Asherah

[Crown_of_Stars]

Asherah was the fertility goddess worshipped by pagans in ancient days. She was regarded to be the goddess for women. In Jesus’s day (which really isn’t considered ancient but closer to medieval) would a pagan woman/ practicing witch have still had a little statue of her and worshiped her? I only wonder for a story I’m writing, in which a woman with charms and amulets is trying to heal another woman of her bleeding.

 

[GEddie]

Asherah was the fertility goddess worshipped by pagans in ancient days. She was regarded to be the goddess for women. In Jesus’s day (which really isn’t considered ancient but closer to medieval) would a pagan woman/ practicing witch have still had a little statue of her and worshiped her? I only wonder for a story I’m writing, in which a woman with charms and amulets is trying to heal another woman of her bleeding.

Our LORD’s life falls into Late Classical (definitely NOT Mediaeval).

As to the Asherae, these were ubiquitous in Biblical Israel prior to the Babylonian Exile (587 BC). It is said that they were so common that the presence or not of Asherae in Jewish cities can be used as an archaeological baseline: Below the level of 587 BC, lots of Asherae; above that level, none.

Because those who returned believed that idolatry was the reason they had been sent to Babylon, cults such as that of Asherah were purged from Israel after the exile. But in non-Jewish communities of the region, it is likely that Asherae survived to an extent into the AD era.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Crown_of_Stars]

Thanks. That is all what I thought.