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Recent archaeological discoveries have encouraged scholars to reinvestigate the Israelite religion. In this book, Judith Hadley uses these discoveries, alongside biblical material and non-biblical inscriptions, to examine the evidence for the worship of Asherah as the partner of God in the Bible. By investigating the Khirbet al-Qom and Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions, for example, where the phrase 'Yahweh and his Asherah' is frequently in evidence, the author asks what the ancient Israelites meant by this, how they construed the relationship between Yahweh and Asherah, and whether in fact the term actually referred to an object of worship rather than to a goddess. The author also evaluates more recent scholarship to substantiate her conclusions. This is a detailed and brilliant study which promises to make a significant contribution to the ongoing debate about the exact nature of Asherah and her significance in pre-exilic Israel and Judah.… (more)
User reviews
Some reading frustration is occasioned by comparisons to visual evidence that is cited but not reproduced in the book. I understand that it may not have been possible to obtain publishing rights to the relevant images, but I feel like most of those references to absent graphics could have been relegated to notes, to keep that opacity out of the main text. What's more, the in-line citation style occasionally makes the text virtually unreadable as exposition; in those cases it's just a block of references.
None of which is to deny that I got some useful information from this book that I hadn't yet encountered elsewhere. I was especially interested in the likely origins of Asherah in the Ammonite goddess Ashratu(m). In contrast to the impression I took from the contemporaneous study Only One God?, Hadley is more ambivalent about Hebrew consciousness of Asherah as a goddess during the Monarchical period, preferring the benificence of an asherah temple artifact as the explanation for "Yahweh and his Asherah" in the debated inscriptions.
The four-page "Conclusion" is very clear, and for the non-specialist with some prior awareness of Asherah scholarship, it sufficiently communicates most of the useful evaluations that are worked out in great detail in the body of the book.