Gods, Goddesses, and the Women Who Serve Them

by Susan Ackerman

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2022

Overview

Susan Ackerman has spent her scholarly career researching underexamined aspects of the world of the Hebrew Bible—particularly those aspects pertaining to women. In this collection drawn from three decades of her work, she describes in fascinating detail the worship of goddesses in ancient Israel, the roles women played as priests and prophets, the cultic significance of queen mothers, and the Hebrew Bible’s accounts of women’s religious lives. Specific topics include:

The “Queen of Heaven,” a goddess whose worship was the object of censure in the book of Jeremiah

Asherah, the great Canaanite mother goddess for whom Judean women were described as weaving in the book of Kings

Biblical figures considered as religious functionaries, such as Miriam, Deborah, and Zipporah

The lack of women priests in ancient Israel explored against the prevalence of priestesses in the larger ancient Near Eastern world

The cultic significance of queen mothers in Israel and throughout the ancient Near East

Israelite women’s participation in the cult of Yahweh and in the cults of various goddesses

Key Features

• Describes in fascinating detail the worship of goddesses in ancient Israel
• Explores the roles women played as priests and prophets
• Addresses the cultic significance of queen mothers and the Hebrew Bible’s accounts of women’s religious lives

Contents

Part One: Goddesses

• “And the Women Knead Dough”: The Worship of the Queen of Heaven in Sixth-Century Judah
• Asherah, the West Semitic Goddess of Spinning and Weaving?
• The Women of the Bible and of Ancient Near Eastern Myth: The Case of the Levite’s pîlegeš

Part Two: Priests and Prophets

• Why Is Miriam Also among the Prophets? (And Is Zipporah among the Priests?)
• The Mother of Eshmunazor, Priest of Astarte: A Study of Her Cultic Role
• Priestesses, Purity, and Parturition

Part Three: Queen Mothers

• The Queen Mother and the Cult in Ancient Israel
• The Queen Mother and the Cult in the Ancient Near East

Part Four: Women and Worship

• At Home with the Goddess
• Women and the Worship of Yahweh in Ancient Israel

Product Details

• Title: Gods, Goddesses, and the Women Who Serve Them
• Author: Susan Ackerman
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Pages: 296
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Bible. O.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Goddesses, Middle Eastern; Women and religion; Women in Judaism; Women in the Bible; Middle East › Religion
• ISBNs: 9780802879561, 080287956X
• Resource ID: LLS:GDSGDDSSSSRVTHM
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-30T00:12:58Z

About Susan Ackerman

Susan Ackerman is Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The author of Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah, she lives in Lebanon, New Hampshire.