Monotheism, Yahweh and his Asherah

then why do so many churches teach that magdalene was a prostitute? the bible doesn't even teach that she was a prostitute. it's simply without foundation. the only excuse is to discredit her and any study into who she might have been.

yes, i suppose that's true -- all that matters is the perception. also, a slight correction. we're talking about the authorship of the text, and at the time, mariam of migdal was not considered "unchaste and sinful." this is a later invention, mixing her up with a prostitute -- something the catholic church just recently retracted. the text itself says very little about her. she wasn't slandered so much as written out.

ah! a good question.i don't want to go too into it here, as it's slightly off topic, but i will explain why: babylon. around the 6th century bce, israel was carried off into assyria. babylon conquered assyria, and judah. israel was lost.judah stayed together with the help of the prophets -- religious leaders who preached messages that were often heavy-handed diatribes against their oppressors. xenophobia and extreme monotheism became the only way to protect their cultural identity from being absorbed into other nations and their god from being lost in a pantheon. none that i am aware of at that time, and probably not because most places lacked the cultural history of the jews. most places were absorbed quite efficiently into assyria and then babylon (and then persia and then greece and then rome). the rulers were fair, and allowed people to keep most of their own traditions (as long as they bowed down to the king), but the cultural melting-pot phenominon was insidious.the only other somewhat similar example i'm aware of amenhotep iv of egypt. but that only lasted for the reign of one (two?) king(s?).

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no, standard run of the mill hebreew dualism. you could successfully translate baalim v'asherot as "foreign gods" but i prefer slightly more literal renderings. well, that's kind of an ambiguous definition, actually. "pagan god" means one not accepted by the jews -- ie, not yahweh. i would say "one accepted by pagans" but many tribes called "pagan" actually accepted yahweh in their pantheon.what i really mean is that asherah seems to be the generic term for "pagan goddess." any pagan goddess.

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That's not the point. Whether she was unchaste at one time or no, she became one of the most venerated of all women. I am mentioning this because I don't see the link Reding sees in patriarchy and Mary.Besides, there are enough possible reasons for casting Mary as a sinner within the Bible. Edited by anastasia, : No reason given.

only in france. i've never heard that she was venerated anywhere else and have never experienced such. you must be blind. the only reason to discount a woman is to put a man above her. "i shall not suffer a woman to preach"? the scripture is very clearly patriarchal although there's evidence that the early church was not. all people are sinners. there is no evidence to suggest that magdalene was a whore.

Hm. Feast days, icons, paintings, litanies? She is the second most famous female in Christianity. Well, I don't see how she WAS discounted. I see that a lot of people want to suddenly make a big stink about her for their personal agendas.

here's the NG documentary i was talking about.Intro:The Real Mary MagdaleneFor 1,500 years Christians regarded the woman so close to Jesus as a reformed prostitute. Now, evidence suggests this may have been part of a smear campaign by the early church to remove women from the clergy. We cut through centuries of political spin to find the real Mary Magdalene.part 1: Error 404 (Not Found)!!1
part 2: Error 404 (Not Found)!!1
part 3: Error 404 (Not Found)!!1
part 4: Error 404 (Not Found)!!1
part 5: Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

I’d think if the israelites were that fierce in maintaining their identity there would be no other way than to put women in a “protected” position within their culture as they are the child bearers. You know what they often do in tumultuous times. That might have lead to certain rules and so-called “prohibitions”. I’m not very familiar with the jewish culture so if anyone can shed some light . Anyway, if that’s the case then it might have led to Asherah losing her goddess status to become something less than dirt . .
On the other hand, if the refutal of Asherah is yet another later editing job, it might be a remnant of that tradition of protecting women. I can imagine that over time necessary customs and traditions can transform into a mere religious rule, to for some men a ridiculous way of keeping women on the low side . .

See, you have found the agenda. The whole controversary started right around Vatican II with an attempt to make female priests. The problem is, no one cares if Mary was a prostitute or not. Repentent sinners have never been cut off from discipleship or priesthood. I have not seen any smear campaigns arise against the Virgin Mary, and yet, no one makes a case for her being a priestess.I think it is much more likely that Mary of Magdala was just plain old conflated with the prostitute in the Bible. Along with having demons cast out of her, and the possible references of her name to word for 'prostitute', it is an easy assumption to draw from the Bible. It is extremely odd that folks think this the redicovery of the 'real' Mary will in any way affect the traditions of the church in regard to priests.

yeah, cause being a priest has to do with having a penis, not wisdom or being trusted or being a strong figure in the church or being solid in theological study.

women hold a strange status in judaism. from a western perspective, they're not treated so well -- but there are a number of woman-centric traditions, and things in place to protect women, and so forth. asherah might be one of female traditions that ran afoul with the male ones. her absence is too pervasive to be an edit, and her presencse would disrupt the point of most of the prophets: other gods = bad. no, i think it was written that way.

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Actually, its 10 times. They don't need to be patriarchal. Judaism, by definition, is a monotheistic religion. All that monotheism means is that you believe in one God. I'm still not understanding why you think that a female deity was specifically excommunicated simply because she was a female when the same kind of excommunications were commonplace for male deities such as Molech and Ba'al. The Babylonian fertility goddess, Ishtar, is the same kind of goddess. She was a very famous goddess in Paul's day, among a myriad of other gods and goddesses spoken about in the book of Acts.Some of those remnants remain with us today as they've been assimilated in to the culture, probably unbeknownst to you. The name "Easter" derives from the original word, Ishtar. Have you ever wondered what in the world do Easter eggs have to do with Jesus Christ? Easter eggs, or, Ishtar eggs, are representative of great fertility.During the fledgling Christian years in Rome, the worship of the pagan goddess was fairly common. Pretty soon the two religions were vying for the hearts and minds of the people. The two beliefs became consolidated in the process. What we have today is a conflation between a pagan holiday and a Christian one.Easter isn't unique in this aspect either. Practically all of the "Christian" holidays have some sort of pagan influence in it.Sorry for the tangent. I just thought that you might find that interesting. No one is contending with that though. That much seems rather obvious since Moses is having to present an argument for turning away from false gods.

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Yes, that may very well be. I suppose it is also possible that Asherah and Ishtar is one in the same. I say this because some people speak of Astarte and Asherah as being two different goddesses within the pantheon, when, in actuality, Astarte is simply the Greek rendering of Asherah.Kind of like how Gehenna is the Hebrew rendering for hell, and Hades is the Greek rendering for hell.

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat." -Theodore Roosevelt

that's about what i had gathered, yes. i'm not by any means well versed in this area (brian? someone? help!) but as i understand it. asherah is a hebrew rendering of astarte (in ugarit) who is probably ishtar.astarte is also know as something like qodesh, and there's a goddess of a similar name in egypt. it's all the same region. they all traded -- tradition got around. i can't say for certain, but it seems reasonable.judging from the hebrew and ugaritic traditions, el and asherah seem to have BOTH become generalized words for "god" and "goddess" respectively.

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