WHOSE PICTURE?
Did God Have a Wife—And a Tail? A controversial new claim out of a dig in the Sinai has deemed an ancient image to depict a well-endowed Yahweh (or having a tail) with a wife at his side (Candida Moss, The Daily Beast). This is in response to Nir Hasson's Haaretz article, which I noted last week
here. In some circles YHWH probably did had a wife. His "asherah" mentioned in the inscriptions is probably (for technical grammatical reasons) a wooden cultic object, but the object represented the Canaanite goddess Asherah. So in effect the reference is to the the goddess, YHWH's consort. The picture with the "tail," however, may depict a different god and his consort.
The story has also been picked up by The Forward. It doesn't add anything of substance, but it does win the prize for most lurid headline:
Does This Picture Prove God Exposed Himself to Ancient Jews? (Sam Bromer).
Visit PaleoJudaica daily for the latest news on ancient Judaism and the biblical world.