Hi Dan! I absolutely love that you're bringing book recommendations to your videos. It is usually hard for us non-biblical scholars to know which books we should read to dive deeper into a specific subject, and it is really wonderful to have these recommendations from a scholar. Love your videos!
The cutting down of the Asherah poles was likely a traumatic experience for some, or many, people. I can imagine that these situations were not always desired by the populace, but were imposed by the elite, nonlocal officials or the force of the state in some way. The fact that the Asherah poles were cut down and burned seems like a pretty drastic and deliberate action.
I would love to take a Time Machine to the time of Josiah to see how much he really changed and if he really commissioned the final version of the Torah
I think Jeremiah 44, particularly verses 15-19, are instructive on this issue. Jeremiah is threatening the wrath of the Lord, and the women tell him that they will not listen to him, that everything was great when they worshiped the queen of heaven and there have been nothing but problems since they were required to stop. This apparently occurs during the period of exile, which supports the timing of the suppression of goddess worship to the time of Josiah.
Question for you Dan, if you see this. Is there a reason the KJV translates the Asherah poles as "groves"? I always imagined one pole, but groves seems like there may have been places with lots of poles, or maybe the poles were also associated with actual trees in some way. There are several important trees mentioned throughout Genesis, are any associated with Asherah?
Dan can answer this with the most authority, but from my reading, Asherah was also a "Goddess of Trees" --- Deuteronomy 16:21-22 only makes sense when this is known: " You shall not plant a grove of any trees, near to the altar of the LORD your God which you shall make " 22) " Neither shall you set up any image which the LORD your God hates " Again, Dan can confirm this more in detail and accuracy.
Loving the recent book recommendations! Do you have any books to recommebd that cover Anat and/or her importance in israel? I know she is barely referenced in the Bible (the city Anathoth bears her name and the judge Shamgar is called her son - either implying him to be a demigod offspring or it being a title applied to canaanite warriors) but i really enjoy her character in the ugaritic texts and would like to learn more. I know she goes by Hannat in the Mari texts but I'm not sure what other books cover her in depth.
1:02 "YHWH the god of Israel and their consort": I thought it was firmly established that YHWH was understood to be maximally _male_ during this period? Francesca Stavrakopoulou pushed this point hard against more "expansive" understandings during her episode of Data Over Dogma. Is the consensus different?
Yahweh consistently makes the most sense as nation 🏛. Which neuter in English. Though I don't think old languages 📜 had the same sex tied concept of gender. They probably used other things like realness/concept by absence, majesty/servitude, activity/non-activity, Truth/slight lies/appearing unanimated, as their concepts of gender.
Just read the Bible ✝. So many things that would otherwise need explanations are just natural language use, like: • Your God is one God • Why the law (alternate translation of logos) *is* God. • Why Genesis 1 is about Elohim and Genesis 2 about Yahweh (There were many failed attempts at making humanity, until eventually Yahweh was fully formed as a unified nation 🏛 by Genesis 2, maybe for that exact reason) • Why God speaks in first person plural (its its council speaking) • Why calling moral humans Elohim makes sense (Elohim is just what Yahweh's citizens are called) • Why the Angel of the Lord is also sometimes the Lord • Why Yahweh behaves so manipulatively, since it has an end goal in mind. (It's to develop the humans.) • Why Yahweh consistently is nice to sinners and annoyed at the innocent. • Why Yahweh doesn't behave like a human. It constantly lies, yet is very honest, with its words always leading the listener closer to truth. It does not seem to have much morality (unlike virtually all humans). @@AurorXZ
@AurorXZ Isn't the consensus as outlined below? --------------------------------------------------------- According to the general consensus of scholarship *(even critical Christian scholars),* YHWH was originally incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the Canaanite high god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms "divorced" them. El's pantheon in Ugarit is called the *Elohim,* literally the plural of El. Interestingly, the Biblical god is also referred to numerous times as Elohim. If you want to see if El is fictional, just read his mythology in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts. "When El was young, he came across two beautiful Goddesses washing their clothes in the Sea. They were Athirat (Asherah) and the Goddess Rahmaya, and, after buttering them up by cooking a meal for them, he asked them to choose between being his daughters or wives. They choose the latter and became the mothers of the Gods Shachar "Dawn" and Shalim "Dusk"." *"First, a god named El predates the arrival of the Israelites into Syria-Palestine.* Biblical usage shows El was not just a generic noun, but often a proper name for Israel’s God (e.g., Gen 33:20: “El, the God of Israel”)." "I should add here that it is very clear from the grammar that the noun nachalah in v. 9 should be translated “inheritance.” *Yahweh receives Israel as his “inheritance” (nachalah), just as the other sons of El received their nations as their inheritance (nachal, v. 8).* With this verb, especially in the Hiphil, the object is always what is being given as an inheritance. Thus, Israel is given to Yahweh as his inheritance. ((Here I’m indebted to Dan McClellan.)) It would make no sense for Elyon to give himself an inheritance. Moreover, as I’ve argued elsewhere, it is not just the Gentile nations that are divided up according to the number of the sons of El. It is all of humankind, i.e., “the sons of Adam.” This clearly includes Israel. And the sons of Adam are not divided up according to the number of the sons of El, plus one (i.e., plus Elyon). They are divided up, according to the text, solely according to the number of the sons of El. *Thus, that Yahweh receives Israel as his inheritance makes Yahweh one of the sons of El mentioned in v. 8. Any other construal of the text would constitute its rewriting."* *"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.* (Written by Thom Stark who is a Christian) *"Michael Heiser: A Unique Species? - Religion at the Margins"* (A second response to Michael Heiser) *"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."* *"The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10"* - TheTorah.com (Excluding the short narrative on Nimrod (vv. 8-12), *which appears to be a later addition,* Genesis 10 contains *70* names of nations or cities, a number that was symbolic of totality. Similarly, the descendants of Jacob were *70* in number (Gen 46:37; Exod 1:5), *as were the sons of the supreme Canaanite god El, with whom YHWH became equated.)* *"Polytheism and Ancient Israel’s Canaanite Heritage. Part V | theyellowdart"* (Of course, much of this [i.e., that Israel worshiped El and Asherah alongside YHWH] is really to be expected given that recent syntheses of the *archaeological, cultural, and literary data* pertaining to the emergence of the nation of Israel in the Levant *show that most of the people who would eventually compose this group were originally Canaanite. As the Hebrew Bible notes, the Hebrew language itself is a Canaanite language, literally the “lip of Canaan” (שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן; Is. **19:18**), and so it cannot often be distinguished by modern scholars from other Canaanite inscriptions on purely linguistic grounds.)* *"Ugarit - New World Encyclopedia"* (Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, Ilu or El, whose titles included "Father of mankind" and "Creator of the creation." The Court of El was referred to as the (plural) 'lhm or ***Elohim,*** a word ***later used by the biblical writers to describe the Hebrew deity*** and translated into English as "God," in the singular. El, which was ***also the name of the God of Abraham,*** was described as an aged deity with white hair, seated on a throne.) *"Mark Smith: Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh’s Ascendency - Lehi's Library"* (Mark Smith is a Catholic) *"God, Gods, and Sons (and Daughters) of God in the Hebrew Bible. Part III | theyellowdart"* *"02 | December | 2009 | Daniel O. McClellan - Psalm 82"* (Daniel McClellan is a Mormon) *"Elohim | Daniel O. McClellan"* (Refer to the article "Angels and Demons (and Michael Heiser)") *"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."* (Pay attention to whose wife Asherah (Athirat) is in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts and how she became the wife of YHWH/Yahweh) *"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."* *"Asherah, God's Wife in Ancient Israel. Part IV - theyellowdart"* *"The Gates of Ishtar - El, was the original god of the bible."* *"The Gates of Ishtar - Anath in the Elephantine Papyri"* (In addition to Asherah (Athirat) being the consort of Yahweh, it appears some Israelites also viewed the Canaanite goddess Anat(h) as Yahweh's consort) *"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopedia"* (Refer to the section "Relationship to Biblical Religion") *"The Syncretization of Yahweh and El : reddit/AcademicBiblical"* (For a good summary of all of the above articles) Watch Professor Christine Hayes who lectures on the Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Watch lecture 2 from 40:40 to 41:50 minutes, lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards, lecture 8 from 12:00 to 17:30 minutes and lecture 12 from 27:40 minutes onwards. Watch *"Pagan Origins of Judaism"* by Sigalius Myricantur and read the description in the video to see the scholarship the video is based on. Watch *"How Monotheism Evolved"* by Sigalius Myricantur and watch up to at least 21:40. Watch *"Atheism - A History of God (The Polytheistic Origins of Christianity and Judaism)"* (By a former theist) Watch *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica.
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 Skimming those 26 paragraphs, that matches what I've read in the literature pretty well. I'm confused, though-how do you think this relates to Yahweh's maleness in ancient Israel?
In tel arad there are two standing stones. One for YHWH and one for his wife, Ashteroth (or Ishtar and other names). Legend is that he deserted his wife and their young son, Ba'al. Ancient warlord ancestor worship along with stellar and animal worship. They had many gods and goddesses.
Do you think that Mary has taken over Asherah's role in the sense that Catholics regard her as the new Queen of Heaven? I seriously wanna see a comparison between Asherah and Mary. Just curious.
IDK that we would say she has taken over the role. That sounds as if Asherah was moved to another position and only then did Our Lady step into that role. And maybe that _is_ the mariological consensus. But I think more likely we would say that we now better understand that Mary has been the Queen of Heaven, all along. Although, I confess that this does create a quandary with regard to the question of creatures and eternal beings...
It's an intriguing question. Hebrew Bible scholar Richard Elliott Friedman, in his book _the Disappearance of God,_ notes that people seem to have a difficult time conceiving of the world (and especially Deity) apart from a balanced gender binary, and explores the possibility that post-Asherah the impulse to counterbalance God's masculinity bubbles up "monotheistic" circles via female Wisdom/Sophia, the female Shekinah glory, the feminine Ruach, and perhaps even the cult of Mary-noting that Mary was initially seen as a particularly softening presence in Heaven.
@@AurorXZ And now I have visions of our Blessed Mother arriving in Heaven with "just a few throw pillows that were on clearance at Beatitudes, Baptisms, and Beyond"
I wish i could find the vid where he explains. In essence he says its disrespectful to certain people groups for him to speak YHWH, so he chooses to say “Adonai”. Please someone correct me if my summary is inaccurate.
hey dan, you may have answered/talked about this elsewhere so i apologize if so but; why is it written YHWH but pronounced as adonai? that is to say, why isnt it written as adonai in english if thats the correct pronunciation? bonus question why then is yahwism not called something like adonaism or some such? unless im just completely missing the boat on that. thanks and love your work!
I asked Bing AI: "The name YHWH, also known as the Tetragrammaton, is the Hebrew name for God revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus². Ancient Hebrew writing didn't include vowel sounds, so they just had the name YHWH¹. Over time, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons². First, as Judaism became a universal religion, the more common Hebrew noun Elohim, meaning "God," tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others². Second, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered²⁴. So, when reading Scripture aloud, they replaced YHWH with Adonai¹⁶, which means "My Lord" in Hebrew³. The Masoretes, who worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible from about the 6th to the 10th century CE, added to "YHWH" the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim². This is why it's written as YHWH but pronounced as Adonai. Source: Conversation with Bing, 9/15/2023 (1) Yahweh | YHWH, Adonai, Elohim, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica. www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh. (2) . bing.com/search?q=why+is+YHWH+pronounced+as+adonai. (3) ADONAI - JewishEncyclopedia.com. www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/840-adonai. (4) undefined. www.gotquestions.org/meaning-of-Adonai.html. (5) hebrew - Why is YHWH, the name of the God, replaced by a title, "the .... hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/66388/why-is-yhwh-the-name-of-the-god-replaced-by-a-title-the-lord-why-is-the-ar. (6) undefined. www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/what-christians-mean-when-calling-god-adonai.html.
The inscription does not refer to her as yhwhs wife or yhwhs consort . It could refer to a goddess who is a child of yhwh . Using " his asherah " to infer his wife or consort is based on limited data with no explicit mention of " wife " or "consort. Also . If Asherah was yhwhs wife And Asherah was also Els wife . It seems early israelites or Cannanites may have thought. El and Yhwh were the same God ? Hence the same wife ?
@@pansepot1490 as far as I am aware there is no inscriptions or writings that have El and Yhwh mentioned together as separate deities . There is conflation between the El and Yhwh that can best be explained by simply being the same God
Good point. He is aware of that so he tries to argue that they were later merged together, and that originally they were seeing separate deities. Which again there’s a lot of speculation there and a lot of filling in the gaps, and convenience. There’s no evidence that unambiguously points to this being the case it’s all speculation based on an absence of evidence, and the evidence can easily just as well and I would argue even better fits in the Divine Council worldview.
@@ramadadiver8112 Mark S Smith who does hold that Israelite religion originally of all from polytheism, argues that in the Deuteronomistic and preexilic literature that El and yahweh were not seen as two different deities, in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and thus he doesn’t run into the same issue of Dan as speculating and trying to fill in the gaps.
What's fascinating is . The Bible is quite loud on criticizing Baal . Who's Is Els son amongst many Gods . Yet not El himself . I have my own theory about this . In Canaanite theology . Baal overthrows El . Now imagine you are an Israelite that believes El and Yhwh are one in the same . I believe this is the source of the hostility between the Cannanites and Israelites .
Most scholars do not recognize that Asherah is Yahweh’s wife, most recognize that he had a concert many dispute whether or not it was actually his wife though it’s certainly not a consensus anymore maybe 15 to 20 years ago. And they’re being inscription proves nothing all it proves is that they were Israelites who believe this it is not prove that the writers of the Hebrew Bible did, that is a Leap in logic. And you are special pleading with your dates you’re dating the text that go against your agenda later to support your agenda and intentionally dating the Asherah inscriptions earlier. And another argument from silence as always. Also an objection was brought up as not if El and Yahweh were two different deities originally when they have two different lives? Your response to this in the previous video was that they were later merged together and that’s why there’s one wife, but again this time he seems like convenience and filling in the gaps, Mark S Smith who does support the idea that Israel originally evolves from polytheism as you obviously already know, argues that El and yahweh were the same deity in the Deuteronomistic literature, and thus he doesn’t have to speculate.
@@ramadadiver8112 Yeah this was pointed out to him in his interaction with her inspiring philosophy across TikTok. And in his interactions with Michael S Heiser. The biggest issue is that his entire thesis is essentially built on the absence of evidence and condemnation of Asherah worship in the Hebrew Bible until the preexilic period, and so his thesisIt’s just essentially filling in the gaps of what we don’t know and assuming because the passages don’t appear until the preexilic times, that therefore this must mean or that we can conclude with high certainty that Israel actually originally supported Asherah worship but then the passages were removed or altered in someway. That is a massive leap in logic. And as Heiser has pointed out the inscriptions perfectly fit with a Divine Council worldview and there’s absolutely no need to try to fill in the gaps, because the idea of ancient Israelites worshiping Asherah and Yahweh simultaneously or other deities simultaneously it’s perfectly consistent with the Divine Council worldview. Also he even acknowledges the exodus 34 and exodus 23:13 do affect his View but he tries to argue they were written later. Which again there’s a lot of convenience and a lot of special pleading in his view in my opinion, just based on what I’ve seen and the blogs I have a read of his. He has a book that I have saved in my reading list so maybe I just haven’t got the full totality or nuanced articulation from him of his position. I’m back from what I’ve seen I’m just not impressed. Also he should know that there’s many critical scholars who dispute that Yahweh had a wife, John J Collins who is a pretty liberal scholar of the Hebrew Bible, even says that we can’t consequentially say that yahweh had a wife.
@@ramadadiver8112 when it comes to the passages in 2. Kings and Jeremiah he may have a point, but when it comes to exodus 34 or exodus 23 it’s just straight up special pleading because the passages are detrimental to his view. At the end of the day all we can really do is theorize, because there’s simply just isn’t enough evidence, I think there’s a really good hypothesis though but for him to act as if it’s somehow a fact that God had a wife it’s just ridiculous.
@@karldunnegan2689 I didn’t claim to obviously he knows more. And like I said I have not read his book which goes into detail, which I probably should I’m basing this what I’ve heard from his blogs and the videos he’s made. I’m basing a lot of my claims off of other scholars who I find to give a far more convincing case and then Dan like Michael S Heiser and Richard Hess.
There are multiple inscriptions found in multiple locations linking Yaweh and Asherah. Look up both Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom. There is also the evidence remaining in the Bible itself of Asherah relics being used in the temple of Yaweh
Hi Dan! I absolutely love that you're bringing book recommendations to your videos. It is usually hard for us non-biblical scholars to know which books we should read to dive deeper into a specific subject, and it is really wonderful to have these recommendations from a scholar. Love your videos!
Has anyone made a wiki of Dan's videos, podcasts, and book recommendations? It would be nice to have a searchable index.
@BradyPostma I agree!
The cutting down of the Asherah poles was likely a traumatic experience for some, or many, people. I can imagine that these situations were not always desired by the populace, but were imposed by the elite, nonlocal officials or the force of the state in some way. The fact that the Asherah poles were cut down and burned seems like a pretty drastic and deliberate action.
Like destroying relics, and painting over depictions in churches, as Protestantism swept through parts of Europe.
If God is our father, then it makes sense there would also be a mother
I would love to take a Time Machine to the time of Josiah to see how much he really changed and if he really commissioned the final version of the Torah
You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free!
I think Jeremiah 44, particularly verses 15-19, are instructive on this issue. Jeremiah is threatening the wrath of the Lord, and the women tell him that they will not listen to him, that everything was great when they worshiped the queen of heaven and there have been nothing but problems since they were required to stop. This apparently occurs during the period of exile, which supports the timing of the suppression of goddess worship to the time of Josiah.
Question for you Dan, if you see this. Is there a reason the KJV translates the Asherah poles as "groves"? I always imagined one pole, but groves seems like there may have been places with lots of poles, or maybe the poles were also associated with actual trees in some way. There are several important trees mentioned throughout Genesis, are any associated with Asherah?
Dan can answer this with the most authority, but from my reading, Asherah was also a "Goddess of Trees" --- Deuteronomy 16:21-22 only makes sense when this is known:
" You shall not plant a grove of any trees, near to the altar of the LORD your God which you shall make "
22) " Neither shall you set up any image which the LORD your God hates "
Again, Dan can confirm this more in detail and accuracy.
Loving the recent book recommendations! Do you have any books to recommebd that cover Anat and/or her importance in israel? I know she is barely referenced in the Bible (the city Anathoth bears her name and the judge Shamgar is called her son - either implying him to be a demigod offspring or it being a title applied to canaanite warriors) but i really enjoy her character in the ugaritic texts and would like to learn more. I know she goes by Hannat in the Mari texts but I'm not sure what other books cover her in depth.
1:02 "YHWH the god of Israel and their consort": I thought it was firmly established that YHWH was understood to be maximally _male_ during this period? Francesca Stavrakopoulou pushed this point hard against more "expansive" understandings during her episode of Data Over Dogma. Is the consensus different?
Yahweh consistently makes the most sense as nation 🏛. Which neuter in English.
Though I don't think old languages 📜 had the same sex tied concept of gender.
They probably used other things like realness/concept by absence, majesty/servitude, activity/non-activity, Truth/slight lies/appearing unanimated, as their concepts of gender.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana "Yahweh consistently makes the most sense as nation" ....what?
Just read the Bible ✝. So many things that would otherwise need explanations are just natural language use, like:
• Your God is one God
• Why the law (alternate translation of logos) *is* God.
• Why Genesis 1 is about Elohim and Genesis 2 about Yahweh
(There were many failed attempts at making humanity, until eventually Yahweh was fully formed as a unified nation 🏛 by Genesis 2, maybe for that exact reason)
• Why God speaks in first person plural (its its council speaking)
• Why calling moral humans Elohim makes sense (Elohim is just what Yahweh's citizens are called)
• Why the Angel of the Lord is also sometimes the Lord
• Why Yahweh behaves so manipulatively, since it has an end goal in mind. (It's to develop the humans.)
• Why Yahweh consistently is nice to sinners and annoyed at the innocent.
• Why Yahweh doesn't behave like a human. It constantly lies, yet is very honest, with its words always leading the listener closer to truth. It does not seem to have much morality (unlike virtually all humans).
@@AurorXZ
@AurorXZ Isn't the consensus as outlined below?
---------------------------------------------------------
According to the general consensus of scholarship *(even critical Christian scholars),* YHWH was originally incorporated into the Canaanite pantheon as a son of the Canaanite high god El before inheriting the top spot in the pantheon and El's wife Athirat (Asherah) before religious reforms "divorced" them. El's pantheon in Ugarit is called the *Elohim,* literally the plural of El. Interestingly, the Biblical god is also referred to numerous times as Elohim. If you want to see if El is fictional, just read his mythology in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts.
"When El was young, he came across two beautiful Goddesses washing their clothes in the Sea. They were Athirat (Asherah) and the Goddess Rahmaya, and, after buttering them up by cooking a meal for them, he asked them to choose between being his daughters or wives. They choose the latter and became the mothers of the Gods Shachar "Dawn" and Shalim "Dusk"."
*"First, a god named El predates the arrival of the Israelites into Syria-Palestine.* Biblical usage shows El was not just a generic noun, but often a proper name for Israel’s God (e.g., Gen 33:20: “El, the God of Israel”)."
"I should add here that it is very clear from the grammar that the noun nachalah in v. 9 should be translated “inheritance.” *Yahweh receives Israel as his “inheritance” (nachalah), just as the other sons of El received their nations as their inheritance (nachal, v. 8).* With this verb, especially in the Hiphil, the object is always what is being given as an inheritance. Thus, Israel is given to Yahweh as his inheritance. ((Here I’m indebted to Dan McClellan.)) It would make no sense for Elyon to give himself an inheritance. Moreover, as I’ve argued elsewhere, it is not just the Gentile nations that are divided up according to the number of the sons of El. It is all of humankind, i.e., “the sons of Adam.” This clearly includes Israel. And the sons of Adam are not divided up according to the number of the sons of El, plus one (i.e., plus Elyon). They are divided up, according to the text, solely according to the number of the sons of El. *Thus, that Yahweh receives Israel as his inheritance makes Yahweh one of the sons of El mentioned in v. 8. Any other construal of the text would constitute its rewriting."*
*"The Most Heiser: Yahweh and Elyon in Psalm 82 and Deuteronomy 32 - Religion at the Margins"* based on the *majority scholarly consensus.*
(Written by Thom Stark who is a Christian)
*"Michael Heiser: A Unique Species? - Religion at the Margins"*
(A second response to Michael Heiser)
*"Excerpt from “Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan” by John Day - Lehi's Library."*
*"The Table of Nations: The Geography of the World in Genesis 10"* - TheTorah.com
(Excluding the short narrative on Nimrod (vv. 8-12), *which appears to be a later addition,* Genesis 10 contains *70* names of nations or cities, a number that was symbolic of totality. Similarly, the descendants of Jacob were *70* in number (Gen 46:37; Exod 1:5), *as were the sons of the supreme Canaanite god El, with whom YHWH became equated.)*
*"Polytheism and Ancient Israel’s Canaanite Heritage. Part V | theyellowdart"*
(Of course, much of this [i.e., that Israel worshiped El and Asherah alongside YHWH] is really to be expected given that recent syntheses of the *archaeological, cultural, and literary data* pertaining to the emergence of the nation of Israel in the Levant *show that most of the people who would eventually compose this group were originally Canaanite. As the Hebrew Bible notes, the Hebrew language itself is a Canaanite language, literally the “lip of Canaan” (שְׂפַת כְּנַעַן; Is. **19:18**), and so it cannot often be distinguished by modern scholars from other Canaanite inscriptions on purely linguistic grounds.)*
*"Ugarit - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Ugaritic religion centered on the chief god, Ilu or El, whose titles included "Father of mankind" and "Creator of the creation." The Court of El was referred to as the (plural) 'lhm or ***Elohim,*** a word ***later used by the biblical writers to describe the Hebrew deity*** and translated into English as "God," in the singular.
El, which was ***also the name of the God of Abraham,*** was described as an aged deity with white hair, seated on a throne.)
*"Mark Smith: Yahweh as El’s Son & Yahweh’s Ascendency - Lehi's Library"*
(Mark Smith is a Catholic)
*"God, Gods, and Sons (and Daughters) of God in the Hebrew Bible. Part III | theyellowdart"*
*"02 | December | 2009 | Daniel O. McClellan - Psalm 82"*
(Daniel McClellan is a Mormon)
*"Elohim | Daniel O. McClellan"*
(Refer to the article "Angels and Demons (and Michael Heiser)")
*"God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible - Almost."*
(Pay attention to whose wife Asherah (Athirat) is in the Ugaritic/Canaanite texts and how she became the wife of YHWH/Yahweh)
*"Yahweh's Divorce from the Goddess Asherah in the Garden of Eden - Mythology Matters."*
*"Asherah, God's Wife in Ancient Israel. Part IV - theyellowdart"*
*"The Gates of Ishtar - El, was the original god of the bible."*
*"The Gates of Ishtar - Anath in the Elephantine Papyri"*
(In addition to Asherah (Athirat) being the consort of Yahweh, it appears some Israelites also viewed the Canaanite goddess Anat(h) as Yahweh's consort)
*"Canaanite Religion - New World Encyclopedia"*
(Refer to the section "Relationship to Biblical Religion")
*"The Syncretization of Yahweh and El : reddit/AcademicBiblical"*
(For a good summary of all of the above articles)
Watch Professor Christine Hayes who lectures on the Hebrew Bible at Yale University. Watch lecture 2 from 40:40 to 41:50 minutes, lecture 7 from 30:00 minutes onwards, lecture 8 from 12:00 to 17:30 minutes and lecture 12 from 27:40 minutes onwards.
Watch *"Pagan Origins of Judaism"* by Sigalius Myricantur and read the description in the video to see the scholarship the video is based on.
Watch *"How Monotheism Evolved"* by Sigalius Myricantur and watch up to at least 21:40.
Watch *"Atheism - A History of God (The Polytheistic Origins of Christianity and Judaism)"*
(By a former theist)
Watch *"The Origins of Yahweh"* by Derreck Bennett at Atheologica.
@@epicofgilgamesh9964 Skimming those 26 paragraphs, that matches what I've read in the literature pretty well. I'm confused, though-how do you think this relates to Yahweh's maleness in ancient Israel?
In tel arad there are two standing stones. One for YHWH and one for his wife, Ashteroth (or Ishtar and other names).
Legend is that he deserted his wife and their young son, Ba'al.
Ancient warlord ancestor worship along with stellar and animal worship. They had many gods and goddesses.
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Hi Dan! I have to ask if you've read Raphael Patai's book The Hebrew Goddess, and what you think of it if you have.
Do you think that Mary has taken over Asherah's role in the sense that Catholics regard her as the new Queen of Heaven? I seriously wanna see a comparison between Asherah and Mary. Just curious.
I think so, at certain degree, Catholic scholars realized these clues and they developed such theology to make it fit.
IDK that we would say she has taken over the role. That sounds as if Asherah was moved to another position and only then did Our Lady step into that role. And maybe that _is_ the mariological consensus. But I think more likely we would say that we now better understand that Mary has been the Queen of Heaven, all along.
Although, I confess that this does create a quandary with regard to the question of creatures and eternal beings...
It's an intriguing question. Hebrew Bible scholar Richard Elliott Friedman, in his book _the Disappearance of God,_ notes that people seem to have a difficult time conceiving of the world (and especially Deity) apart from a balanced gender binary, and explores the possibility that post-Asherah the impulse to counterbalance God's masculinity bubbles up "monotheistic" circles via female Wisdom/Sophia, the female Shekinah glory, the feminine Ruach, and perhaps even the cult of Mary-noting that Mary was initially seen as a particularly softening presence in Heaven.
@@AurorXZ And now I have visions of our Blessed Mother arriving in Heaven with "just a few throw pillows that were on clearance at Beatitudes, Baptisms, and Beyond"
@@MarcillaSmith Haha! Perfection.
Could you talk about the twins he was married to at Jerusalem?
Would love to hear a quick explanation on why YHWH is pronounced “Adonai”
I wish i could find the vid where he explains. In essence he says its disrespectful to certain people groups for him to speak YHWH, so he chooses to say “Adonai”.
Please someone correct me if my summary is inaccurate.
It's in his video titled "Why Do I Say Adonai & Not Yahweh?" uploaded 3 Feb 2023.
Is it Biblically based to refer to YHWH by 'they/them' pronouns?
Wasn't the snake pole that the snake bitten in the desert an Asherah pole?
YHWH and Asherah were Pot Smokers, Hot Boxing in the Judah Temple. thanks
Makes sense. Why wouldn’t god have a wife? What doesn’t really make sense is god the father and hid the son without a wife/mother.
hey dan, you may have answered/talked about this elsewhere so i apologize if so but; why is it written YHWH but pronounced as adonai? that is to say, why isnt it written as adonai in english if thats the correct pronunciation? bonus question why then is yahwism not called something like adonaism or some such? unless im just completely missing the boat on that. thanks and love your work!
I asked Bing AI: "The name YHWH, also known as the Tetragrammaton, is the Hebrew name for God revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus². Ancient Hebrew writing didn't include vowel sounds, so they just had the name YHWH¹.
Over time, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons². First, as Judaism became a universal religion, the more common Hebrew noun Elohim, meaning "God," tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others². Second, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered²⁴.
So, when reading Scripture aloud, they replaced YHWH with Adonai¹⁶, which means "My Lord" in Hebrew³. The Masoretes, who worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible from about the 6th to the 10th century CE, added to "YHWH" the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim². This is why it's written as YHWH but pronounced as Adonai.
Source: Conversation with Bing, 9/15/2023
(1) Yahweh | YHWH, Adonai, Elohim, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica. www.britannica.com/topic/Yahweh.
(2) . bing.com/search?q=why+is+YHWH+pronounced+as+adonai.
(3) ADONAI - JewishEncyclopedia.com. www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/840-adonai.
(4) undefined. www.gotquestions.org/meaning-of-Adonai.html.
(5) hebrew - Why is YHWH, the name of the God, replaced by a title, "the .... hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/66388/why-is-yhwh-the-name-of-the-god-replaced-by-a-title-the-lord-why-is-the-ar.
(6) undefined. www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/what-christians-mean-when-calling-god-adonai.html.
I figured that Dan pronounces it Adonai out of respect to his Jewish friends and colleagues for whom it is taboo to say the name.
@carlkim2577 thank you so much!
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The inscription does not refer to her as yhwhs wife or yhwhs consort .
It could refer to a goddess who is a child of yhwh .
Using " his asherah " to infer his wife or consort is based on limited data with no explicit mention of " wife " or "consort.
Also . If Asherah was yhwhs wife
And Asherah was also Els wife .
It seems early israelites or Cannanites may have thought. El and Yhwh were the same God ? Hence the same wife ?
Check the videos page of the channel. The video posted before this one explains how Yahweh was a god that got merged with El.
@@pansepot1490 as far as I am aware there is no inscriptions or writings that have El and Yhwh mentioned together as separate deities .
There is conflation between the El and Yhwh that can best be explained by simply being the same God
Good point. He is aware of that so he tries to argue that they were later merged together, and that originally they were seeing separate deities. Which again there’s a lot of speculation there and a lot of filling in the gaps, and convenience. There’s no evidence that unambiguously points to this being the case it’s all speculation based on an absence of evidence, and the evidence can easily just as well and I would argue even better fits in the Divine Council worldview.
@@ramadadiver8112 Mark S Smith who does hold that Israelite religion originally of all from polytheism, argues that in the Deuteronomistic and preexilic literature that El and yahweh were not seen as two different deities, in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, and thus he doesn’t run into the same issue of Dan as speculating and trying to fill in the gaps.
What's fascinating is . The Bible is quite loud on criticizing Baal . Who's Is Els son amongst many Gods . Yet not El himself .
I have my own theory about this .
In Canaanite theology . Baal overthrows El .
Now imagine you are an Israelite that believes El and Yhwh are one in the same .
I believe this is the source of the hostility between the Cannanites and Israelites .
Most scholars do not recognize that Asherah is Yahweh’s wife, most recognize that he had a concert many dispute whether or not it was actually his wife though it’s certainly not a consensus anymore maybe 15 to 20 years ago. And they’re being inscription proves nothing all it proves is that they were Israelites who believe this it is not prove that the writers of the Hebrew Bible did, that is a Leap in logic. And you are special pleading with your dates you’re dating the text that go against your agenda later to support your agenda and intentionally dating the Asherah inscriptions earlier. And another argument from silence as always. Also an objection was brought up as not if El and Yahweh were two different deities originally when they have two different lives? Your response to this in the previous video was that they were later merged together and that’s why there’s one wife, but again this time he seems like convenience and filling in the gaps, Mark S Smith who does support the idea that Israel originally evolves from polytheism as you obviously already know, argues that El and yahweh were the same deity in the Deuteronomistic literature, and thus he doesn’t have to speculate.
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@@ramadadiver8112 Yeah this was pointed out to him in his interaction with her inspiring philosophy across TikTok. And in his interactions with Michael S Heiser. The biggest issue is that his entire thesis is essentially built on the absence of evidence and condemnation of Asherah worship in the Hebrew Bible until the preexilic period, and so his thesisIt’s just essentially filling in the gaps of what we don’t know and assuming because the passages don’t appear until the preexilic times, that therefore this must mean or that we can conclude with high certainty that Israel actually originally supported Asherah worship but then the passages were removed or altered in someway. That is a massive leap in logic. And as Heiser has pointed out the inscriptions perfectly fit with a Divine Council worldview and there’s absolutely no need to try to fill in the gaps, because the idea of ancient Israelites worshiping Asherah and Yahweh simultaneously or other deities simultaneously it’s perfectly consistent with the Divine Council worldview. Also he even acknowledges the exodus 34 and exodus 23:13 do affect his View but he tries to argue they were written later. Which again there’s a lot of convenience and a lot of special pleading in his view in my opinion, just based on what I’ve seen and the blogs I have a read of his. He has a book that I have saved in my reading list so maybe I just haven’t got the full totality or nuanced articulation from him of his position. I’m back from what I’ve seen I’m just not impressed. Also he should know that there’s many critical scholars who dispute that Yahweh had a wife, John J Collins who is a pretty liberal scholar of the Hebrew Bible, even says that we can’t consequentially say that yahweh had a wife.
@@ramadadiver8112 when it comes to the passages in 2. Kings and Jeremiah he may have a point, but when it comes to exodus 34 or exodus 23 it’s just straight up special pleading because the passages are detrimental to his view. At the end of the day all we can really do is theorize, because there’s simply just isn’t enough evidence, I think there’s a really good hypothesis though but for him to act as if it’s somehow a fact that God had a wife it’s just ridiculous.
I don't think you know more than Dan does on this subject.
@@karldunnegan2689 I didn’t claim to obviously he knows more. And like I said I have not read his book which goes into detail, which I probably should I’m basing this what I’ve heard from his blogs and the videos he’s made. I’m basing a lot of my claims off of other scholars who I find to give a far more convincing case and then Dan like Michael S Heiser and Richard Hess.
I hv no problem with יהוה possibly hvn a consort but I thought scholars needed more than 1 piece of evidence b4 they affirm any idea or theory
There are multiple inscriptions found in multiple locations linking Yaweh and Asherah. Look up both Kuntillet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom. There is also the evidence remaining in the Bible itself of Asherah relics being used in the temple of Yaweh