Did God Have a Wife?

A historian from the University of Exeter is suggesting that God (Yahweh), the God of Israel, had a wife that the Jews worshipped but it's been edited out of the Bible.

Well, not so much edited out of the Bible as edited out of Israel's practices. 

The Bible records Israel's syncretism and worship of deities from the Canaanite neighbors.  It's not surprising archaeologists would find amulets and other evidence of idolatry by Israel.  Far from editing out their idolatry from the Old Testament, that is a major theme throughout the Old Testament.  Through the prophets, God calls them back from their false worship.  Eventually Israel was punished severely for their idolatry - the Northern kingdom was taken away by the Assyrians never to return, and the Southern kingdom was held captive in Babylon for 70 years before returning to the land.  And idolatry was not a problem for Israel after that.

The mere fact that Israel worshipped other deities isn't the same thing that this worship was true.  That's answer is one archaeology can't answer.  The Bible does answer that.  Yahweh is the one true God and we are called to leave our false idols to worship Him alone.

It's rather tedious and tiresome the way information is slanted to look as though there's something edited or hidden from the Biblical record.  This is a recurring theme that isn't grounded in the discoveries that are reported, and this is another example of the claim exceeding the evidence.

Comments

[Louis Kuhelj]

The historian is not suggesting an idea, he is selling this idea. It is just a trick to sell another documentary and books. This is what it means to have a market driven system. The more controversial and shocking something is, the more it sells. Truth is being sacrificed for the sake of a large bank account...as usual. It shows how little value is placed on truth as compared to financial gain.

[Rev. Z. Bartels]

I can't parse this sentence: “That's answer is one archaeology can't answer.”

[Austin]

"Mentions of the goddess Asherah in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) are rare and have been heavily edited by the ancient authors who gathered the texts together," Aaron Brody, director of the Bade Museum and an associate professor of Bible and archaeology at the Pacific School of Religion, said.

If it is true that the Hebrew "editors" edited out most mentions of Asherah, then there should exist manuscripts which contain more mentions. Unless of course, the author is suggesting that these editors rounded up every copy of every book in the OT and used white out on them. To any thinking person, this is really ludicrous...

[KWM]

This is a general statement (I haven’t read much about the claims above). Some critics assume things that are allegedly “edited out of” or removed from the Bible are true as a matter of fact - while assuming what actually is in the Bible is false. It’s very strange. It’s almost as if they could create an entirely different Bible from the information that was allegedly omitted and believe every single word of it. Odd indeed.

[Brad B]

Zach, I dont think anyone can. I guess is shows you are a careful reader--commendable.

btw, Your picture of you and your son on you site blessed me.

[Brad B]

Now I went and did it, above it should have said "I guess it shows..." :~(

[ChrisB]

Williams Dever suggested similar things in "What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?" They seem to think the Bible should be a history book showing what the religion of Israel WAS instead of a religious text teaching what it was supposed to be.

[RonH]

I can parse it. It means something along the lines of " “That's a question archaeology can't answer.” I believe Zach parsed it too. Isn't that right Zach?

RonH

[Ann]

My Latin teacher always wanted to start a parsing club. Alas, I was one of few who threatened to sign up for it!
I do not see a problem with the sentence, other than a slight ambiguity as to what "that" is!!
Good thought, BTW. I am always amazed at people trying to convince me that things were "taken out of the Bible," a la Davinci Code. The fact that they can't prove that anything was there in the first place gives them a hard time convincing me that it was taken out.