaritic texts gives us a view of the what the Ugarits believed at the time those texts were written. Most of that might be bunk, but it’s stil information that we can use to supplement information that we gather from other sources during other eras. The OT tells us what the Israelite aristocracy believed (or wanted to believe) around 600 BC, the Ugarit texts give us a view of the region in 1200 BC, Kuntillet Ajrud and the Mesha Stele tells us something about 850 BC, etc. Between those and other smaller finds (icons, statues, etc.) we can piece together a most-plausible history of the region and its religions. And in that, it agrees with the Bible that there were Moabites and Midianites and there was Chemosh and Kaus, etc. But it doesn’t agree that the Israelites were an independent non-Canaanite group, nor does it agree that they were recovering polytheists for a thousand years. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/20 "2014-04-16T17:12:21Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > “Is that your girlfriend Yahweh?” > > “No, she’s just a friend.” > > “She said she was your girlfriend.” > > “She wants to be my girlfriend, but we just hooked up once.” > > “Can I ask her out then?” High maintenance like you wouldn’t fucking _believe!_ [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221.md?page=2)