Francesca Trone The Queen of Heaven 1 | Page The Queen of Heaven: Depictions of Asherah in Ancient Israel Francesca Tronetti Ph.D. Originally published in three parts at Return to Mago E*Zine https://www.magoism.net/ Christianity teaches its followers about God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The deity is described as a father to his children and the world. In churches across America, the people are taught that there are no female aspects of the Divine. Thus, there is an overall lack of independent feminine presence in the teachings of the biblical texts. That is not to say that there are no female characters in the Bible; there are many named women in the books. Still, these women are rarely discussed as central characters, and instead, they are referenced in context with their male family members or husbands. This male-centered reading of the Bible makes it the perfect instrument of patriarchy. It becomes a sacred text and guide which has ignored or downplayed the very existence of women. However, Biblical scholars know that there are independent women in the Bible and that some of these women are what we identify as demi- gods. In a class I took, we discussed passages of the Bible dealing with the creation of humans and the nature of the Divine. The discussion that most impacted me was of Asherah, a Goddess who some scholars assert is the wife of YHWH. Asherah or the asherah is mentioned approximately 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, most often connected with YHWH. I will discuss several aspects of Asherah in this article: the worship of Asherah alongside YHWH, the portrayal of Asherah as the consort of YHWH, worship of Asherah by the queen mothers. I want to understand whether Asherah was viewed as a goddess in her own right or if the name refers to a cultic symbol of a goddess associated with YHWH. A close reading of the biblical texts and recent archaeological evidence suggests that the ancient Israelites did not initially follow a monotheistic religion. Therefore, it is logical to assume the if the people worshipped a pantheon of deities, a few would be female. Based on other polytheistic beliefs, we can conclude that one of these goddesses would have held the position of Mother Goddess. There also exists archaeological and literary evidence suggesting that Israelite women held an important place in the religious practices of their communities through their cultic worship. To understand what position Asherah occupied in the religious beliefs of the ancient Israelites, we first need to know where the goddess Asherah came from. Asherah in the Ancient World Asherah is believed to be one of the names given to an ancient and widely worshipped goddess. Wiggins found references to Asherah and a similar goddess in Ugaritic, rabbinic and biblical sources, South Arabian, Mesopotamian and Hittite material, and Aramaic, Hebrew, and Phoenician inscriptions. The essential Northwest Semitic written source concerning Asherah is the Ugaritic texts from Ras Shamra located on the Syrian Coast. These texts refer to Asherah as 'atrt,' which is pronounced as Athirat. In these writings, Athirat is the consort of the supreme god El. Supported by evidence from the Ugaritic texts, it has been suggested that the Canaanites worshipped a goddess called Asherah. And this worship was separate from their worship of the goddess Astarte. These texts do indicate that Asherah was one of the primary female deities