Yahweh and the Asherah Tell Dan - Israel (Mehling) Yahweh and the Asherah: On Every High Hill and under Every Green Tree Matriarchal Origins of the Patriarchs Despite the characterization of the Jews as archetypally patriarchal, the era of the patriarchs is noted for its strong independent women. The prominence and independence of Sarah the queen as well as Rebecca and Rachel and Leah is notable. Briffault (v1 372) comments: "the Jewish rabbis themselves, at a comparatively late date acknowledged that the four matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah had occupied a more important position than the three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. According to Robertson Smith the tribe of Levi was originally metronymous (matrilineal), being the tribe of Leah." Sarah is portrayed as the concubine of both a pharoah and a Phillistine king, doubling as the sister and secret spouse of Abraham, as is Rebecca with Isaac (Gen 26:6). Rachel and Leah stand as the founding matriarchs of the two tribes of Joseph and Judah which represented the exilic and wilderness Semites and their differing histories and became the dominant tribes of the North (Israel) and the South (Judah) (Spong 1994 165). Account needs to be taken here of the posibillity that the Yahwistic author J was a woman. Jacob was Rebecca's boy and dwelt in tents, a symbol of the female, just as the bridegroom moves to the tent of the bride on marriage. "And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob" (Gen 25:27). Jacob is blessed over Esau by Rebecca's design (Gen 27:6) and journeys to Harran to seek a wife at Rebecca's insistance to avoid the daughters of Heth (Gen 27:46). One could thus say that the entire foundation of the twelve tribes stands under Rebeccas skirts. The theft by Rachel of Laban's Teraphim and her crafty hiding of them under her menstrual skirt illustrates the continuing significance of the matriarchy. Jacob "the artful dodger" accepts that she does not have to honour his pledge that 'whoever is found' to have them must return them because she is not actually 'found' with them (Fox R 405). The Jewish Patriarchs Isaac and Jacob, according to tradition, married into a family of strong women - the family of Rivkah, Rahel, and Leah. It was, by the way, the family of Lavan - a name for the pale-white moon, as in kiddush levana, the ceremony of hallowing the moon. These women had strong associations with a well - and of Rivkah there is a traditional midrash that when she met Abraham's servant Eliezer at the well, the writer rose to meet lier.' When would water do this? When it is attracted by the moon. Is it possible that the household teraphim that Rahel took from Lavan's household when she left with Jacob were sacred moon-symbols, and it was no mere accident or trick that led her to conceal them from Lavan by explaining she was in the time of her menstrual flow? (Genesis 31:19, 31:30-35) Was it necessary for those women to become the mothers of Israel precisely because they carried a strong "feminist," moon-centered religious tradition, but were not moon worshipers? (Waskow 263) This tradition continued in the exodus. The Geneaology of the Twelve Tribes Throughout your Generations Forever Nancy Jay Sacrifice, Religion and Paternity Woman and Oppression Nehama Aschkenasy Towards a New Theology of Sexuality Judith Plaskow Discovering Eve Carol Meyers Although the three generations from Abraham to Joseph appear to have covered 700 years of history, making the geneaology of the 12 tribes mythological rather than historical, the peculiar tradition of frequent endogamous marriages which preserve both maternal and paternal lines is consistent with a slow transition from matriarchy (Jay 94). Racel and Leah form and exception to the rule of patrimonynahlah Gen 31:14 "Is there any portion or inheritance left to us?" The seven years Jacob spent with Laban for each wife indicates the line of Laban was matrilineal in a way which gave power to the brothers of the mother. Moving to the family of the wife is consistent with the injunction in Genesis to "leave your father and mother and cleave unto your wife" and with Jewish marrige practice to go into the wife's tent. This transitional tradition is further elaborated in the story of Tamar. In Genesis 38 Judah's daughter-in-law Tamar is left to confront widowhood because none of her survivng brothers-in-law will perpetuate their brother's line (Fox 407). Judah had children by the Canaanite Shuah, but his firstborn Er was wicked and slain. When asked to fertilize Tamar, Onan then spilled his seed on the ground to avoid 'giving it to his brother'. Judah then says Tamar can have his son Shelah, but fails to come to the party. Tamar discards her widows garments, covers her face with a veil and sits in a public place. "When Judah saw her, he thought her to be a harlot because she had covered her face." She then keeps his signet, bracelets and staff as security for his payment of a sheep. She conceives by Judah. He condemns her to be burned to death for being pregnant by harlotry, but when she reveals Judah's possessions he realizes "that the child is his and that she has gained a well-merited heir by trickery". He acknowledges "She is more righteous than I". Carol Meyers in Discovering Eve notes that, despite the patriarchal and male-oriented nature of Yahwistic religion and ancient Israelite society, the counterpoint between public and home life and the emphasis on the procreative role, even that role emphasized by the hardship imposed on woman from the Fall, gives rise to a centre of female power in the home. She then points to the Proverbs and the Song of Songs as depictions of the power of woman in this sphere, a sphere relatively concealed from the public utterances in much of biblical scripture. Paternity certainty and the transition to the Patriarchy Paternity certainty is the probability that you are your children's father. At the critical figure of 1/3 the following two calculations are equal: You are therefore related to your own children by (1/2)(1/3) = (1/6). Your relatedness to your "full" sister is at least 1/4 (representing your common mother) plus 1/4 (your putative common father) times the paternity certainty of 1/3, totaling 1/4 + (1/4)(1/3) = 1/3. Since you thus share 1/3 of your genes with your sister and she provides 1/2 the genes of her children, you are related to her Children by (1/2)(1/3) = 1/6. In this situation, sociobiology predicts you will invest equally in both your sister's children and your own, all things being equal, since you are related to both sets of clilldren by 1/6. In societies in which paternity certainty falls under 1/3, you should invest more heavily in your sister's children than your own; if paternlty certainty is more than 1/3, you should favor your wife's children (Thompson 57). MHC compatability and Sexual Preference: The Whoring ways of the Goddess As a result of attempting to preserve the patriarchal familial line, Jewish patriarchs were encouraged into marriages with other members of the same tribe, often with cousins or other near-relatives. This is both illustrated in early myths and in groups such as the Samaritans: "Their adherence to strict marriage practices means that even within the Samariatans there are genetically distinct family lines which have avoided intermarriage for centuries. ... Such isolation and shared descent means inevitably that harmful recessive genes are likely to manifest themselves as those with common ancestry meet and have children. Among the Samaritans an inherited form of deaf-blindness is relatively frequent." (Jones 133). The fertility rites of goddess worshippers and the matriarchal family structure bears an interesting relation to MHC pheromone preferences among women . Ovulating women, like mice, prefer partners with complementary MHC genes who thus have different pheromones from their own. This may be in the interests of versatile tissue recognition and may also serve to encourage diverse recombination among individuals. Pregnant women (and women on the pill) by contrast prefer similar MHC, indicative of a supporting family environment of familial kin as the historial context for human families. The fertility rites of the goddess promote exogamic as opposed to familial sexual liaisons, while the matriarchal family, unlike the partners in a nuclear family consists of siblings with a common genetic endowment. The Paradox of the Genetic Mother in Jewish Polygyny Despite the rantings of prophets from Jeremiah to Ezra, historical realities have actually kept the Jewish mother perpetually at the centre of kinship. Despite Yahweh's pretence to hold the spiritual key to the male germ line, it is still the female line, despite the closeted shaved heads of some Jewish matriarchs which has perpetuated the Jewish genetic identity throughout all history. "Nearly all Jews claim symbolically or otherwise, the same ancient source, the patriarch Abraham, two hundred generations ago. ... Two and a half thousand years later the first chapted of a 1994 history of Judaism claimed that 'A person is Jewish if he or she has a Jewish mother ... Biological descent rather than religious conviction is the crucial criterion.' Whether that descent is literal or figurative is at the heart of what it means to be Jewish. In spite of many episodes of exclusiveness (as when Ezra insisted that non-Jewish wives be banned) there is not much in ancient texts about the role of blood-line and the primacy of descent over conviction. In the early days Judaism was anxious to convert others and its boundaries were fairly porous. Since then a history of persecution and separation has made Judaism a more exclusive faith than it once was" (Jones 127). Judaism is inherited down the female line - to be Jewish one's mother must be a Jew. The practice arose because in biblical times (and in Mesopotamia into the middle ages) some Jewsih men had a Gentile wife (or concubine) in a polygamous family. Descent of faith hence had to be through the Jewish mother. Later in times of turmoil, whoever the father might have been (and it might be difficult to tell) the mother knew her children and could pass her heritage on to them. The extensive penetration of foreign Y chromosomes into the Jewish gene pool shows the value of this tradition. A history of conversion has also blurred the traditional boundaries of Judaism (Jones 154). "The Judische Lexikon correctly notes that the 'absence of adoption in Jewish law ... is probably traceable to the fact that the Law is not in principle oriented to monogamy, and only reckons with the child's natural ties, based on birth. The actual blood relationship is the basic criterion, regardless of any legal recognition on the side of the father.' Putting it plainly, adoption wasn't necessary in Judaism, since the husband could always entrust several wives with maintaining his ancestral line. A good many civil rights were bound up with a flawless genealogy, as Joachim Jeremias points out, for example, in the chapter 'The Civil Rights of the Full-Blooded Israelite' in Jerusalem zur Zeit Jesu (1969, 332). The most important privilege was this: Such a person's daughters were allowed to marry priests. Furthermore, all important public offices of honor and trust were reserved to the full-blooded Israelite. That included membership in the higher courts of justice, that is, the Sanhedrin, as well as any one of the twenty-three-member criminal courts and the seven- member local executive boards of the Jewish communes, and so forth. In all these cases the genealogies were scrutinized before conferring an office on anyone. As part of this system, which placed such value on the noble chain of blood relationships, the choice of a wife played a major role. One of the main reasons for this was precisely the fact that any dubious birth could not, as it is in modern Western countries, be integrated into the ancestral succession by means of adoption" (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 65). Twice every year, on the '5 th of Ab (around August) and on the Day of Atonement, there was a dance of the virgins of Jerusalem in the vineyards surrounding the city, a sort of bridal show. Only women took part in it (mixed dancing was unknown), including the daughters of the leading families, even the daughters of the high priest. The young girls wore borrowed white garments so that those who didn't have suitable dresses wouldn't be put to shame. Obviously wealth was not supposed to be the principle of selection-nor beauty either. Significantly, the song that the girls sang as they danced ran: 'Young man, lift up your eyes and look carefully to what you are choosing, turn your eyes to the family tree! Charm is mutable, beauty is a fleeting breath, a woman who fears the Lord will be praised' (Hermann Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrash (1965, II, 381). Even a wife whose birth was as good as her husband's and who had a good pedigree could prove to be a blot on the escutcheon through external circumstances. If, for example, she became a prisoner of war (where rape was always a possibility), she could no longer guarantee a pure descent" (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 65-6). "Jewish girls usually got engaged when they were twelve or twelve and a half years old. ... An engagement was the first phase of getting married, which was followed after somewhat more than a year by the bride's being taken to her fiancee's home. Engagement counted as marriage, not de facto but de jure: The fiancee was already the man's wife. If the man died before bringing her home, she was already his widow. Infidelity by the fiancee was considered adultery. If the husband demanded that she be taken before the court and punished, a harsh sentence loomed ahead: A girl between twelve years and a day up to twelve years and six months would be stoned along with her lover. An older girl would be strangled; a younger one was considered a minor and went unpunished. Deut 22:22 If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel. If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city; and the man, because he hath humbled his neighbour's wife: so thou shalt put away evil from among you. Fortunately, the scribes had added on so many conditions to the penal provisions for adultery by the fiancee that the punishment was scarcely possible anymore: At least two witnesses had to prove that they had warned the adulterous pair about the consequences facing them, and that the couple had nevertheless continued in their sin (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 35-6). Yet executions did take place. An engaged daughter of a priest - according to Lev 21:9 harsher penalties were in order for priests' daughters - was burned to death for adultery. Rabbi Eleazar ben Zadok (born shortly after A.D. 35) witnessed this scene as a young boy (Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalemzur Zeit Jesu [1969], 201). This execution occurred in the reign of King Herod Agrippa I (A.D. 41-44). Although women were allowed to read the Torah at congregational services they were forbidden to read lessons in public in order to 'safeguard the honour of the congregation'. In the first century AD Rabbi Eliezer said 'Rather should the words of the Torah be burned than entrusted to a woman. It was for much the same reason that in the Synagogue women were seated apart from men. ... Their exclusion from the priesthood was based on their supposed uncleanness during menstruation as defined in Leviticus 15, a taboo which extends into the Christian church. A priest according to Lev 21,22 was to be clean and holy at all times to enter office (Haskins 12). Patriarchal Violence at Baalpeor One can trace a variety of episodes which attest to the repression of female reproductive choice. At Baalpeor it was a Midianitish woman, but Moses himself had a Cushite wife, so the problem is not nationality but 'whoring': "And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly" (Num 25:6 ). The Renaissance of the Queen of Heaven In agricultural Canaan the Queen of Heaven eclipsed the male god. Adon, the Lord was the son of the Queen of Heaven, and a subordinate deity by her side. ... But to the more conservative elements among the Hebrew tribes those agricultural forms of the Semitic cult were an abomination. "So completely had Yahweh become assimilated to him that not only were the two cults confounded, the Jewish women celebrating the 'lamentations' of Tammuz in the national temple, but the very names had become inextricably blended ; Yahweh was as often as not spoken of as 'The Lord,' Adon" , or Adonai who is also the Syrian Adonis, born from a tree (Briffault 3 109). "When the Hebrew tribes under the leadership of the votaries of the god of Sinai came out of the 'land of drought' into a land flowing with milk and honey of the Queen of Heaven, they found their own race there and their own releigion but modified by the effects of agricultural civilization ... The Queen of Heaven, under whatever name,. she may have been worshipped - possibly Miriam, ... the high-priestess among the Levites, - belonged from time immemorial to Jewish cult ... The Host of Heaven - the very Elohim of the astral deities was a notable component of this worship. ... The temple of Jerusalem was simultaneously dedicated to Yahweh and the the Queen of Heaven. Before it sttodf the asherah, symbolic trees that are throughout Semitic lands assocaited with the female aspect of the deity" (Briffault 3 110) The Period of the Judges In the time of the Judges, the role of women was parallel in power and respect to that of men. Judges 4:4 "And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim: and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment." The Song of Deborah, one of the oldest passages in the Bible, illustrates the continuing strength of women even in times of conflict. The passage also mentions Anath and rings with the echoes of Ba'al. Judges 5:1 "Then sang Deborah and Barak the son of Abinoam on that day, saying, Praise ye the Lord for the avenging of Israel, when the people willingly offered themselves. ... Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, when thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, the clouds also dropped water. The mountains melted from before the Lord, even that Sinai from before the Lord God of Israel. In the days of Shamgar the son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travellers walked through byways. The inhabitants of the villages ceased, they ceased in Israel, until that I Deborah arose, that I arose a mother in Israel." There is also a severe warning in Judges 19 in the tale of the fate of the concubine who 'whored' by going back to ther father-in-law for four months. When the Levite returned to claim her the father-in-law kept saying to stay a li… truncated (42,690 more characters in archive)