God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible?

[umsami]

This came up on Google news for me and I thought it was interesting.  In Islam, God is not male or female...so the concept of a wife doesn't really exist.  I know Mormons do have a belief in Heavenly Mother.  

What's your take?

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

"Asherah's connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.

"The inscription is a petition for a blessing," she shares. "Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from 'Yahweh and his Asherah.' Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife.""

[PatienceAndLove]

Interesting.

This does not, however, change my faith.

And there is already a Queen of Heaven- Mary, the Mother of God the Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ

[lilyka]

I have seen nothing in the Bible about this.  Nor is it mentioned in any church history or church Tradition that I know of.  

I think perhaps (since they are basing this on so little information) that perhaps it was the melding of pagan practices/goddess worship with faith in God.  People blend stuff up all the time.  It doesn't mean it is right or OK.  What I do know is that it was not unusual for people to convert but then also worship/incorperate their gods.   It is heresy.  It looks like this was a temporary diversion by a small group and then a return to truth.  It happens.  Just because there is evidence of false beliefs or different beliefs doesn't mean that every one believed it or that it was accepted or OK.

[Liquesce]

Reminds me, mostly, of the matter of the "daughters of allah."

[philomom]

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Read "When God Was A Woman" by Merlin Stone

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

And Mary is just the early church's way of getting the goddess worshipers to come to church.

[PatienceAndLove]

Originally Posted by philomom 

Wouldn't surprise me at all.

Read "When God Was A Woman" by Merlin Stone

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

And Mary is just the early church's way of getting the goddess worshipers to come to church.

This nonsense, again?  I didn't buy it even when I was a dianic witch!
 

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by PatienceAndLove 

This nonsense, again?  I didn't buy it even when I was a dianic witch!
 

I bought into it when I read it in college...years of hatred for Christianity ensued.  Then I read about the many refutations of Margaret Murray's "research" (on which much of that book is based) and realized that a lot of it was simply not true.  Kinda felt like I had been duped.  And it still took a long time after that for me to even consider that Christianity might not be such a terrible thing.     

[Koalamom]

In my new discovery self, I am open to the idea female deity. I do believe in God though. A christian friend the other day told me she believed God was male and female. Is that mentioned in the bible?

[umsami]

Originally Posted by Liquesce 

Reminds me, mostly, of the matter of the "daughters of allah."

I've never heard of that.

I never heard of this either.  Granted I didn't get far enough in seminary to where I could read the texts in their original languages--so I think that's a disadvantage.  I can't speak to how words in the OT may have been mistranslated or not.  I guess that makes me appreciate how in Islam one is always told that one is reading a "translation" and to truly understand the Quran, one needs to learn Arabic.  I think that's why so many Christians I know encourage their kids to learn Latin and Greek (Hebrew wouldn't be a bad idea either.)

[cappuccinosmom]

I am pretty sure Asherah is mentioned in the Bible, related to the "high places" God told the Israelites to destroy.

That it's written on a piece of pottery is no evidence that the Bible used to name her as God's wife.  Might be evidence of the type of idol worship that is mentioned in the Bible though.

[dalasmueller]

As a Christian who has had extensive study in theology and Scripture, it does not surprise me in the least that these have been found.  It actually supports the Biblical accounts which tell of the Israelites falling into idolatry, especially with the gods Baal and Asherah.  This blending of pagan religion with Israel's faith was, unfortunately, commonplace, which is the reason for their exile from the Promised Land and the many trials they endured as a people.  There is absolutely no indication in the Scriptural text that God ever had a wife, especially not Asherah.  And because there is evidence to support the fact that the Bible was rigorously copied by faithful Jewish scribes over the centuries, there is also no reason to believe any such references to a possible wife of God were somehow lost or removed.

As far as whether or not God is male or female, the Bible paints a beautiful portrait of a Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Even though there is no word for Trinity in the Bible, the theology of the Trinity is there from the very first verses of Genesis.  God is never referred to literally in the Bible from a feminine tense, and because as Christians we believe the Bible and the person of Jesus Christ is God's revelation to us of Himself, we must therefore conclude that God is in no way a woman or of female nature.  Scripture clearly teaches that MAN was made in the image of God and that WOMAN was made in the image of man.  I know that's not a popular sentiment in our times, but if you are attempting to be true to the Biblical text, that is the conclusion you must come to.

[philomom]

Actually, goddess worship was widespread in ancient times.And the Mary is well known to be the last vestige of goddess worship by the new xtianity.

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Goddess_worship

[Liquesce]

Originally Posted by umsami 

I've never heard of that.

The basis for the "satanic verses" idea ... the idea that the Qur'an originally had verses allowing for the intercession of popular Meccan goddesses.

[Purple Sage]

Originally Posted by philomom 

Actually, goddess worship was widespread in ancient times.And the Mary is well known to be the last vestige of goddess worship by the new xtianity.

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Goddess_worship

The first part is true, the second part not so much.

What was not true in When God Was a Woman was that women were not oppressed until those horrible patriarchal Judeo-Christian religions came around and destroyed the goodness of the divine feminine and the cultures which worshiped her.  She claims that Mary had no choice but to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit, and that is simply not true.  She based much of the book on cherry-picked pieces of research and information in order to paint an overall picture that does not depict reality and, frankly, slanders true Christianity.  Now, I can sympathize that there are sects of Christians who mistreat women and use the Bible to justify all sorts of things that are not actually part of the faith, and it sounds like you grew up in such an environment.  However, digging deeper than that and not relying on anti-Christian propaganda would uncover a much more accurate picture of Christianity and the history of women in general.

[JamieCatheryn]

There is also stuff in Genesis that suggests God is not inherently masculine or feminine, but is both. Yes the Father and the Son of the Trinity are male terms and Jesus was a man. But God made humans in his image, male and female they were created. Patriarchy and limits of human understanding narrowed our conception of things a bit, I think. Seems to me the male/female thing shouldn't get in the way of a relationship with the Judeo-Christian God.

[umsami]

Originally Posted by JamieCatheryn 

There is also stuff in Genesis that suggests God is not inherently masculine or feminine, but is both. Yes the Father and the Son of the Trinity are male terms and Jesus was a man. But God made humans in his image, male and female they were created. Patriarchy and limits of human understanding narrowed our conception of things a bit, I think. Seems to me the male/female thing shouldn't get in the way of a relationship with the Judeo-Christian God.

Pet-peeve...the Jewish view of God is quite different from the Christian view of God. Jews are strict Monotheists--no Trinity. They also do not believe that the Messiah would be God. Messiah was just a man. (Also, one of the roles of the Messiah is to restore strict observation of Torah law. Didn't happen under Jesus). So either it would be the Judeo-Muslim view of God (quite similar views--strict Monotheism)... or the Christian view of God.

[cappuccinosmom]

My pet peeve--the Christian view of God is monotheist.  The trinity =/= 3 Gods.

[dalasmueller]

I agree.  Christianity is a monotheistic religion.

Yes, you are right in saying the Jewish God and the Christian God are different, at least from a modern perspective.  However, the ancient Jewish religion, for all intensive purposes, is the Christian religion of today.  This is what the Christian Church claims and believes.  The Torah and all of Old Testament Scripture not only point to Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah of the Jews, but they also clearly portray a Trinitarian understanding of God.  Of course, when the Old Testament was written the full revelation of God had not yet been fulfilled, so the intellectual understanding between say Moses and Paul might differ a bit if you put the two of them in a room together.  

But it is not that Abraham and Moses worshiped a different God or a different kind of God, it is simply that they were still awaiting the full revelation of God to His people.  You also said: "...one of the roles of the Messiah is to restore strict observation of Torah law." No, Jesus didn't do that, because it wasn't one of His "roles".  Present day Jews might believe so, but you will not find that theology anywhere in the Torah or the Old Testament.  It is (according to Christianity) a misinterpretation of the text.  Jesus came not to restore the Law, but to fulfill God's Law for us, as we sinful humans are incapable of doing so on our own.  This He did perfectly.

[Liquesce]

Originally Posted by cappuccinosmom 

My pet peeve--the Christian view of God is monotheist.  The trinity =/= 3 Gods.

When people refer to "strict monotheism" in this sense it is not meaning "strict monotheism as opposed to a dithering sort of polytheism" so much as "a monotheism that accepts no division of any kind as opposed to a monotheism that does." A religion that holds there is one, period, end of story, is conceptually very different from one that builds up a central body of work interpreting the meaning of there being one represented as a multiplicity.

[JMJ]

In Catholicism, God does have a wife: The Church!