Who is the Biblical Queen of Heaven Jeremiah 7:18?
ASHERAH THE PAGAN SACRED FEMININE CONSORT TO ALL PAGAN DIETIES
The queen of heaven is a name given to the ancient sky goddess. All the various pagan gods had one common female partner, Asherah. The goddess had a number of names in various languages, but the same goddess and religious system in almost all of them. Some of the other names are Isis or Astarte or Aphrodite’s or Diana. She represented sex and fertility. Fertility is directly related to prosperity in the pagan worlds. Women molded loaves of bread of this figure and people ritually ate them. Her idols were found under trees or erected as poles or pillars.
God had the Israelites destroy and erase all these pagan influences when they entered the promise land. They uprooted the sacred feminine and sex fertility pagan culture. Like mildew or weeds it kept returning whenever the Israelites let down their guards and or had evil leadership. This pagan system is one of the reasons for God’s removal of the northern ten tribes. Jezebel led them deeply into this form of idolatry. Note I Kings 16:30-33.
ASHERAH COMBINED TWO OF THE MOST POWERFUL HUMAN PSYCHE FORCES-SEX AND RELIGION
God hated this pagan sex and fertility worship system because it used children. Most temple prostitute’s female or male did not choose this life style. They were sold or given to the pagan temples as children. The children were sex slaves. Most sex workers were not consenting adults. Some pagan cults required adult women to give themselves to temple prostitution one DAY a year. When God told the Israelites not to prostitute themselves to pagan gods it was more than a figurative statement.
Note Exodus 34:12-16. Some pagan worshipers would also offer up babies to be burned to pagan gods for greater fertility and material blessing. Today, some give babies up to the abortion mills to save the expense of an inconvenient child. Are we so advanced! Child sex slavery still exists in our world.
MODERN DAY IMPLICATIONS OF PAGANISM AND TEMPLE IDOLATRY
Paul encountered pagan temple issues in Corinth with lessons for us today. Corinth as a city had a temple to Astarte or Asherah that employed a thousand temple prostitutes. What an enormous operation. The temple, as a side product, produced a lot of extra meat which was sold at bargain prices. Paul told those with knowledge that the idol was nothing to not get puffed up but instead be more concerned with other weaker brethren. Note I Cor. 8:1& 4. He said beware lest your freedom destroy brethren who are new converts from Astarte and Baal worship. They may still have an emotional attachment to the queen of heaven in spite of themselves. See I Cor. 8:7-9. The temples had restaurants. This close proximity to Astarte and other deities was a dangerous influence on others. Paul admonished them NOT to ignore the danger to others. Note I Cor. 8:10-11.
Was this pagan temple, with all of its prostitutes, male and female, no threat to the “stronger” Christians? Even though the gods of pagans do not exist the temple was still inhabited by evil spirits. See I Cor. 10:20. Paul warns the Corinthian Christians not to lust after meat as Israelites did or sex or idols, as the Israelites did to their destruction. Note I Cor. 10:6-8. Paul says to flee all forms of idolatry.
Paul warns against selfish behavior- thinking only of ‘self’. This can be also a form of idolatry. Making self and our rights idols, above loving others, are possible examples of this self love and idolatry.
Modern Dancing Might Be An Example It is not wrong to dance. We have a right to go dancing. But if we have brethren who might be offended or tempted by our dancing we might want to say ‘no’ to self. Further it may depend on the environment in which we go dancing.
A hedonistic night club, infested with druggies, maybe dangerous to all of us and we shouldn’t be there, weak or strong. A nice place to dance should not be a problem. But, we need to think of others first, especially when dealing with new or weak brethren. Note I Cor. 10:12. Just as If we lived in Paul’s time, we wouldn’t be eating in a temple. It would be an improper environment.
THE WORLD LOVES THE SACRED FEMININE
The spread of New Testament churches was resisted by those that felt it threatened the worship of Isis or Diana or Artemis. Note Acts 19:34-35. The entire city shouted for hours their dedication to Diana or Astarte. It rocked the entire city. People had a great emotional attachment to female sacred goddesses. It was one of the two major reasons for the fall of Judah. They forsook the Sabbath and worshipped idols especially the queen of heaven. See Jer. 7:18. Later when escaping the Babylonians in Egypt they still kept an attachment to Astarte. See Jer. 44:17-18. Sex and pagan religion was a powerful tool for the undermining of Israel. Does this love of the sacred goddess still exist today?
