# 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:** 2
**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, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/21 "2014-04-16T20:13:47Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 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. Yeah, I should have phrased that better. I was attempting to make the point that The El/Asherah worship was entrenched in the people-to-be-Israelis. The language for timing should have been conveying relative populations and their movements - there was very low population in the highlands that the Israelis accreted from and the high populations of the city-states that surrounded them (and that they traded with) were growing and setting up new outposts and cities closer to the rural populations. These new population centers worshiped other gods that weren’t El, primarily Baal. This is why the Bible spends so much time denouncing Baal, they were attempting to retain what they considered their identity against interlopers. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/22 "2014-04-16T21:01:28Z")
Remember that, thousands of years ago, monotheism was an utterly alien concept to most peoples. Most people were either polytheists or practicers of various spirit-religions. If and when Moses or a Jesuit missionary or anybody else comes to a pagan people and tells then “Jehovah” (or “The Lord” or “Jesus)” is the one and only true God, those pagans don’t readily take to the concept. Many will accept the new god and try to fit him into their existing pantheon, reasoning that you can never have too many gods to pray to. We see this in Caribbean religions like Voodoo and Santeria. American Indians and African slaves often took what French or Spanish missionaries told them about Christianity and mixed it with their old beliefs. So, to them, Jesus, Mary and the saints were just new gods or new spirits. Well, most of the ancient Israelites were pagans, too. And even if you beat such people over the head repeatedly with the idea that Yahweh was THE one and only true god, many of them still thought like pagans, and tried to work Yahweh into their pre-existing pantheon. Instead of REALLY thinking Yahweh was the only god, they’d think of him like Zeus or Jupiter, as the most important or most powerful of many gods. And if the older version of Yahweh had a wife, why, the people would assume Yahweh did too. Look, all through the Old Testament, paganism and idolatry persisted among the Israelites, no matter how hard prophets and patriarchs tried to exterminate that. ---
**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, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/23 "2014-04-16T21:49:54Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 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. My own favorite’s Astarte A lusty wench and hearty Taught them Hebrews how to party And that’s good enough for me! ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/24 "2014-04-16T22:02:25Z")
Man(kind) was created in the image of God, how do you presume that ‘Father God’ had a child then :smack: ---
**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, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/25 "2014-04-16T22:22:01Z")
> [@Farin](#): > > 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. From the same passages in _King Jesus:_ > [@](#): > > Nobody can understand the story of Jesus except in the light of this Jewish obsession of celestial patriarchy; for it must never be forgotten that despite all appearances, despite even his apparent sponsorship of the Eucharistical rite, Jesus was true to Jehovah from his childhood onward without a single lapse in loyalty. He once told Shelom, the midwife who had brought him into the world, that he had “come to destroy the work of the female”; he accepted the title of “Son of David” – King David who had stabilized the Jewish monarchy and persuaded the priestesses of Anatha, until then the proud rulers of clans and tribes, to content themselves with membership in his royal harem. And as the Second Adam Jesus’ self-imposed task was to undo the evil which, according to the patriarchal legend, the First Adam had caused by sinfully listening to the seductive plea of his wife Eve. > > Whether patriarchy is a better solution to the eternal problem of the relations of men and women than matriarchy or than the various compromises which civilized nations have adopted, who shall decide? All that needs to be recorded here is that at a critical stage in their history the Jews decided to forbid the further participation of priestesses in their sacred rites. Women, they said, have an unsettling effect on religious life; which inevitably tends to confuse mystical ecstasy with eroticism. For this point of view there is much to be said, because the effect of sexual promiscuity in festival time is to loosen the ties of family life and disorder the social system. Besides, there was a political side to the Jewish theory: namely, that the only hope of survival for the nation, which was settled at the cross-roads of the world, lay in its keeping strictly to itself and avoiding the foreign entanglements in which amorous and luxury-loving queens and priestesses invariably involve their subjects. Yet the Jews, who are Orientals only in part, have never been able to keep their women in perfect subjection; and have never therefore succeeded in serving Jehovah with the purity they profess. The Great Goddess, to whom the land of Palestine originally belonged, is always tripping them up and seducing them into folly. Belili, her earliest name, they spell Belial, meaning Utter Destruction. Their apostasy from the Goddess gave them qualms at first, and the poet Jeremiah who lived at this period quotes some of them as saying: “We will now again burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and pour libations to her as we once did, and our fathers, our kings and princes in the cities of Judaea and in the streets of Jerusalem, for then we had food in plenty and health and prosperity. But since we ceased to burn incense and pour libations to her, we have been in distress, consumed by the sword and by famine.” But the rest stood fast by their resolution. In Graves’ version of the story, Jesus is really the son of Prince Antipater, son of King Herod the Great. In Chapter 5, Antipater is troubled that the people of Judaea despise the house of Herod the Idumaean (Edomite) as upstarts, who took the throne by force of arms with Roman backing. Simon the High Priest, a religious and historical scholar with a lot of esoteric knowledge, makes a case that Herod and his family are true heirs to the throne, because like David they are Calebites – that is, descended from Caleb a Kenite of Hebron, who was the great-grandson of Judah. Then Simon tells Antipater something even stranger, which he has not confided even to Herod: > [@](#): > > Then [Simon] confided to Antipater a most unorthodox historical theory: that in Israel every ancient chieftain or king had ruled by woman-right: namely by marriage with the hereditary owner of the soil. Adam by marriage with Eve; Abraham by marriage with Sarah, Hagar and Keturah; Isaac by marriage with Rebecca; Jacob by marriage with Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah; Joseph by marriage with Asenath; Caleb by marriage with Ephrath and Azubah; Hur by marriage with Miriam; David by marriage with Abigail of Carmel and Michal of Hebron; and every subsequent king of the line of David my marriage with a matrilineal descendant of Michal. He also told Antipater that at the extinction of the monarchy the female line of Michal was engrossed by the House of Eli, the senior line of priests descended from Aaron, who were on that account styled the Heirs of David, or the Royal Heirs. > > He ended solemnly, “Prince, what I have not told your father Herod is this, that no king has a true title to rule in Israel unless he is not only a Calebite but also married to the Heiress of Michal; and that the heiress inherits by ultimogeniture and not by primogeniture – that is to say, she is always the youngest daughter of the line, not the eldest.” By Simon’s reckoning, the current heiress of Michal is an orphaned Temple ward, Miriam (Mary), daughter of Hannah and Joachim the Levite. He persuades Antipater to secure his title to the throne by marrying Miriam, but to keep the marriage secret for political reasons. Shortly after they are married, Antipater is imprisoned and executed by his insane father. For the sake of appearances, Mary, already pregnant, publicly marries Joseph of Emmaus. Mary gives birth to Jesus and, when he reaches adulthood (having grown into a scholar of astonishing genius and erudition), she tells him of his royal heritage. By this time the Jewish monarchy is vacant; after Herod’s death, the Emperor Augustus (wisely) decided no surviving member of Herod’s family was worthy of the throne, and placed Judaea under direct rule by a Roman governor. But Mary assures Jesus he is the heir even under Roman law, and will rule as king some day. Jesus goes off to spends some time among the Essenes. He travels to Egypt and settles for a time in On-Heliopolis, a destination of religious pilgrims from all over the known world. In Chapter 16, Jesus sets forth his own conception of his goals: > [@](#): > > Jesus would comfort [the pilgrims] with these words: “Immortality is the reward of wisdom; wisdom the reward of seeking and suffering. To seek and suffer is to love God; and there is but one God, the God of Israel. Turn to him and the word of salvation will be spoken.” > > “And what of woman?” a Sidonian asked him. > > “No man can at the same time love God as he demands to be loved and woman as she demands to be loved. He must choose between the Eternal Father and the fish-tailed Queen of Heaven.” > > He later enlarged on this saying to the midwife Shelom. She asked him, “Lord, how long will death prevail?” > > “So long as women continue to bear children.” > > She answered, “I have done well, then, in bearing none.” > > “Since your barrenness was not of your own choosing, you have avoided one bitter herb only to eat of another. But I will tell you this: until the two sexes shall be as one, the male with the female neither male nor female, God’s Adversary will still walk abroad.” > > “What of yourself? Are you not a true man?” > > “I have come to destroy the works of the Female.” > > “Would you destroy the work of your own mother?” > > “I acknowledge as my mother only the Holy Spirit of God that moved upon the face of the waters before the Creation. The Female is Lust, the first Eve, who delays the hour of perfection.” > > “And are you proof against her beauty? Are you sterner of heart than our father Adam?” > > "May it be granted to me to dispel the curse of which the Preacher, the Son of Sira, writes: > > An heavy yoke was ordained for the Sons of Adam from the day they go out of their mother’s womb till the day that they return to the mother of all things, from him who is clothed with blue silk and wears a crown even to him who wears simple linen – wrath, envy, trouble and unquietness, rigour, strife and fear of death even in the time of rest. > > For the first Eve, or Acco, or Lilith, or the Spinner, whom Solomon styles the Horse Leech, and whom the Preacher styles our universal mother, has two daughters: the Womb and the Grave. ‘Give, give,’ she cries. In the hour of perfection she shall be denied at last." Back in Judaea, Jesus is baptized by John (his first cousin). He is tempted by visions of several beasts symbolizing vices – Anger, Lust, Pride, Greed, etc. – and tames all of them; but he can make no sense of his vision of a bull. Shortly thereafter, at Hebron, he makes the acquaintance of Mary the Hairdresser (Mary Magdalene), a Kenite madam and retired prostitute who is rumored to be a witch, and turns out to be a priestess of the old Triple Goddess. She is, in fact, keeping in a cave the original Ark of the Covenant, containing a red and gold tablet carved with pictures. Chapter 19: > [@](#): > > He took the lamp and studied the tablets as if with indifference. “What are these things to me, witch? Have I not studied the Scriptures? Here, pictured in a confused order, are the annals of kings and princes and prophets of Israel.” > > “In your own heart lies the confusion. Here is one story and one story only. It runs boustrophedon – as one ploughs alternately from right to left and from left to right. When the golden tablet is done, the red begins. It is the story of the ancient covenant from which the Ark takes its name: the covenant sworn between my Mistress and the twin Kings of Hebron; that she will share her love and her anger equally between them both so long as they obey her will. Here it begins.” She took the lamp from him and pointed with her finger. > > A great contest then ensued between Mary and Jesus over the interpretation of the pictures, and neither was ever at a loss for the word of contradiction. > > Mary said: "_See where my Mistress, the First Eve, is seated on her birth-stool under the palm-tree. The people are waiting for a great event, for the pangs are upon her."_ > > Swiftly Jesus answered her: “No, witch, that is not the First Eve: that is Deborah judging the Israelites under the palm-tree of Deborah. For so it is written.” > > _“Not so: for here my Mistress is delivered of twins, begotten of different fathers, namely Adam son of the Terebinth, and Azazel son of the Kerm-oak. She ties a red thread about the wrist of Azazel to distinguish him from his brother Adam.”_ > > “No, but Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, is delivered of her bastards Zarah and Pharez and ties the thread about the wrist of Zarah. For so it is written.” > > \ > > _“Not so; your prevarications will not serve you. For see, where my Mistress has granted Adam his plea. His spirit rises from the dry bones of the burial ark and, uttering threats to Azazel, returns once more to the wheel of life. He will be born again to my Mistress, the First Eve, as his own son and twin to the son of Azazel.”_ > > “No, but I refute you. Here King Saul consults the witch of Endor, who raises the spirit of Samuel from the dry bones of Samuel. For so it is written.” > > _“Not so: have done, in the Mother’s name! Here the red tablet ends, and the golden tablet takes up the story again, with my Mistress, the First Eve, in pangs beneath her palm-tree.”_ > > “You have had my answers. What need to give them again?” > > “They are not acceptable to my Triple Mistress.” > > “The Living God in whom I trust is immeasurably stronger than your Mistress. He can create what-is from what-is-not. He can make what-was as though it had never been. Her ancient tables record a covenant of death which the Lord God overturned and set aside at the Well of Kadesh when he swore a new covenant of life with his servant Moses. The Books of Moses record that covenant; they are stored in the holy ark of every synagogue throughout Jewry and written on the tablets of every loyal heart.” Jesus then exorcizes seven demons from Mary; she admits defeat for now, but warns him this is not the end. By this time Jesus has a following of persons who know that he is the son of Antipater. They stage a ceremony in which John the Baptist anoints Jesus King of Israel; Jesus’ left thigh is forced permanently out of joint, like Jacob/Israel when he wrestled the angel; and Jesus is married to the new “heiress of Michal,” a kinswoman of his mother’s, Mary of Bethany, daughter of Jose styled Cleopas. > [@](#): > > When he was ready, the Queen smiled graciously at him, descended slowly from the throne and gave him her hand. Painfully he took three steps up the ramp and sat down beside her; for the meaning of coronation is marriage to the heiress of the land. > > Rams’ horns blew, the company shouted acclamations and the wedding feast began. An unblemished white ox had been slaughtered in honor of the King and Queen, and now the company, hungry for roast flesh after a night and a day of fasting, waited for him to inaugurate the banquet by partaking of the sacred shoulder reserved for him. > > He set the shoulder aside, saying, “Those who love me will refrain with me. This custom is ended.” > > None dared eat, and the carcase of the ox was taken out for burial. . . . > > \ > > The maskers came tumbling in, disguised as birds and beasts; they danced an made merry until it was time for Jesus and Mary to retire to the bridal chamber behind the curtain. But he turned to his queen and his words were far more terrible to the company even than his refusal of the reserved shoulder. He said in a clear voice: “I am your King, and I have come not to renew but to make an end. Beloved, let us not do the act of darkness, which is the act of death. You are my sister! You are my sister! You are my sister!” > > By these words he chastely denied her the consummation of marriage. A silence as of death fell on the astonished assembly; while Mary the Queen first flushed and then blanched. > > Mary the mother of Jesus was the first to speak. She stood up and asked sternly, “My son, is this how you deal with your virgin bride? What if the King your father had shamefully done the same?” > > He answered, “Woman, the Power of Michal has left you and lighted upon your kinswoman. The reckoning is now between myself and herself alone.” > > Lazarus the Essene, the Queen’s brother who had been her guardian since the death of her father Jose Cleopas, comforted her. “The King your husband has done wisely in trampling upon the garment of shame. Only by this road can we all walk together in pure love. Dry your tears, Mary. Dry your tears, for the love of the Living God.” In Chapter 29, Jesus is crucified. As he hangs on the cross: > [@](#): > > Mary the Hairdresser came up to Shelom [the midwife] and said: “You brought this Son of Adam into the light of day, Sister; but it is my task to return him to the darkness.” > > “Who are you, woman?” Shelom asked. > > “I will confide a secret to you. The Fourth Beast, the Beast of the southern quarter of the circle in which he sat in Horeb, was the Bull of Haste. His fault was this: that he tried to force the hour of doom by declaring war upon the Female. But the Female abides and cannot be hastened.” After the crucifixion and burial, Jesus does appear alive to his followers, and tells them, “On Passover Eve I learned this: that the Kingdom is not to be taken by violence.” Then he leads them all up a hill where three women stand: Mary his mother, Mary his queen, “and a very tall woman whose face was veiled.” The four of them vanish in a mist. ---
**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, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/26 "2014-04-16T22:23:02Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Man(kind) was created in the image of God, how do you presume that ‘Father God’ had a child then :smack: 😕 Sorry, I don’t follow. The usual story is that he used a human woman, not a goddess. ---
**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, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/27 "2014-04-16T22:27:04Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Look, all through the Old Testament, paganism and idolatry persisted among the Israelites, no matter how hard prophets and patriarchs tried to exterminate that. It does not seem to have finally ended, in fact, until the Babylonian Captivity. Spending 40 years cut off from the influence of competing Canaanite gods and disinclined to worship Babylonian gods, they simply got out of the habit. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/28 "2014-04-16T23:32:42Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 Sorry, I don’t follow. The usual story is that he used a human woman, not a goddess. God has one child, but also He has many children, note Gen 6:2,Gen 6,4: > [@](#): > > the **sons of God** saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose…4a The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. And Job 1 > [@](#): > > 6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord God has children. And there are also hybrid children which involve human women, perhaps bridges from heaven to earth, but also there are births in the heavens as well: > [@](#): > > Rev 12: > A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth Pregnancy and female and birth is ever present in scriptures from heavens to earth to hybrids. It is also evident that God commanded Moses to create thing that exist in heaven on earth and Jesus said what is bound on earth is bound in heaven. The two are interconnected and to use a quantum physics term entangled they reflect each other (why man is in the likeness of God). Since mankind has children and scriptures show such a clear relationship between the earthy and heavenly realm I feel save to assume that all that started because mother and father god got together one night and the condom failed (again heaven and earth are ‘entangled’) so what happens here happens there. ---
**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 17, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/29 "2014-04-17T01:47:26Z")
Sure. First Chronicles 6:32. Oh, con_sort_. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/30 "2014-04-17T01:48:08Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Since mankind has children and scriptures show such a clear relationship between the earthy and heavenly realm I feel save to assume that all that started because mother and father god got together one night and the condom failed (again heaven and earth are ‘entangled’) so what happens here happens there. Actually, I think that’s the ancient Greek origin-myth, with Oranos the sky and Gaia the earth. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/31 "2014-04-17T04:00:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually, I think that’s the ancient Greek origin-myth, with Oranos the sky and Gaia the earth. Easily wedged into Proto-Judaism. People were traveling around the Med all the time, and… > [@astorian](#): > > Many will accept the new god and try to fit him into their existing pantheon, reasoning that you can never have too many gods to pray to. “Astarte didn’t answer my prayers, but maybe these new ones will.” Polytheism may be Humanity’s natural state, since we seem drawn to having gods but prayer doesn’t really to work. ---
**Author:** ![Farin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e79b87/32.png) [@Farin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/32 "2014-04-17T04:42:11Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Polytheism may be Humanity’s natural state, since we seem drawn to having gods but prayer doesn’t really to work. I think it may be more accurate to say that Humanity’s natural state is superstition. If we take all of the gods/goddesses out of it: human kind has a tendency to fall into a superstitious routine. We are given to repeat what seemingly has made us successful and avoid those that seemingly make us unsuccessful, sometimes going to build elaborate rites based on what amounts to a pseudo-scientific method. If a farmer were to accidentally leave his seeds outside in the winter and got great crops that following year, he then begins to experiment. If a few years in a row, he does the same steps and gets the same rewards, he will enshrine that action of “leaving seeds in freezing conditions” as a superstitious event. As he uses it more he (or, in some cases, his sons that he passed the knowledge on to) will experiment with this some more. What if we leave them out for 12 frozen weeks this year instead of 10? Or 8? And so forth. We still do it, today. For a simplistic look, if someone as a normal 2 year old figure out that screaming means he gets his way, he’ll scream more often. If he is harshly rebuked for screaming, he’ll scream less often. Other things, like old wives tales and such tend to be these nuggets of wisdom handed down over time. Some of them, like eating chicken in broth stock when you’re sick, turn out to be very useful. Others, such as breaking a mirror yielding bad luck, aren’t that useful. Stereotypes are another version of this, such as “Jerks get all the girls.” But these all stem from the same place: we look for order with an explanation by default and we will happily build complex rituals if it means we find order and explanation from it. Thus, if 200 gods is more useful to a culture, that’s what the culture will adopt. If a single god is more useful, that’s what that culture will adopt. ---
**Author:** ![NeonMadman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/58f4c7/32.png) [@NeonMadman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NeonMadman)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/33 "2014-04-17T21:30:37Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > This is my new favorite insult – mainly because nobody will have any clue what it means. 🆒 Um, wouldn’t that be more of a compliment? 😛 ---
**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 17, 2014, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/34 "2014-04-17T21:45:08Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Remember that, thousands of years ago, monotheism was an utterly alien concept to most peoples. Most people were either polytheists or practicers of various spirit-religions. > > […] > > Well, most of the ancient Israelites were pagans, too. And even if you beat such people over the head repeatedly with the idea that Yahweh was THE one and only true god, many of them still thought like pagans, and tried to work Yahweh into their pre-existing pantheon. Instead of REALLY thinking Yahweh was the only god, they’d think of him like Zeus or Jupiter, as the most important or most powerful of many gods. And if the older version of Yahweh had a wife, why, the people would assume Yahweh did too. > > Look, all through the Old Testament, paganism and idolatry persisted among the Israelites, no matter how hard prophets and patriarchs tried to exterminate that. This is a plausible theory, and I would be lying to say it’s impossible. However, the Kuntillet Ajrud wasn’t gutted/destroyed, despite the OT telling us that half the kings of the era it was used during commonly ordered purges of polytheistic iconography. And I haven’t seen any notes about archaeologists finding masses of asherah poles and other iconography through the ages, from such purges. Overall, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that anyone was aware that monotheism was a target until Josiah’s time. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/35 "2014-04-17T22:45:05Z")
What does God need with a consort? Couldn’t he just conjure up the metaphysical equivalent of a blow-up doll and not go to the bother? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/36 "2014-04-17T23:16:27Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > This is a plausible theory, and I would be lying to say it’s impossible. However, the Kuntillet Ajrud wasn’t gutted/destroyed, despite the OT telling us that half the kings of the era it was used during commonly ordered purges of polytheistic iconography. And I haven’t seen any notes about archaeologists finding masses of asherah poles and other iconography through the ages, from such purges. Overall, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence that anyone was aware that monotheism was a target until Josiah’s time. What about Elijah and Elisha’s purportedly successful war on Baal in the northern Kingdom of Israel? Is there any extrabiblical evidence for that? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/37 "2014-04-17T23:18:49Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > What does God need with a consort? Couldn’t he just conjure up the metaphysical equivalent of a blow-up doll and not go to the bother? If you had your choice :dubious: I know if I did there would be a lot more universes 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/38 "2014-04-17T23:19:55Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > What does God need with a consort? Couldn’t he just conjure up the metaphysical equivalent of a blow-up doll and not go to the bother? Well, if every book in the Bible really is divinely inspired, including the Song of Solomon, then He must be one horny bastard of a ladies’-God. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2014, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/39 "2014-04-17T23:48:41Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > King Jesus is a fun book, but no more to be taken seriously than The Da Vinci Code. Are there any related books that you would recommend? I’ve enjoyed the discussion in this thread and would like to read more. ---
**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 18, 2014, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221/40 "2014-04-18T02:35:51Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What about Elijah and Elisha’s purportedly successful war on Baal in the northern Kingdom of Israel? Is there any extrabiblical evidence for that? I’ll search more later, but so far I can’t find anything relevant. Via Josephus’ writings, we have some extra-biblical confirmation of the existence of a close relationship between King Ahab and the Phoenicians. We also have found the royal seal of Jezebel. But I don’t see any confirmation of the existence of Elijah nor Elisha, nor of any of the story of them and Jezebel. Though even if there was some archaeological evidence to back any of this, it would likely just show a battle between Ba’al and Yahweh for supremacy. It wouldn’t mean that the people didn’t still worship Astarte nor El. Jezebel’s dad was a priest for Astarte, and yet no one in the Bible seems to have any issue with that little bit of religion that Jezebel surely practiced as well. But Ba’al-worship was contradictory to Yahweh worship, since the two gods were effectively the same god in the same position in an otherwised shared pantheon, except one was the patron of the Israelites and the other of the Phoenicians. But it’s possible that there was no particular struggle of this type until monotheism took off. It’s just as possible that there were a couple of famous priests who had left some notes grumbling about the Queen’s religion. Only later was this expanded into a great crusade with a wide variety of military and magical occurences. Certainly the presence of such events as fire falling from the sky, bringing people back from the dead, etc. makes me sceptical of the historicity of the events. The quality of writing, overall, is too detailed to not be majority fiction given the centuries that passed between the events related and when they were actually put down on paper. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-yahweh-ever-have-a-consort/686221.md?page=3)