Asherah = Heavenly Mother?

[Olavarria]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiL64K5OIBM&feature=player_embedded#at=165

Kevin Barney seems to think so, what are your thoughts?

[Tribunal]

A point was made about God not needing a female companion. I believe the point has merit. Why does God need a female companion? Does a male God need a female God to produce offspring? With the knowledge God has aren't there more advanced means of producing?

Why does God even need a gender? Isn't God above that? Why can't God be gender-neutral? Why can't God be both?

Also, a verse is quoted about Asherah being on the right side. The verse quoted is Deuteronomy 33:3. Is that a correct quote?

Great topic!

[Sevenbak]

A point was made about God not needing a female companion. I believe the point has merit. Why does God need a female companion? Does a male God need a female God to produce offspring? With the knowledge God has aren't there more advanced means of producing?

Why does God even need a gender? Isn't God above that? Why can't God be gender-neutral? Why can't God be both?

Also, a verse is quoted about Asherah being on the right side. The verse quoted is Deuteronomy 33:3. Is that a correct quote?

Great topic!

You might fit right in with the new mantra from the United Church of Christ.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/god-no-longer-father-for-united-church-of-christ-52418/

(snip) "The left-leaning United Church of Christ now wants to be even more politically correct, and to do so its deliberative body has replaced the reference to “Heavenly Father” with the gender neutral term, “triune God,” in the denomination’s constitution."

[Tribunal]

You might fit right in with the new mantra from the United Church of Christ.

http://www.christianpost.com/news/god-no-longer-father-for-united-church-of-christ-52418/

(snip) "The left-leaning United Church of Christ now wants to be even more politically correct, and to do so its deliberative body has replaced the reference to “Heavenly Father” with the gender neutral term, “triune God,” in the denomination’s constitution."

You came to a conclusion about me without answering my questions. That is an incorrect assumption on your part. I was asking questions about the gender of God, not stating my belief in God. I would not fit in the United Church of Christ as I am a faithful, and ever learning, member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

[LeSellers]

A point was made about God not needing a female companion. I believe the point has merit. Why does God need a female companion?

From the first chapter of Genesis to the last section of the Doctrine and Covenants, God has revealed Himself to be a Father and Creator of mankind. "Father" requires "Mother". It's more than implicit, too, throughout scripture, especially, but not limited to, modern revelation.

Does a male God need a female God to produce offspring? With the knowledge God has aren't there more advanced means of producing?

Yes, He does (and She a Male God, too). There are no "more advanced methods of producing".

Why does God even need a gender? Isn't God above that? Why can't God be gender-neutral? Why can't God be both?

He doesn't 'need" sex (not "gender", a term used in grammar, not biology). But it isn't "need" we are discussing. I have an appendix, I do not (as far as we know) need it. But sex is an integral part of Who He and She are. However, and because that is how it is, They could not be God without it, nor, for that matter without Each Other.

Also, a verse is quoted about Asherah being on the right side. The verse quoted is Deuteronomy 33:3. Is that a correct quote?

If one takes the position she does, i.e., that the word translated "host" was badly written, or poorly read/copied/understood, and should be "Asherah", then, yes, it is.

As she says, "host" does not make much sense there, but "Asherah" does.

It reminds me of the story of the monk who, while verifying the transcription of the Bible, did not return for many hours. An acolyte, sent to search for him, found him sobbing, "It's not 'celebate': there's an R!"

Lehi

[Sevenbak]

You came to a conclusion about me without answering my questions. That is an incorrect assumption on your part. I was asking questions about the gender of God, not stating my belief in God. I would not fit in the United Church of Christ as I am a faithful, and ever learning, member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Sorry, your post confused me a bit, as the Church is pretty straight forward in it's teachings of the absolute necessity of God having a fixed gender, and it's role in the plan of salvation.

[Xander]

In short, no. It isn't enough to say that Ancient Israelites believed God had a consort, therefore this is a lost doctrine about the Mormon version of a heavenly mother. In Israel, Asherah was a consort to Yahweh in the famous inscription. In Mormonism, Yahweh is Jesus. Heavenly mother, according to Mormonism, is the wife of Elohim, not Yahweh. Only a very superficial reading the the Asherah literature would entice amateurs to leap to the conclusion that Asherah had anything whatsoever to do with the Mormon Heavenly Mother.

A problem with this apologetic position is that we know too much about Asherah, enough to know that the name and concept derived not from Israel's revelations from God, but rather from a very primitive model of heaven that predates Israel. Israelites didn't just pick the name Asherah out of a hat and assume this was the name of God's consort. No. Asherah is identical to previous names in Semitic mythology, including the Ugaritic goddess Athirat, the Akkadian goddess Ashratu, the Hittite goddess Asherdu,

I highly recommend Mark S. Smith's Origins of Biblical Monotheism for an in depth study on the gods of Ugarit and the overlap between their myths and various biblical passages. Asherah is just one of the many examples where fragments of the prehistory, which, I assure you, Mormonism would want absolutely nothing to do with. Smith goes on to detail the myths surrounding the zoomorphic gods he refers to as divine monsters. Biblical scholarship has concluded that Yahweh and Asherah were products of these myths. Therefore, there is no real reason, especially from scholarship, to believe any of this stuff represents what's actually true. None of these scholars believe Asherah actually existed. It was myth, based on previous myths, and eventually rooted out, more or less, by those responsible for producing the Bible.

To say the least, using Ugaritic Asherah to support Mormonism's Heavenly Mother doctrine is quite a stretch, and only works if one does a good job at cherry picking select citations from scholars like Dever and Smith. But none of these scholars accept these arguments. I know, because when I was an apologist neck deep in the whole Asherah rage, I had an email exchange with Mark Smith, and he was truly disturbed by the way Mormons, me included, were using his work to support the Heavenly Mother doctrine.

Edited July 18, 2011 by Xander

[Tribunal]

From the first chapter of Genesis to the last section of the Doctrine and Covenants, God has revealed Himself to be a Father and Creator of mankind. "Father" requires "Mother". It's more than implicit, too, throughout scripture, especially, but not limited to, modern revelation.

I know.

Yes, He does (and She a Male God, too). There are no "more advanced methods of producing".

Are you sure?

He doesn't 'need" sex (not "gender", a term used in grammar, not biology). But it isn't "need" we are discussing. I have an appendix, I do not (as far as we know) need it. But sex is an integral part of Who He and She are. However, and because that is how it is, They could not be God without it, nor, for that matter without Each Other.

Thanks for the correction. I actually meant both sex and gender.

Are you sure this is correct? We are biological beings. The bodies we have may have used their appendix somewhere down the line. In time, we might have the technology to do away with the appendix. Would the same go for God? In a world of perfection if you don't need it then why have it? Would the perfect(ed) body have organs it no longer needs? Aren't there other means of reproducing besides sexual reproduction? We currently have the technology to do so, so why not God?

If one takes the position she does, i.e., that the word translated "host" was badly written, or poorly read/copied/understood, and should be "Asherah", then, yes, it is.

As she says, "host" does not make much sense there, but "Asherah" does.

Does that example apply to other verses with the word "host" or just that one? The Bible would have a very interesting meaning if it did!

It reminds me of the story of the monk who, while verifying the transcription of the Bible, did not return for many hours. An acolyte, sent to search for him, found him sobbing, "It's not 'celebate': there's an R!"

Exactly!

[rameumptom]

In the earliest ancient records of the Middle East, Asherah was the consort of Elohim, not Yahweh. Yahweh was one of the divine sons of El Elyon/Elohim and was given Israel as his kingdom.

Later Israel's religion evolved into combining Elohim and Yahweh into one being, and Asherah (also known as Wisdom - see Proverbs 8 and 30 wherein woman/wisdom is compared to rubies, etc).

Finally, Asherah was integrated into Yahweh, so as to remove the divine feminine. In doing this, Yahweh's anthropomorphism was also rejected for a more ethereal being.

God gives a pattern to mankind. Adam was told that a man and woman would leave their parents and become one. The earthly pattern given to man imperfectly reflects the pattern in heaven.

[Tribunal]

God gives a pattern to mankind. Adam was told that a man and woman would leave their parents and become one. The earthly pattern given to man imperfectly reflects the pattern in heaven.

So the male and female sex and gender are a constant in the natural universe.

[rameumptom]

Yes, they are. The Proclamation on the Family also notes that gender was established before earth life when we were spirits.

That the LDS scriptures tell us that God is of the same matter as humans and angels are, and that we are in a process (called an "eternal round") to become as God is, we can look at how he has arranged things in the scriptures as a pattern on earth for what is done in heaven.

Now, whether God and his Asherah have sex, or procreate spirits by some other manner, I do not know. Or whether they use a variety of methods, I do not know. What I do know is this is the pattern we've been given. That science now creates test tube babies, and is on the brink of creating people on a production line (see "Brave New World") does not negate the concept that the natural method is one that has been consistent for most of man's history.

[LeSellers]

So the male and female sex and gender are a constant in the natural universe.

There is no "male gender". There is no "female gender". There are a masculine gender and a feminine gender. (There are also neuter and common genders, but they do not come into play here.)

In spite of those who have misued the word for decades, perhaps even centuries, "gender" is a grammatical construct, not a physical/biological one. It refers to the form of a word (noun or pronoun), not to the sex of the thing the word represents.

"Gender" is not "sex", and the words ought not be used interchangeably. They do not mean the same thing, and they do not have the same referents.

In French, a tie (une cravat) is feminine. It is not female. In Italian, a hand is feminine (una mano, the only word ending in “o” that is), but it is not female. In English, a ship is feminine*, but she is not female.

* The exception to this rule is “Doc”, USS PIEDMONT (AD-17), nicknamed after the Disney character in

Snow White

), a destroyer tender in the US Navy, decommissioned in 1982, sold to Turkey in 1992, and now scrapped. He had, on the afterstack, a painting of Doc, the dwarf, and from this got the nickname. (Now you know more than you ever wanted to about the US Navy. And probably grammar, too.)

Lehi

Edited July 19, 2011 by LeSellers