“Wisdom cries aloud in the streets; Raises her voice in the squares.”[275]

During the March 2001 Seminar, some of the most interesting discussion to me—as a Latter-day Saint—centered on the concept of a divine consort in the Hebrew Bible.  In the seminar, Dr. Dulin suggested that many people read the ancient worship of a female Goddess named Wisdom in several Biblical texts, including:

a)  “DOTH not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice?…The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.”[276]

b)  “WISDOM hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city”[277]

This reading of the Bible is surprising to me because modern Jewish and Christian theology insists upon strict ethical monotheism.[278]  The idea of a female divine consort has no place in such theology.  To my knowledge, no respected contemporary traditional Jewish or Christian scholar of faith espouses the view that God is married or enjoys the companionship of a divine consort.[279]  Therefore, the interpretation of Wisdom as a female goddess is at variance with those modern theological views.  Either this personification of Wisdom or these modern theological views must be false.

Traditional Jews and Christians believe that their modern theological views come from the Bible which is considered “God’s living word.”[280]  For both Jews and Christians, the Hebrew Bible forms the base upon which everything else is built.  The traditional Jewish and Christian faithful believe that God is “single and unique”[281] and the only member of his species because they believe the Bible tells them so.  According to the official view, while subsequent understandings—such as the Talmud and New Testament—may offer greater inspiration for their respective traditions, these additional truths enhance and explain the Hebrew Bible, not contradict it. 

From a believing Judaic perspective, “the Bible is the core, the very heart and soul of the total Jewish spiritual heritage.”[282]  Holtz suggested:  “Jewish literature…should be seen as a kind of vast inverted pyramid. The Bible is at the base…”[283]  Likewise, traditional Christians accept the Hebrew Bible as authoritative as well. One Evangelical Protestant has said: “…the Bible has a real authority in itself as the authentic embodiment of God’s self-disclosure.”[284]

According to the position of faith, the Lord “revealed Himself in successive stages to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and gave His Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.”[285]   The true and living God was not created from the minds of men, but was revealed from heaven.  It has been said that “God is known only by revelation; he stands revealed or remains forever unknown.”[286]  And in the eyes of traditional Jews and Christians, God’s self-disclosure must be strict monotheism.

Neusner said: “the world at large treats Judaism as ‘the religion of the Old Testament…’”[287]  However, those with more than passing familiarity with Jewish beliefs understand that the religion does not claim that the entirety of its theology is included within the text of the Hebrew Bible.  For traditional Jews, the “infallibility of Scripture in its rabbinic interpretation and the infallibility of the talmudic rabbis as the sole and final arbiters of halakhah”[288] defines normative Judaism. 

Thus, it was the interpretation of the Hebrew Biblical text that became authoritative in Judaism and not the text itself.  In the minds of the Rabbis, “Torah demands interpretation.”[289]  Moore argued:  “Through the study of the scriptures and the discussions of generations of scholars [Judaism] defined its religious conceptions, its moral principles, its forms of worship, and its distinctive type of piety, as well as the rules of law and observance which became authoritative for all time.”[290]  However, this interpretation—or Oral Torah—is “unoriginal.”[291]  It was also “given at Mount Sinai…and…has the validity of revelation.”[292] 

Likewise, for Christians, the New Testament serves as additional scripture equal in authority to the Hebrew Bible.[293]  However, for both Jews and Christians, these additional revelations only explain and elaborate on the Hebrew Bible.  They do not supplant it.  For the Jews, while Torah has grown into “a multifaceted term”[294] which includes both the Biblical text and its Talmudic Rabbinic interpretation, “all [such] interpretations are essentially old—they are already known at Sinai after all.”[295]  Some people have suggested that the Christian view of the Old Testament is “an approach to undercut the validity in its own terms of the Jewish Bible…”[296]  However, Jesus of Nazareth declared: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”[297]  Kung suggested:

“In fact, for Jesus the authority of Moses was not in question, any more than it was for the Pharisees.  There should never have been any dispute about this:  Jesus, too, did not want to do away with the Torah, to abolish it, but to ‘fulfil’ it.  But what “fulfil’ means emerges from the passages in the Sermon of the Mount which follow this saying.  Today, there is a wide consensus that for Jesus, to ‘fulfil’ means to deepen, concentrate and radicalize the law of God in the light of its innermost dimension, namely God’s basic purpose.  It is Jesus’ conviction that nothing which contradicts this basic purpose may be read out of the law or into it.”[298]

Therefore, since Traditional Jews and Christians claim the Hebrew Bible as their foundation, if that very same Bible really does tell us that God has a divine female consort, the theological ramifications for them are enormous.  For if the revealed true God included a divine consort anciently, then the modern theology which excludes her today is a deviation from the actual divine revelation and therefore false.  Modern Judaism and Christianity have departed from the true religion of Ancient Israel, which included a divine consort.

It has been suggested that any evidence of a divine consort were actually just vestiges of the influence of Israel’s polytheistic neighbors.  Before the seminar, many of the participants were well aware that “… the oldest cosmologies, like the oldest worship of concretely represented deities, typically start with a primal goddess.” [299]  Many participants were also aware that the Bible’s principle agenda was the eradication of ancient polytheism and its associated female deities from among the Israelites.  The participants knew that while the institutional Israelite religion insisted upon strict ethical monotheism, the popular religion was deeply steeped in the pagan ways of the Ancient New East.  We knew that even leaders such as the great Solomon followed after these goddesses:

“For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.”[300]

Therefore, archaeological finds suggesting Israelite veneration of female deities were not startling to us.[301]  Likewise, the evidence suggesting that monotheism was only gradually accepted by the Israelite population was not surprising to us either.[302] The evidence leads one to believe that “the worship of Asherah as the consort of Yahweh (“his Asherah”!) was an integral element of religious life in ancient Israel prior to the reforms introduced by King Josiah in 621 B.C.E.”[303]

Neither supposition directly challenged the definition or legitimacy of modern theology.  It was irrelevant if the entire Israelite population was at one time apostate as long as our theology was consistent with the revealed truth as recorded by the holy prophets.  However, the personification of Wisdom comes from the authoritative Biblical text.  While there was undoubtedly considerable editing in the reform era of Josiah, these references were left in.  Surely if these were simply paganistic remnants, Josiah or some other reformer—such as Ezra—would have removed them if they threatened the monotheistic theology.

As a Latter-day Saint, like the traditional Jews and Christians described above, I have been taught to respect and revere the Bible with “great sanctity”[304] as “the word of God…”[305]  It is “the foundation of our faith.”[306]  Yet, we “do not consider it the sole authoritative source of religious instruction and personal guidance.”[307]  However, unlike traditional Jews and Christians, we recognize “that the current text is not identical with the original.”[308]  Joseph Smith noted: 

“I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.”[309] 

Due to these transmission problems, Latter-day Saints do not expect the Bible to support many of the unique doctrines which separate us from other Jewish and Christian religions which also base their belief on the Bible.

            One of our distinguishing fundamental beliefs is that “God is a married Being, has a wife at least…”[310]  We also believe this truth was known anciently, but lost through apostasy.  It was one of the items lost through the faulty transmission process.  Therefore, the concept of a divine consort for Yahweh is very consistent with LDS beliefs. 

However, I was surprised that many people outside of my faith believed that traces of a female deity could be found in the present Hebrew Bible, even if they are somewhat veiled.  This evidence of a divine consort for Yahweh is surprising to me.  Unlike the archaeological finds mentioned earlier which could easily be explained as simply elements of heretical popular beliefs, this evidence is directly tied to the Biblical text—the official instrument of the institutional religion of Ancient Israel.  All those of a fundamentalist mindset—those who believe in the inerrancy of the Biblical text—have a huge problem in their theology if the Bible incorporates a divine consort which their theology won’t allow.

In response to these claims of a divine consort, believing traditionalists have used a number of different apologetic approaches to keep the Biblical text consistent with their modern theology.  However, as a Latter-day Saint, after being batted about by the tradition-influenced scholars for the last 170 years, it is somewhat pleasing to see that the world of higher criticism[311] is finally starting to turn our way, if only slightly.

It seems clear that while Jewish extra-biblical literature “presents itself as nothing more than interpretation…,”[312] modern Judaism is separate and distinct from the Biblical religion.  Instead of the sacred, revealed text driving the theology, the desired theology created drove a certain interpretation of the text.  The “immutable, static, and perfect”[313] Torah which included a divine consort had to be edited and later amended by supplemental interpretation until that consort was eliminated.  In fact, as noted earlier:  “for the tradition, Torah demands interpretation…”[314]  But it is not—as suggested earlier—because the text is not understandable, it is because it is all too understandable.  Interpretation is needed lest it become apparent that Judaism has evolved the religion of Biblical Israel into something quite different.  Neusner said:

“Judaism inherits and makes the Hebrew Scriptures its own, just as does Christianity.  But just as Christianity rereads the entire heritage of ancient Israel in the light of ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ,’ so Judaism understands the Hebrew Scriptures as only one part, the written one, of ‘the one whole Torah of Moses, our rabbi.’ Ancient Israel no more testified to the oral Torah, now written down in the Mishnah and later rabbinic writings, than it did to Jesus as the Christ.  In both cases, religious circles within Israel of later antiquity reread the entire past in the light of their own conscience and convictions.”[315]

In ancient Israel, Yahweh had a divine consort because it was not any better for him to be single and alone than it was for the man created in his image.[316]  Judaism has occasionally attempted to reclaim this worship of the divine female aspect in a number of ways.  For example, “in the ultimate development as it appears in the late Midrash literature, the Shekhina concept stood for an independent, female divine entity…”[317]  And Kabbalah includes the explicit presentation of the female aspects of deity.[318]  Perhaps we find this recurring theme in various formats because the primal need for worshipping the female divine is founded upon an absolute truth:  the existence of a real and living Goddess.[319]