Coming in BAR—Did Yahweh Have a Consort?

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An astounding inscription has been found in the Sinai Desert which indicates that some worshippers believed that Yahweh did have a consort or asherah.

The inscription, dating from the second half of the 9th century B.C., was uncovered in the remains of a wayside chapel at an intersection of ancient desert routes—one track leading from Kadesh Barnea to Eilat, another leading across the Sinai, and a third branching off to southern Sinai. The site (known as Kuntillat Ajrud) and some of its rare religious inscriptions have already been described for BAR readers. (See “Cache of Hebrew and Phoenician Inscriptions Found in the Desert,” BAR 02:01).

A forthcoming BAR article, however, will reveal that one of the inscriptions found at Kuntillat Ajrud mentions a consort of Yahweh. Yahweh is the holiest name for God in the Hebrew Bible. It is, indeed, THE name of the Hebrew God. (In a well-known passage in Exodus 6:2, God says to Moses: “I am Yahweh. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make myself known to them as Yahweh.”)

The Yahweh-Asherah inscription was found on a large storage jar, together with a drawing. The inscription, in early Hebrew letters and drawn with red ink that still faintly survives, states in part:

“May you be blessed by Yahweh and by his Asherah.”

The full story of this inscription as well as other religious inscriptions from this extraordinary excavation led by Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Meshel will be told in a forthcoming issue of BAR.