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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/3/2006 8:27:44 PM | | When I was involved with Wicca, my group considered all of the various gods and goddesses aspects of the divine, Diety if you will. So which ever god/goddess you were attempting to invoke you would do so to invoke those specific qualities to aid you in your work/life. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 9/24/2007 11:25:50 PM |
* John 20:28, "Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'
Sounds like two people to me? Did Thomas offer both his hands in introduction?
* Col. 2:9, "For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.'
Yes. In me too. In you too. We are god.
* Heb. 1:8, "But of the Son He says, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever..."
God is like a dozen eggs mixed into an omelette.
Once the omelette is made, how can you tell the eggs apart? | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 9/24/2007 11:36:40 PM | "Paganism is not like Christianity Lotta. Christians atribute God to having human qualities like Jealousy. God/Goddess is a higher power than us...God does not get jealous! "
That makes absolutely no sense at all to me. If I was the Creator, and you were the Created, and you were walking around worshipping some inanimate object I made myself or even worse, some object that didn't even exist...I would be PISSED! | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 9/24/2007 11:39:23 PM | "God is like a dozen eggs mixed into an omelette.
Once the omelette is made, how can you tell the eggs apart?"
Not with a man's eyes, that's for sure. You need spiritual eyes to see stuff like that. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 9/25/2007 12:19:26 AM |
"Paganism is not like Christianity Lotta. Christians atribute God to having human qualities like Jealousy. God/Goddess is a higher power than us...God does not get jealous! "
That makes absolutely no sense at all to me. If I was the Creator, and you were the Created, and you were walking around worshipping some inanimate object I made myself or even worse, some object that didn't even exist...I would be PISSED!
The Bible's description of the nature of God changes as the way the worshippers view of their relationship between the divine and themselves change. The Hebrews go from being henotheists to monotheists. The Christian movement has elements of polytheism mingled in with it though many Christians tend to denigrate the polytheism of their neighbours by assuming it is somehow something less or inferior that what they themselves do.
In fact most forms of polytheism are quite sophisticated. No religion that has images of their gods, including Christianity, has worship directed at an inanimate object. What an ignorant suggestion. The object is only a representation of the higher power.
In a polytheistic faith, in most cases, the many individual gods and goddesses are aspects of one overarching being. Hinduism is a good example of this. Other faiths recognize a duality of male and female universal energy, such as a god and goddess. At one point in the earliest development of the Hebrew religion, we know as a matter of archaeological fact that before the first temple period that a goddess was worshipped alongside Yahweh, this being Asherah, who later was merely subsumed into the role of the Holy Spirit. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 9/25/2007 7:29:10 AM | My personal understanding, as a pagan (i'm not actually Wiccan), is that there is ONE ultimate source, but the balance of male and female is the expression of our universe. Yin/yang, light/dark, etc...
I see my God and Goddess as being aspects, a dichotomy of that oneness. But I have a problem with anthropomorphizing deity anyway. It does help me seeing deity as both male and female though. I can honour both men and women as expressions of the divine...both are valid, necessary and sacred.
Many aspects of nature and it's attributes are represented by goddesses and gods... and spirits, fae...etc... It's a way of recognizing the divine in everything, and honouring that.
namasté
Ravenstar | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 9/30/2007 1:55:15 PM | "The Bible's description of the nature of God changes as the way the worshippers view of their relationship between the divine and themselves change. The Hebrews go from being henotheists to monotheists. The Christian movement has elements of polytheism mingled in with it though many Christians tend to denigrate the polytheism of their neighbours by assuming it is somehow something less or inferior that what they themselves do."
The description of the nature of God doesn't change, but ur right...the worshipper's views do. Any deviation from what God put out as law is just that, a deviation. Lord knows (pun intended), man has never been very good at sticking to doing the will of God, and that's even after numerous signs. Don't blame God, however, for man's inability to be loyal and appreciative for any length of time. Reference the xtian "movement", I say again, don't confuse God, His realism, or His worthiness to be worshipped as the only God with man's religious fickleness and haughty beliefs that he has the one true religion, all else be damnned.
"At one point in the earliest development of the Hebrew religion, we know as a matter of archaeological fact that before the first temple period that a goddess was worshipped alongside Yahweh, this being Asherah, who later was merely subsumed into the role of the Holy Spirit. "
Once again, you are confusing those who would falsely call themselves Christians with the saved Children of God. Big difference. Jesus said that many would call out to Him, saying "Lord Lord", and He would reply, "I never knew you". (paraphrased, of course) . Whoever they were, they were not the Children of God....if they worshipped anyone else. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/1/2007 1:20:32 AM |
The description of the nature of God doesn't change, but ur right...the worshipper's views do. Any deviation from what God put out as law is just that, a deviation. Lord knows (pun intended), man has never been very good at sticking to doing the will of God, and that's even after numerous signs. Don't blame God, however, for man's inability to be loyal and appreciative for any length of time. Reference the xtian "movement", I say again, don't confuse God, His realism, or His worthiness to be worshipped as the only God with man's religious fickleness and haughty beliefs that he has the one true religion, all else be damnned.
No, I'm afraid you are confusing what you yourself have been taught to believe in the here and now about God with what is observable about how people have believed in God from the written and archaeological record for 5000 years of history which are two very, very different things and are by no means a continuous or solid thing and are not the comforting and consistent thing you would like them to be. I'm sure you are thinking..."Oh that's easy for you to say as an unbeliever..."
Save it. I used to be a very devout Christian myself and I have heard all of the rhetoric myself. I have also availed myself of an education on the matter. With all the respect I am able to muster, I would like to say I do respect your beliefs, but when you reply in the stereotypical manner about how "confused" I must be on the issue, I am afraid I must bridle a bit and chuckle at how I was already expecting that answer as I had already given it myself. The only confusion is that of someone presented with actual history versus their own preconceived beliefs and what they have been given as rote belief and when they clash it is a "train wreck" to say the least.
Once again, you are confusing those who would falsely call themselves Christians with the saved Children of God. Big difference. Jesus said that many would call out to Him, saying "Lord Lord", and He would reply, "I never knew you". (paraphrased, of course) . Whoever they were, they were not the Children of God....if they worshipped anyone else.
Nothing like a repeated meme for a security blanket...but it does nothing to ward off a stack of peer reviewed archaeology. I don't know that guy from the story and frankly I don't want to know him. I am more interested in finding out if there was someone real that the story was based on. So far I know that if he lived at all, he sure didn't live at the time the gospel writers, whoever the heck they were, said he did. And I know if I go back in time far enough, his great, great, great, great grand fathers worshipped a goddess alongside the god Yaweh that they got from the Caananites, called Asherah and that this god was a son of the bull god El who lived on the mountain and was one of El's many sons, and that eventually they decided that he was the only god they would worship.
That's called the scientific record. It doesn't require belief.
And more to the topic point, I suppose if Wiccans wanted to, they could use Yaweh and Asherah as Caananite versions of the God and Goddess in perfect balance...what a nice change that would make. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/1/2007 3:02:30 PM | To interject again..I was addressing "Enchantress;) "
Heres a great quote..and food for thought..
Expose yourself to your deepest fears, after that, the fear of "freedom" shrinks and vanishes, you are free.
Jim Morrison
Charmed
Aradia..to my sister witches | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/1/2007 3:15:36 PM | And more to the topic point, I suppose if Wiccans wanted to, they could use Yaweh and Asherah as Caananite versions of the God and Goddess in perfect balance...what a nice change that would make.
Love it, I have been looking into Asherah lately. There seems to be a relationship with Innanna also.
Wish we could talk with a qabbalist about this, I know that they have a place for the divine feminine on the tree. Any qabbalists here? | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/1/2007 5:38:01 PM | Nice topic.
The answer is...one. It is not a he, nor a she...but takes all aspects of both. As humans, we willingly separate them into different aspects of maleness and femaleness. Usually referred to as a "goddess", the female aspects worshipped more directly, the male aspects were worshipped more along the lines of "christianity"...basically it was a mans world, therefore, all male aspects were good. (Look at the French language...divided into male and female...yet, most words with some negative aspects to it are referred to as "she"...more positive aspects into the male)
This....entity...for lack of a better word is very much like a facetted jewel...like people. You can see many different facets fo this entity..or of a person. Others may see different facets, yet, it is the SAME entity or person. Some facets are "dark", some light, some midway, some so brilliant it stuns the mind to behold. But...the upshot is...it is ONE.
Hope it helps a bit... | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/1/2007 5:57:21 PM |
Wish we could talk with a qabbalist about this, I know that they have a place for the divine feminine on the tree. Any qabbalists here?
Well it's funny you should mention this...in a sense, Asherah or the Divine Feminine IS the Tree itself...that is, the Tree in the sense of the World of Emanations is a Feminine expression whereas the Unmanifest could be seen as kinetic energy or primal seed energy waiting to expand forth. Asherah's symbol is the Tree and Serpent in ancient Canaanite lore. The path of the serpent on the Tree of Life is the road that leads through all of the various Emanations finally to Malkuth, as opposed to the path of Lightning which runs straight down the Middle.
Each of the emanations could be said to have masculine and feminine expressions however so a specific placement on the tree would vary highly depending upon what aspect of the divine you were focussing on...very, very complex. The answer you may be looking for however, aas most commonly expressed in Kabbalistic literature is Binah, most often referred to as the Supernal Mother...yet that is not really an answer for the divine feminine...too simplistic and too narrow of focus. If you ever wanted a kabbalistic answer that lead to a 1000 more questions I think I just gave you one  If it's any consolation, thinking about it had the same effect on me  | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 3:31:02 AM | "I know he was here...I just believe his purpose and words were highly misinterpreted! "
Since you are implying that you do not believe the Word of God...(of which Jesus IS, ..I mean...that is His name--among others), then I would ask you what do you use as a guide for righteousness? How does one be with Jesus after death? How does one worship the Lord? How do you know what is right and wrong in the eyes of God? And I am not talking about "which" god...I'm talking about THE God...because Jesus, who you said was misinterpreted, said that there is only ONE God, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. And then, I would also like to know what you believe to be the right Word of Christ, since you feel that his words and purpose were highly misinterpreted? Do you feel all of them were, or just some of them? Or even most of them? If there were some that you believe were not misinterpreted, which ones were they for you? | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 4:13:54 AM |
"o, I'm afraid you are confusing what you yourself have been taught to believe in the here and now about God with what is observable about how people have believed in God from the written and archaeological record for 5000 years of history which are two very, very different things and are by no means a continuous or solid thing and are not the comforting and consistent thing you would like them to be.
There is no written (and I would submit even archaeological) record for 5000 years of history that clearly explains how people have believed in God. There are bits and pieces that man has discovered, and put together to try to obtain some what of a picture, but there are no truly verified archaeological daties prior to 3000 B.C., and in fact I quote: "Well-authenticated dates are known only back as far as about 1600 B.C. in Egyptian history, ...."—Journal of Near Eastern Studies, (1970), Vol. 1, p. 29.
I'm sure you have read yourself that radiocarbon dating is somewhat inaccurate before 1400 b.c. and that even writing itself doesnt go back beyond 3500 b.c. Now, I'm sure that you are not referring to any written history after say the first thousand years of Christ's death, because that would put us in most recent history, and I think really doesn't pertain to this discussion. So, I am assuming that by history, you mean prior to and just after (say the first thousand years) Christ's death. At the most, that would put us at about 4000 years. But the oldest civilizations and the earliest cities are of ancient Mesopotamia, (Robert M. Adam, "The Origin of Cities," Scientific American, Vol. 203, September 1960, p. 154. ) which is exactly what God says in His Word and even they themselves are not 5000 years old. Historically, the earliest king lists only go back to shortly before 3000 B.C.
All that was provided, merely to tell you that history is inaccurate, but the Bible is not. The Bible was written by man, but through divine inspiration. Therefore, even if man would have wanted to screw it up, he would not have been able, because God's hand was on the mission.
And I know if I go back in time far enough, his great, great, great, great grand fathers worshipped a goddess alongside the god Yaweh that they got from the Caananites, called Asherah and that this god was a son of the bull god El who lived on the mountain and was one of El's many sons, and that eventually they decided that he was the only god they would worship.
I don't deny that that was happening. I believe that Abraham's father himself worshipped some of those gods. Rachel, Jacob's wife, took her father Labin's idols with her when she left his house, but that still does not define the Lord, that defines man. I say again, do not blame God for man's falling away from what God wants from us. The Bible says that God delivered the Hebrews from Egypt, led them away, split the waters of the Red Sea (Reed Sea), provided manna from heaven, and water from the rocks..I mean, my goodness, He led the way in pillar of fire at night and a pillar of clouds in the daytime...and they STILL built idols even after they had arrived to safety. That is MAN's issue, not God's, and those who would deny God based on Man's behavior have their eyes on the wrong information. The Word of God is what you should listen to, and everything else is subject to distortion. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 4:37:17 AM | ^^^jadire - you quote an archaeological text that was written in 1970, hardly accurate anymore. Try looking into the books written by Graham Hancock, a current archaeologist, with several books out.
"I know he was here... I just believe his purpose and words were highly misinterpreted!"
I couldn't agreee more, madfiddler.... in all the research I have done into the ORIGINAL teachings of Jesus, the ORIGINAL beliefs of the man.... I have come to the conclusion that the Bible is a mere skeleton of what it was originally....and a highly symbolic skeleton that has been so misinterpreted by being taken literally, the Christian teachings no longer resemble the ORIGINAL teachings and beliefs.
However, there is one core teaching that I find in many beliefs, many faiths.... and it is actually a very good guide to live your life........ "Treat others as you wish to be treated".... "Do what you will and harm none"..... "what goes around, comes around"..... "the principles of the wheel of Karma".... the list goes on.
"What goes around, comes around."- If you treat others good, it will come back to you in kind. If you take that rule and apply it in every single way you can possibly imagine, you will have a full set of values..... want love? give it... want respect? give it... and so it goes. You have to know what you want in life though, and that requires knowing yourself.... and not allowing yourself to be walked upon. If you want love, honor and respect, you have to give it, yes..... but you have to give it to yourself first before you can truly give it to others....and eventually get it back in kind. For me, it has to begin with love, honour and respect for yourself though.... considering the Divine is everywhere, that means we are also imbued with the Divine.... so we should treat ourselves as the truly Divine creatures we are..... and treat all others the same way.
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 12:51:13 PM |
I don't deny that that was happening. I believe that Abraham's father himself worshipped some of those gods. Rachel, Jacob's wife, took her father Labin's idols with her when she left his house, but that still does not define the Lord, that defines man. I say again, do not blame God for man's falling away from what God wants from us. The Bible says that God delivered the Hebrews from Egypt, led them away, split the waters of the Red Sea (Reed Sea), provided manna from heaven, and water from the rocks..I mean, my goodness, He led the way in pillar of fire at night and a pillar of clouds in the daytime...and they STILL built idols even after they had arrived to safety. That is MAN's issue, not God's, and those who would deny God based on Man's behavior have their eyes on the wrong information. The Word of God is what you should listen to, and everything else is subject to distortion.
The irony of this statement is that the very collection of books you are talking about was not even written until at the earliest about the 9th century BCE. Prior to that the Hebrew culture wasn't even literate even though other cultures around them were like the Egyptians and their forebears the Canaanites and Sumerians were...the Hebrews couldn't even write things down. Their stories were all orally transmitted. Many of the stories of the Hebrew Bible originate in the older cultures such as the Garden of Eden and the Flood...they are not even original, let alone god-inspired. We know this for a fact because we have copies from digs that predate the earliest known finds of any scriptural texts by thousands of years.
As to cities, that text you quoted is well out of date. We know some of the earliest large communities date back to at least 8000 years BCE in Turkey that are as big as any of those found in Mesopotamia.
Radiocarbon dating is slightly inaccurate on organic matter containing carbon as the sample gets older depending on how contaiminated it is - slightly - but can be well withing the ballpark - BUT radiocarbon dating is but one of many forms of radiometric dating. There are plenty of forms of radiomentric dating that don't even use carbon 14 and are plenty accurate when it comes to dating both organic and inorganic matter and the old canards about dating objects are out the window so I would bone up on your science before mentioning them.
What do you say about a statement like this: History is inaccurate but the Bible is not.
It is essentially meaningless because the Bible is a statement of faith, not fact.
It's also way off-topic to this thread and that's the last comment I'll address on this tangent...the next one goes to the moderators for deletion. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 1:30:44 PM | Madfiddler
I am now very excited to begin looking into the Asherah.. and venturing into the kabbalah.
Is she related to these goddesses? Ishtar, Inanna, Ninhursagaa, Tiamat, Isis/Hathor, Aina, or even Nazorean Essenism?
I'm very interested...where do I begin? | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 3:01:50 PM | Re msg 55:
The Bible's description of the nature of God changes as the way the worshippers view of their relationship between the divine and themselves change. The Hebrews go from being henotheists to monotheists. Sorry, but I was taught that the Children of Israel went from being Monotheists to going down to Egypt and taking on the Egyptian gods and goddesses, and then back to Monotheism again, and then flipping back and forth beign Polytheism and Monotheism for several hundreds of years, until about 600 AD.
Re msg 59:
And I know if I go back in time far enough, his great, great, great, great grand fathers worshipped a goddess alongside the god Yaweh that they got from the Caananites, called Asherah and that this god was a son of the bull god El who lived on the mountain and was one of El's many sons, and that eventually they decided that he was the only god they would worship. Asherah is a Hebrew word for a tree used as an idol for worship. It is not specific to any god or goddess.
El is a Hebrew word meaning a god who is strong.
I honestly have only one idea where Yaweh came from. In Hebrew prayerbooks, the name for G-d is usually written and read in 2 completely different ways. It is written in 4 letters, of which I know of no-one who has a pronuniciation for it. It is read as Adonay, meaning "our master". Traditionally, to show this distinction, the prayerbooks have it written as it is written, but with the vowels below it for Adonai. This can be done in Hebrew, because Hebrew was orginially written w/out vowels, and vowels were a later addition for ease, and are placed below the consonants. However, if you try to read the vowels and the consonants together, you could end up reading it YeHaWeh. But in Hebrew, the vowelisation changes a little, depending on the prefixes. However, there would be little point in doing this, because it is never read as it was written.
Re msg 69:
The irony of this statement is that the very collection of books you are talking about was not even written until at the earliest about the 9th century BCE. Prior to that the Hebrew culture wasn't even literate Who told you that? According to Jewish history, all the Jews of that time had their own genealogies. There was a small illiterate minority, but it was a minority. I think you're confusing the Oral Law with the idea of books. The Oral Law was simply an edict that Jewish Law could not be publicly taught from books. However, the books on the Law still existed. Also, there was no prohibition on books about things that were not in the Law.
What do you say about a statement like this: History is inaccurate but the Bible is not.
It is essentially meaningless because the Bible is a statement of faith, not fact. Jews are taught that the Old Testament has to be truthful, or it is worthless. That is why many thousands of books have been written on analysing the Old Testament.
Please, stop quoting something unless you've read all the relevant material. You haven't even quoted Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Abarbanel, or the Malbim, and I'm just talking about the commentaries everyone knows.
Re msg 70:
I am now very excited to begin looking into the Asherah.. and venturing into the kabbalah. Please don't start looking into the Kabbalah. You'll just get confused and start reckoning all sorts of stuff that isn't there. If you have ANY intent on trying to learn it, please remember that for a Jew to learn Kabbalah, you need to learn ALL of Jewish teachings, and you STILL cannot learn it until, you are 40, because it really is that deep and the vast majority of people under 40 just don't tend to think deeply enough about things to begin to appreciate its depth.
If you really want to start somewhere, read the Old Testament in the language it was written in, Biblical Hebrew, aka Classical Hebrew. You can get books on Classical Hebrew Grammar and a Hebrew Dictionary. Then translate the whole thing. You'll notice one important thing: it reads like a completely different book than in English. The main reason is that Hebrew is a conceptual language, not a descriptive language like English, so the same story has completely different nuances and subtleties.
If you manage all that, then I would suggest that you consider reading the Kabbalah. However, by then, you'll probably be happier reading the Old Testament again.
Also, if you want to study the Asherah, look up its grammatical roots. The word is used extensively in the Old Testament, to mean worship of any polytheistic god by using a tree as an idol. It is not used to mean one specific god, like Pan, Zeus, or any other deity. The word itself has a root of Ashrei, meaning "happiness of the Earthly plane", and the word Asher, meaning "that", or being in the Now. But you won't find it to mean worship of any one god. It's just a name for a type of idolatrous image. Now, 2 names of gods, are "Baal Peor" and "Ball Zvuv". I won't translate them for you. They don't have very pleasant names, and you have to understand their true meanings. But if you ask again, I'll post just on them. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 3:22:47 PM | DEI GRATIA- You can't even stick to the topic without preaching to everyone. WICCA. Hard to understand?
This was not a "Wicca is wrong, Christianity is right" Thread.
This thread asked a simple question, and some folks can't stick to it. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/4/2007 3:30:09 PM | I'm 41! Do I have to convert? Or can I do it as a scholar?
Need to learn classical Hebrew eh? Okay, I can do that...I need to learn classical Greek and Latin also for some of my other studies, I can already read middle kingdom heiroglyphicss and futhark, but not much texts are in futhark hmmm.. - what's one more?! I'd better save some money for the reference texts.
Much interested in the Baals!
I've studied the OT, from a christian perspective...several different editions. It would be interesting to see it in light of the hebrew language. I'm sure a lot of the translations I have read don't really catch the tone and context properly.
I have heard of "the Asherah" as a term for a wooden idol or tree before..but (sorry..my computer won't translate hebrew script)
here it is:
Asherah (from Hebrew אשרה), generally taken as identical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat (more accurately transcribed as ʼAṯirat), was a major northwest Semitic mother goddess, appearing occasionally also in Akkadian sources as Ashratum/Ashratu and in Hittite as Asherdu(s) or Ashertu(s) or Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s).
In Ugarit
In the Ugaritic texts (before 1200 BC) Athirat is three times called ʼaṯrt ym, ʼAṯirat yammi, 'Athirat of the Sea' or as more fully translated 'She who treads on the sea', the name understood by various translators and commentators to be from the Ugaritic root ʼaṯr 'stride' cognate with the Hebrew root ʼšr of the same meaning, and may have been equated with the Milky Way. The sacred sea (lake) upon which Asherah trod was known as Yam Kinneret and is now called Lake Galilee.
In those texts, Athirat is the consort of the god El and there is one reference to the 70 sons of Athirat, presumably the same as the 70 sons of El. She is not clearly distinguished from ʿAshtart (better known in English as Astarte), although Ashtart is clearly linked to the Mesopotamian Goddess Ishtar. She is also called Elat (the feminine form of El; compare Allat) and Qodesh 'Holiness'.
Among the Hittites this goddess appears as Asherdu(s) or Asertu(s), the consort of Elkunirsa and mother of either 77 or 88 sons.
In Egypt
In Egypt, beginning in the 18th dynasty, a Semitic goddess named Qudshu ('Holiness') begins to appear prominently, equated with the native Egyptian goddess Hathor. Some think this is Athirat/Ashratu under her Ugaritic name Qodesh. This Qudshu seems not to be either ʿAshtart or ʿAnat as both those goddesses appear under their own names and with quite different iconography and appear in at least one pictorial representation along with Qudshu.
But in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman periods in Egypt there was a strong tendency towards syncretism of goddesses and Athirat/Ashrtum then seems to have disappeared, at least as a prominent goddess under a recognizable name.
In Israel and Judah
The goddess Asherah, whose worship Jeremiah so vehemently opposed, was worshipped in ancient Israel and Judah as the consort of Yahweh and Queen of Heaven (the Hebrews baked small cakes for her festival)
"Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."
—Jeremiah 7:17–18
"... to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem ..."
—Jeremiah 44:17
Figurines of Asherah are strikingly common in the archaeological record, indicating the popularity of her cult from the earliest times to the Babylonian exile. More rarely, inscriptions linking Yahweh and Asherah have been discovered: an 8th century BC ostracon inscribed "Berakhti et’khem l’YHVH Shomron ul’Asherato" was discovered at Kuntillet 'Ajrud (Hebrew "Horvat Teman") in the Sinai Desert in 1975; this translates as: "I have blessed you by YHVH of Samaria and His Asherah", or "...by our guardian and his Asherah", if "Shomron" is to be read "shomrenu". Another inscription, from Khirbet el-Qom near Hebron, reads: "Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh and by his Asherah; from his enemies he saved him!".[2]
The word asherah also referred to a sacred tree or pole that stood near shrines to honor the mother-goddess Asherah, pluralized as a masculine noun when it has that meaning. In the Book of Judges, the Israelite judge Gideon orders an Asherah pole next to an altar to Baal to be cut down, and the wood used for a burnt offering. Among the Hebrews' Phoenician neighbors, tall standing stone pillars signified the numinous presence of a deity, and the wooden asherahs may have been a rustic reflection of these. Or asherah may mean a living tree or grove of trees and therefore in some contexts mean a shrine. These uses have confused Biblical translators. Many older translations render Asherah as 'grove'. There is still disagreement among scholars as to the extent to which Asherah (or various goddesses classed as Asherahs) was/were worshipped in Israel and Judah and whether such a goddess or class of goddesses is necessarily identical to the goddess Athirat/Ashratu.
Tilde Binger notes in her study, Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament (1997, p. 141), that there is warrant for seeing an Asherah as, variously, "a wooden-aniconic-stela or column of some kind; a living tree; or a more regular statue." A rudely carved wooden statue planted on the ground of the house was Asherah's symbol, and sometimes a clay statue without legs. Her cult images— "idols"— were found also in forests, carved on living trees, or in the form of poles beside altars that were placed at the side of some roads. Asherah poles are mentioned in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Judges, the Books of Kings, the second Book of Chronicles, and the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Micah. The term often appears as merely אשרה, Asherah; this is translated as "groves" in the King James Version and "poles" in the New Revised Standard Version, although no word that may be translated as "poles" appears in the text.
The majority of the forty references to Asherah in the Hebrew Bible derive from the Deuteronomist, always in a hostile framework: e.g., Deuteronomy 16:21 reads: "Do not set up any [wooden] Asherah [pole] beside the altar you build to the LORD your God." The Deuteronomist judges the kings of Israel and Judah according to how rigorously they uphold Yahwism and suppress the worship of Asherah and other deities: King Manasseh, for example is said to have placed an Asherah pole in the Holy Temple, and was therefore one who "did evil in the sight of the Lord" (2 Kings 21:7); but king Hezekiah "removed the high places, and broke the pillars, and cut down the Asherah", (2 Kings 18.4), and was numbered among the most righteous of Judah's kings before the coming of the monotheistic reformer Josiah, in whose reign the Deuteronomistic history of the kings was composed.
Asherah In the Book of Kings Ta'anach Text 1 - Letter from Guli-Adad to Talwashur of Ta'anach Date of Discovery: c. 1903 - Excavator: Ernst Sellin Language Akkadian - Clay Tablet
Line 21 - "Furthermore, if there is a diviner of Asherah, then let him discern our fortunes and the omen and the interpretation send to me."
1 Kings 18:19 The four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table
* Rogers, Robert William. Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament. New York: Eaton & Mains, 1912.
* Albright, W. F. "A Prince of Taanach in the Fifteenth Century B.C." Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 94 (1944) 12-27.
Ashira in Arabia
A stele, now at the Louvre, discovered by Charles Huber in 1883 in the ancient oasis of Tema (modern Tayma), southwestern Arabia, and believed to date to the time of Nabonidus's retirement there in 549 BC, bears an inscription in Aramaic which mentions Ṣalm of Maḥram and Shingala and Ashira as the gods of Tema. This Ashira might be Athirat/Asherah. Since Aramaic has no way to indicate Arabic th, corresponding to the Ugaritic th (more pedantically written as ṯ), if this is the same deity, it is not clear whether the name would be an Arabian reflex of the Ugaritic Athirat or a later borrowing of the Hebrew/Canaanite Asherah.
Asherah and `Ashurah
In the ancient lunar calendar that became the Islamic calendar, the Day of ʿAshurah, transliterated also as Aashurah, Ashura or Aashoorah, falls on the 10th day of Muharram. On that day, in the year of the Hejira 61 (AD 680), Husayn bin Ali, the grandson of Muhammad was killed by Umayyad forces at the Battle of Karbala (now in Iraq). Still called by its ancient name, the Day of Ashurah, it has been observed ever since as a day of mourning by Shī`ites.
The name `Ashurah is interpreted as meaning "ten" in Arabic. (The normal Arabic word for ten is `asharah cognate to the Hebrew root `śr = "ten", the differing forms of s being the normal correspondence found in cognate roots between Arabic and Hebrew.)
Some try to connect the Arabic :Ashurah instead to the goddess Athirath/Asherah through the Ashira of Tema. But :Ashurah with initial letter :ain (ﻉ) is difficult to equate with 'Asherah; with beginning 'alef (here indicated by an apostrophe but normally omitted initially in popular transliterations from Semitic languages).
The connection is controversial. It is as though in English one were to say that the word juice refers to the god Zeus. The sound difference is very distinctive to Arabic ears. Yet cognate Semitic roots display this switching between ain and alif, and some Arabian accents pronounced, and indeed still do pronounce `ain as a glottal stop (like the tribe of Tamim whose name is given to this way of pronunciation).
Cheers! | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/5/2007 1:02:28 AM | Ravenstar66,
You do not need to convert :)
It is most assuredly the same goddess that was subverted into the Shekinah - aka the Holy Spirit - and so you may start as you clearly have identified her as Ishtar, Inanna, Isis, and others to worship as you would using the symbology accordingly. Just follow the path that leads back to the correct route/root of that symbol. It is in essence the same goddess force that is being observed here, but often supplanted or suppressed in favour of the male energies that are often put ot the fore instead.
The archeological record bears it out that Asherah was worshipped alongside YHWH for the longest time in the Hebrew temple before the solidification of monotheistic worship.
I can hunt down some specific references for you later and either post them here in this thread or email them directly to you on request. | |
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| How May Gods and Goddess' does Wicca Have??
Posted: 10/5/2007 6:59:19 AM | Re msg 73: Thanks for the Wikipedia reference to Asherah. I have checked it up in Jastrow as a backup, and he does confirm that an Asherah is a tree or a grove that is used for idolatry. There may also have been idols of that name, but in all of my readings of the Old Testament, the word is not used exclusively for one god or goddess in the Old Testament, just for one type of worship.
I'm 41! Do I have to convert? Or can I do it as a scholar? Conversion is a lifetime commitment to Jewish values, ethics & practice, so I doubt that you would be interested in that. You would have to figure it out as best you can. However, I can give you at least one hint: Jewish scholars say that the entire Five Books of Moses can be all figured out from the first letter, Bet.
I'd better save some money for the reference texts. They're not that expensive. Only about US $40 for a good book on Classical Hebrew Grammar or a Classical Hebrew Dictionary. A Concordance of the Old Testament, is also a worthwhile buy, with a reference to every occurrence of each word used in the Old Testament. However, if you can find it online, it might save you a few bucks.
Much interested in the Baals! Baal Zevuv means "Lord of the Flies". It is a reference to the fact that all flies eat our food and crap on it, and that all pleasure is fleeting and ends up as crap. Baal Peor means "Lord of the Uncoverings", or "Lord of the Dung". It has a similar connotation. In other words, these are 2 aspects of worship of all forms of hedonism that one knows is ultimately self-destructive.
Re msg 74:
the Shekinah - aka the Holy Spirit The word Shechinah comes from the root Shachain, meaning to dwell, and so the word Shechinah means dwelling-place. It is used as a reference to the unique dwelling-place of G-d in this world. | |
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