"An odd word that recurs obsessively in the Bible, where it appears in forty passages: "Burn their Asherah in the fire and cut down the idols of their god", "Cut down their Asherah and burn their idols in the fire." How many times and with what stubborn vehemence, does Yahweh enjoin his people. Asherah designates a goddess, the partner of Baal. And at the same time certain sacred poles, which were worshiped. Asherah is a name that condenses within itself the abomination of idolatry. Yet for a long time, until the reign of Manasseh, it happened that "the objects that had been made for Baal, for the Asherah, and for all the heavenly host" were housed inside the temple for Yahweh. For Israel, the perennial risk was that the house of Yahweh still contained the altars of other divine beings. Hence Manasseh "made his son pass through fire and practiced astrology, and magic and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he wrought much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. "

"Solomon's temple stood for three hundred and eighty years. For two hundred and thiry six years Asherah had a place in it and was worshipped there. For one hundred and forty four years she was excluded from it and considered an abomination. Thirty-five years after Rehoboam, Asa removed the goddess. Joash brought her back, until, a century later, Hezekiah removed her again. Twenty-seven years went by until Manasseh brought her back agin. Seventy-eight years later, Josiah removed her. "He had the Asherah taken out of the House of Yahweh and out of Jerusalem to the river Kidron, where he burned her to ashes and threw the ashes on the tombs-of-the-children-of-the-people." It still wasn't enough: "He destroyed the houses of the sacred male prostitutes who were in the House of Yahweh and where the women weave linen for the Asherah." But when Josiah died, Asherah was brought back once more. And there she would stay until the first destruction of the Temple, in 586 BCE."

-Roberto Calasso

The Book of Books