Yahweh's Wife: Sex in the Evolution of Monotheism : A Study of Yahweh, Asherah, Ritual Sodomy and Temple Prostitution (Women in History Series, Vol.)

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and Revealing, but Flawed
Review: I learned a lot from this little book (112 pages), but then I didn't know very much about the Old Testament to begin with. Ide shows that polytheism was prevalent among ancient Israelites from their inception to beyond the time of the monarchy. Even King Solomon was polytheistic (even mentioned in the Bible)! The Old Testament tries to hide this fact, but it is there if you know where to look for it, and Ide tells you where. There was a vigorous and lengthy competition between the gods Yahweh and Asherah. Asherah was a female Canaan fertility deity that encouraged sex, even in its temples! The "Asherah poles" mentioned in several recent Bible translations were phallic symbols. Asherah is mentioned by name about 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, but has sometimes been downplayed in English translations. According to the Old Testament, at one time Asherah had 400 prophets devoted to her. The King James version tries to hide these embarrassing facts by omitting the name Asherah, and by calling her poles or pillars "sacred groves" or "graven images" or some other phrase that hides their sexual significance.

Later, Asherah was considered a consort (or in Ide's terminology, a wife) of Yahweh (a male). As a reaction to the free love and lofty position of women advocated by Asherah, Yahweh tried to distance himself from Asherah as far as possible. Consequently, he advocated monogamy, abstinence from sex except for procreation, and a very submissive role for women. Yahweh eventually won out over Asherah and became the God of late Judaism and Christianity. These views have persisted throughout Christianity, and characterize Roman Catholicism today.

I found most of his arguments convincing, but others were unconvincing to me. This book is very heavily footnoted. One problem for me is that I lack access to most of his sources, so I cannot verify the conclusions he has drawn from them.

This book has several deficiencies. Ide "puts down" the Levite priesthood at every opportunity. His belligerent attitude is very offensive! For this reason, some readers may give up on this book before they obtain the very useful information it contains. The book is extremely poorly written. Although the back cover says Ide was born in the U.S., he has a poor grasp of English. The book contains a large number of typographical errors. A worthwhile book even with these faults. I give this book 4 stars on content only; the other features would rate much lower.

Rating:
Summary: The Fall of Asherah and Canaanitic Influence Hebrew Jahweh
Review: Ide's central hypothesis is that the cult of Asherah, once the most important feminine deity in the Canaanite canon, was systematically destroyed by the Jahwehist priests of Levi and their fanatical, patriarchic allies. The rights of women and sexual relations not aimed at procreation were destoyed coterminously.

There is in fact little doubt that the early Hebrews were polytheists and that they took part in similar rituals to their neighbours : animal and human sacrifices, the deification of some mortals and orgies of ritual sex. In Canaanite mythology, El takes Asherah as his wife but she later becomes sexually involved with the sun god Ba'al. Ide doesn't make much reference to it but the Ugaritic Cycle of Ba'al is the best source for finding out more about this. Yahweh was also known as Elohim ("many gods") and in the early stages of the Jahwehist rewrite of local mythology, Jahweh was just one of many gods but a "jealous god". His followers took blood vengeance against the worshippers of Ba'al and Asherah. I say "His" here, although the term "yahweh" is older than the Israelites and refers to hermaphroditic deities.

It wasn't until later that the Levite priests switched tactics and attempted to remove Asherah altogether : now Jahweh was to be the 'universal god', moving from being a jealous god to the one and only god. Anyone who doubts the ongoing pogrom against Asherah and Ba'al in Old Tstament times need only look to the Bible : when Moses finds that Aaron has led the people back to the worship of golden statues he separates the Levites from the rest of the camp and orders them "The Lord God of Israel (lit. 'people of El') commands every one of you to put on his sword and go through the camp from this gate to the other and kill his brothers, his friends, and his neighbours." (Good News tr.) The result is the massacre of 3,000 - a very divine act reminiscent of the Balkans in the 1990s! And Elijah's record is possibly worse.

However I have some problems with certain aspects of Ide's thesis. For example he adds a rather racist and disturbing element by suggesting that the onset of patriarchy can be laid at the feet of those Indo-European tribes such as the Hittites invading from the north. There is plenty of evidence that women were reduced from a dominant role in society to chattels to bought , sold or raped but Ide isn't clear enough as to why the blame lies with external peoples to the Semitic world preferring as he does to concentrate on chaging coital practices. And I think what is least impressive is his lack of perspective : in rejecting the blood revenge of Jahwehism he has assumed that the old order was one of harmony and free love and that "there is no evidence of Asherah's priests commiting similar atrocities and crimes." Asherah to him is simply "a nourishing, loving mother" and the possibility that some aspects of sexuality are dangerous, harmful or immoral is not one on which he dwells. Ide also makes some attempt to link in the role of the state and the economic context but these are somewhat superficial - although the relationship between power and worship evidenced by the switch from Asa to Josiah in the mid ninth century BC is interesting.

Ide also makes a few isolated references to the New Testament which he clearly wishes to attack as well, although like many others he sees Mary as the return of the feminine goddess. I think he would do well to take Marcian's advice and consider the two to be totally separate religions and look for the source of the New Testament in Hellenistic sources.

Rating:
Summary: Cautious Enthusiasm
Review: Yahweh's Wife by Arthur Frederick Ide is a book I have been looking for. I have been aware there is a lot that was edited out of the earliest Bible texts, because ancient religious leaders didn't want their followers to hear this material. This is the first time I have seen a book dedicated to ferreting out such ancient "political correctness."

On his first page he stated one that had gone right by me during Sunday School, namely that Moses had set up a brass snake monument. Imagine my amazement to find that the Hebrew words in Numbers 21:14 for snake and brass come from the same root. Hebrew nâchásh means to hiss or whisper a magic spell. This root ultimately gives rise to the word for "snake" nâchâsh, the animal which hisses and might have a coppery color. In fact, typical of Hebrew, there is a whole group of words that have related meanings.

The next five items are the names of lost works mentioned in the Bible. Dr. Ide states they were not included in the canon because of material not considered to be be "politically correct." I have no doubt that is true, but he doesn't really make the case.

Then Dr. Ide states that Yahweh was both androgynous and hermaphroditic, citing Isaiah 63:14f, which reads in the King James Version:

As a beast goeth down into the valley, the Spirit of the LORD caused him to rest; so didst thou lead thy people, to make thyself a glorious name. Look down from heaven and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me? are they restrained?

"Bowels" translates mê'âh, meaning soft, belly, bowels, sympathy, passion, heart and uterus. To translate it as "uterus" would support Dr. Ide's thesis, but it seems more appropriate to me to consider it an emotion in this context.

"The Psalmist recognizes Yahweh as male and female in Psalms 123:2:"

Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress: so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until that he have mercy upon us.

This doesn't seem to present us with the androgyny of Yahweh, but rather with typical Hebrew poetic parallelism. However, some of his other references do seem to indicate an androgynous Yahweh.

And so the book continues. It contains some errors, sloppiness and exaggerations, but the good stuff you can hardly find anywhere else in such a compact form.

I challenge any author's Hebrew or Greek with trepidation, but Dr. Ide's etymology of the English "amusement" as coming from "amu" (love) and "semen" is hilarious. It actually comes from French "amuser" meaning cause to ponder or muse. C'est amusant!

In summary, this is a terrific source of ancient material edited out of our canonic Bible or modified beyond recognition, but be careful to check everything out you wish to use.

Jorge Potter