G-D Does Not Have a “Wife”: The Academic Reinvention of Idolatry

by Ram ben Ze'ev

G-D Does Not Have a “Wife”: The Academic Reinvention of Idolatry

There is a particular kind of modern arrogance that dresses itself in a tweed jacket, calls itself “historical inquiry,” and then proceeds to vandalise holiness with the confidence of a man who has never stood in awe of anything. We see it today in the increasing number of so-called historians who suggest — with a smirk disguised as scholarship — that G-D had a “wife,” that she was worshipped in the Temple, and that ancient Israel prayed not only to G-D but to His alleged divine consort. They point to inscriptions, to figurines, to fragments, and from this rubble they build a myth — and then ask us to treat it as fact.

Let us be clear: this is not merely mistaken. It is spiritually dangerous. It is nothing short of idolatry.

Because the first and most fundamental error is not the archaeology. It is the assumption. It is the instinct to reduce the Creator to the category of creation — to speak of G-D as though He were a man, as though He were one deity among others, as though He were part of a cosmic family drama, requiring companionship, sexuality, or partnership. This is not Judaism. This is paganism with footnotes.

A historian who lacks Torah cannot interpret Israel. He can only dissect it. He can only observe objects in the soil and then project onto them a worldview shaped by Greece, Rome, and secular materialism. And when the subject is G-D — when the subject is the Holy One of Israel — that failure is not academic. It is theological.

The Torah begins where these scholars cannot: with the absolute and uncompromising distinction between Creator and created.

The first principle of Judaism is not ethics. It is not culture. It is not ritual. It is אחדות השם — the unity of G-D.

שמע ישראל ה׳ אלקינו ה׳ אחד

Shema Yisrael, “Hear Israel, HaShem our G-D, HaShem is One” is not poetry. It is reality itself. It is a declaration that G-D is not a being in the universe, but the One Who creates the universe at every moment. He is not male. Not female. Not a composite. Not divisible. Not comparable. Not partnered.

The Torah does not “evolve” into monotheism. It begins with the truth of G-D’s oneness and wages war against every attempt to corrupt it.

That war is a central narrative of Tanakh.

The Tanakh Does Not Hide Israel’s Failures — It Condemns Them

Those who argue that “Asherah was worshipped in the Temple” quote Melakhim Bet, Chapter 23, as if it proves legitimacy. In truth it proves the opposite.

Yes — the text says an object called an Asherah was found within the Temple precincts. And what does the righteous king Yoshiyahu do with it?

He drags it out, burns it, crushes it, reduces it to dust, scatters it, and defiles the sites associated with it.

The Tanakh is not recording “Temple diversity.” It is recording defilement.

It is like finding graffiti on a synagogue wall and declaring graffiti to be a feature of Judaism.

Tanakh repeatedly tells us that idolatry infiltrated Israel. Sometimes it was in the streets.

Sometimes it was institutional. Sometimes it was in the upper courts. Sometimes it was dressed in religious language. But it was always a betrayal.

The Torah is explicit: we are commanded not only to reject idolatry — but to erase it.

לא תטע לך אשרה כל עץ אצל מזבח ה׳ אלקיך

“You shall not plant for yourself an Asherah — any tree — beside the altar of HaShem your G-D.” (Devarim)

This is Torah law. Not metaphor. Not cultural preference.

Halakhah: Idolatry is the Boundary Line of Reality

Halakhah does not treat idolatry as a mere intellectual mistake. It treats it as spiritual poison — a distortion that undermines everything.

The Torah prohibits:

• bowing, serving, offering, or burning incense to another power

• making images for worship

• adopting the rituals of idolaters

• and even benefiting from objects designated for idol worship

This is why the Halakhic category of עבודה זרה (Avodah Zarah, foreign worship) is so severe. It is not “another religion.” It is a rebellion against reality.

A man may have many sins. But idolatry is the sin that creates a false universe.

To suggest G-D has a wife is to drag the Divine into the biological realm — to make Him a creature, subject to lack, subject to need, subject to partnership. It is a theological insult.

The Torah does not permit us to speak this way. It demands that we purify our minds.

The Holy Zohar: Idolatry is Spiritual Adultery

The Holy Zohar speaks with a sharper blade. It teaches that Avodah Zarah is not merely incorrect worship — it is spiritual unfaithfulness.

Because Israel’s relationship with G-D is described in covenant terms. It is a bond. It is loyalty. It is union. But union with G-D is not physical; it is spiritual — it is cleaving to His will.

Idolatry is the opposite: cleaving to the forces of separation.

The Holy Zohar repeatedly explains that the sitra achra seeks one thing: to fracture unity into multiplicity, to make the world appear independent, and to persuade man to seek power through intermediaries rather than through the Source.

And this is precisely what the “G-D had a wife” claim does. It introduces multiplicity into the Divine. It implies partnership, division, dependence.

It is not scholarship. It is spiritual sabotage.

Tanya: The Root of Idolatry is Separating G-D from the World

Tanya explains idolatry in a way that is almost frightening in its relevance.

The superficial view of idolatry is: bowing to statues. But Tanya reveals its deeper root: the belief that anything exists independent of G-D.

When a person imagines that there are forces, powers, intermediaries, “partners,” or “gods” that hold authority — he has already committed idolatry in the mind.

Because the truth is that nothing exists on its own. Everything is created at every moment by the Divine word.

To attribute independent power to any other entity — even while “believing” in G-D — is a distortion.

So when modern academics claim ancient Israel worshipped “YHWH and his Asherah,” they are describing syncretism — the mixing of Torah language with pagan instinct. And the fact that it occurred among some people does not establish Jewish theology. It proves the exact thing Torah accuses Israel of: spiritual betrayal.

The Archaeology Problem: Artefacts Do Not Interpret Themselves

Yes, inscriptions exist. Yes, figurines exist.

But a figurine does not come with a label: “Asherah, wife of G-D.”

It is interpretation — and interpretation is shaped by worldview.

A secular historian begins with the assumption that religion is mythology. Therefore, if there is one god, he must have a goddess. If there is a temple, it must have had fertility rites. If there is a sacred object, it must represent a divine couple.

But Torah rejects the premise entirely.

Judaism does not emerge from paganism like a slightly improved version of it. Judaism is the negation of paganism. It is the revolution that tore mankind away from gods that mirror man, and introduced mankind to the One Who is beyond man.

To insist that Israel’s G-D must be reimagined as a pagan deity with domestic arrangements is not evidence-based. It is ideological.

What Chazal Teach: First Temple Idolatry Was a Spiritual Force

Chazal teach something the modern historian cannot grasp: the First Temple era included a powerful Yetzer Hara for idolatry — a consuming spiritual temptation that operated like an addiction, like madness, like fire.

Why? Because the revelation in that era was intense. Prophecy existed. The Shechinah was close. And therefore the counter-force was fierce.

That is why kings and elites could fall.

Not because they were stupid.

Because the pull was supernatural.

Later, the אנשי כנסת הגדולה prayed, and that Yetzer Hara was diminished. And the world changed.

This alone dismantles the smug assumption that “primitive Israelites believed childish myths.” No. They were fighting a spiritual war.

And those who lost did not create theology. They created contamination.

The Real Issue: Trust in G-D vs. the Pagan Instinct

The pagan instinct is always the same:

• to make G-D manageable

• to make holiness visible

• to secure fertility, protection, success

• to control spiritual forces

• to “own” blessing

This is why paganism always produces idols, images, intermediaries, divine couples, household gods, charms, and fertility figures.

The Torah demands the opposite:

• humility

• obedience

• restraint

• and faith

The Torah says: You cannot control G-D. You can only serve Him.

And the foundation of that service is אמונה (emunah, faith) and בטחון (bitachon, trust in G-D) — trusting in G-D as the sole Source of all outcomes.

To suggest that G-D has a wife is to deny that.

It replaces faith with mythology.

A Final Word: The Academic Idol Factory

Idolatry never dies. It changes costumes.

In ancient times, men bowed to stone.

In modern times, men bow to credentials.

A person can call himself a historian and still be ignorant — not of facts, but of meaning. Not of shards, but of sanctity. Not of pottery, but of truth.

Judaism does not need archaeology to defend G-D. The Torah is not on trial. The pagan impulse is.

And so we respond firmly:

G-D does not have a wife. The Temple was not a pagan theatre. Asherah was not “part of Judaism.” It was the very corruption Judaism was born to destroy.

Those who insist otherwise are not uncovering history — they are resurrecting idolatry.

>>>> BUY ME A COFFEE <<<<

###

Bill White (Ram ben Ze'ev) is CEO of WireNews Limited, Mayside Partners Limited, MEADHANAN Agency, Kestrel Assets Limited, SpudsToGo Limited and Executive Director of Hebrew Synagogue