Tue Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess.

• Author: Smith, Mark S.
• Position: Reviews of Books

Tue Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess. By JUDITH M. HADLEY. University of Cambridge Oriental Publications, vol. 57. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2000. Pp. xv + 262. $64.95.

After a large output of books on Asherah over the last decade or so, one may fairly ask if the field would benefit from yet another. Despite warranted skepticism, the answer in Hadley's case is affirmative. A revision of her doctoral dissertation written under Professor John Emerton at Cambridge University, this book offers a very careful survey of textual, icono-graphic, and archaeological evidence possibly pertinent to the goddess Asherah and the object having the same name.

Chapter one surveys research pertaining to Asherah. Scholarly discussions tend to focus on the issues of whether Asherah (or better in this case, asherah) is merely an object or whether Asherah is the word for both the goddess and an object. Hadley follows the view that Hebrew Asherah can be identified with Ugaritic Athirat (and that both relate to Amorite Ashratum) and that asherah in the Hebrew Bible usually refers to the wooden symbol of the goddess, but also in a handful of cases to the goddess herself. Hadley then presents a useful and critical survey of the works on A/asherah by W. L. Reed, T. Yamashita, T. A. Holland, A. L. Penman, J. R. Engle, U. Winter, S. M. Olyan, R. J. Pettey, W. A. Maier III, S. Schroer, S. A. Wiggins, R. Hunziker-Rodewald, and C. Frevel. Major works missing from this discussion are Gods, Goddesses and Images of God in Ancient Israel by Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger (1998; German original, 1992) and Keel's response to Frevel in his book, Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Ya hweh (1998). Perhaps Hadley chose not to include the former because it does not focus specifically on Asherah and the latter because it appeared too late. Of the works surveyed, Frevel's 1995 book is overall the most detailed, but Hadley mentions that it appeared too late to be fully incorporated into her work. Also absent is P. Merlo, La dea Asratum-Atiratu-Asera (1998).

Chapter two addresses Athirat in the Ugaritic texts. The author notes the goddess' epithets and character as the matriarch of the pantheon as well as her associations with the sea. She rightly sounds a cautionary note that [ilt.sup.[contains]] is not strictly speaking an epithet specific to Athirat since it is used once of Anat (KTU 1.3 II 18). Hadley also looks at...