The Queen of Heaven?

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

Dan Beecher And I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan This is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan, in your Cosby sweater? Just trying to represent, huh?

Dan Beecher I'm getting it. Let's not bring Cosby into it. That is a tarnished reference now.

Dan McClellan Yes. But, I am enjoying- Oh, that's a T-shirt.

Dan Beecher All right. It is a T-shirt, but it has a very '90s sweater vibe to it. So I do appreciate you bringing it up. Thank you. Yeah, things are good.

Dan McClellan Good.

Dan Beecher Today, we're getting into it. We're going to dive into a What's That, or perhaps a Who's That.

Dan McClellan Mm.

Dan Beecher Which is the Queen of Heaven.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I didn't even know. Did you know it had a queen?

Dan McClellan Heaven? Well, there are a couple of different ways that that is used.

Dan Beecher Whoa.

Dan McClellan And we're talking about the earlier way- Okay ...

Dan Beecher that it's used.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher We'll get into it- Yes ...

Dan McClellan right now. Let's just go into What's That.

Dan Beecher Okay, so the Queen of Heaven.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Not the Queen of Hearts.

Dan McClellan No. But the Queen of Heaven, you say it could be used multiple ways.

Dan Beecher Yes. Now, the one that you had me look up is the one that is mentioned a couple times in the Book of Jeremiah.

Dan McClellan Yes. What's the other way?

Dan Beecher Let's start with the other way, and then we'll get to Jeremiah.

Dan McClellan Well, the other way is that Mary, the mother of Jesus, can be referred to as the Queen of Heaven. I think that's- Yeah ... primarily within the Catholic tradition.

Dan Beecher Yes.

Dan McClellan I don't know if the Orthodox tradition adopts that title as well. I can't imagine they do, but, yeah, this is one of the titles that is attributed to Mary based on the notion that Jesus is the king, and- Sure ...

Dan Beecher Mary was his mother, so she is- So she should be, by rights, the Queen Mother of Heaven.

Dan McClellan Yes. Well, and Queen Mother is a title that is closely associated with that. When people talk about her as the Queen of Heaven, they will- Right ... explain she's the Queen Mother, so.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I did bump into that when I was looking into this. I also bumped into people using that as a bludgeon to beat up Catholics and point out how dumb they are- ... because the Queen of Heaven is bad.

Dan McClellan Is condemned in the- And- ... Book of Jeremiah, yeah.

Dan Beecher And therefore, they should be ashamed of themselves. So let's dive over to Jeremiah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So we're going to start in Jeremiah 7. There are several more references if we go into Jeremiah 44.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And we'll read some of those in a little bit. How many more references? I think three more references just in Jeremiah... No, four more references just in Jeremiah 44. But starting in Jeremiah 7, I'm going to start in verse 16.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And the people of Judah are getting harangued here.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Is this Jeremiah himself? Is that whose voice is doing the haranguing?

Dan McClellan Well, the chapter begins, "The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand in the gate of the Lord's house and proclaim there this word."

Dan Beecher So- So is the Lord's house, are we talking about the temple?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Not the summer home. Not the place in the Poconos.

Dan Beecher It can mean- It is ... different things, but okay.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So Jeremiah has posted up at the door of the temple.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And he is now hollering in about how bad everybody is.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And in verse 16, he starts, "As for you, do not pray for this people; do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you. Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger." So this is obviously God- Yeah, this is- ... speaking through Jeremiah saying, "Hey, I'm not having this."

Dan Beecher Yeah. And then- "Don't ask me for help for them.

Dan McClellan They're making- Yeah ...

Dan Beecher cakes, those- Yeah ...

Dan McClellan jerks."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "When they know I prefer muffins."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher So, and then- "I am on a diet, you guys."

Dan McClellan Rude. And then we get, this is repeated, Jeremiah 44, we have three verses in a row- Mm-hmm ... verses 17, 18, and 19. And here we're, this is talking about Egypt. These are diaspora folks in Egypt. "Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food and prospered and saw no misfortune. But from the time we stopped making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything and have perished by the sword and by famine.' And the women said, 'Indeed, we will go on making offerings to the queen of heaven and pouring out libations to her. Do you think that we made cakes for her, marked with her image, and poured out libations to her without our husbands being involved?'" And guys are probably like, "Don't bring me into this."

Dan Beecher Oh, dude, don't throw me under that bus. He's already mad enough already.

Dan McClellan You had to bring me into this. And then down in verse 25, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, 'You and your wives'" because you brought the husbands into it, "have accomplished in deeds what you declared in words, saying, "We are determined to perform the vows that we have made, to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her." By all means, keep your vows and make your libations." So God is kind of saying, "Yeah, keep on doing it.

Dan Beecher See what happens.

Dan McClellan By all means."

Dan Beecher See what happens.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So- So there we have it. Clearly, there was a practice. Jeremiah, I think you've mentioned a bunch of times, was into putting the kibosh on a bunch of different practices- Yes ... were already in play.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher That were happening.

Dan McClellan Yes. We have a lot of this in this period. So this is stuff being written right at the time of the exile and during the exile, and maybe a little before, depending on when you think Jeremiah was written, because Jeremiah begins before the exile occurs. But basically, we're coming up with explanations for how the exile could have happened. How could a foreign nation have come in and violated our autonomy, and come in and destroyed the temple, and forcibly migrated so many Judahites over to Mesopotamia? And the idea is, "Oh, well, it must have been punishment." And this- Right.

Dan Beecher Our God must have abandoned us- Yeah ... to our captors.

Dan McClellan Yes. And this is a classic literary motif, rhetorical motif in ancient West Asia, because you see it in Babylonian writing. You see it, like the Moabite, the Mesha Inscription from 850-ish BCE. There's a part where King Mesha is trying to account for why Moab was allowed to be a vassal to the nation of Israel, why Israel was allowed to subjugate them.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And he says it was because Chemosh was angry with his land, which is basically the same argument. Our patron deity got mad at us and was like, "Just for that, I'm making you a vassal to this other nation over here." And so the same thing happens in ancient Israel and Judah. Every time that somebody's cult statue was stolen- Mm ... the rationalization, because you don't want to just be like, "Well, I guess that god actually sucked." You want to maintain the belief that this god has power and is your patron. So you go- Right ... "Oh, well, this god fled the temple and fled the statue, not out of fear, but because they're disgusted by us."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And that is what allowed, that's what facilitated the destruction of the temple and the violation of the integrity, the sovereignty of our land.

Dan Beecher So, yeah, it's- I'm just going to say, you're talking about them taking the icons or whatever out of it. It just sounded a little bit like a fraternity stealing- Yeah ... the other team's mascot or something. But- I mean- I don't mean to- Yeah. I don't want to diminish it, but it kind of has that vibe.

Dan McClellan But yeah. That is kind of what's going on, and because it's something that's larger than the building, it's larger than the statue itself. It's the notion that this represents what holds us together as a people and establishes our identity and all these things. And I write about that in my book, "Adonai's Divine Images," that the notion that, "Oh, well, God's not actually in the statue. God's actually up in heaven. And don't make divine images," a lot of that is kind of damage control.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Well, if they can just run off with our statue, maybe we need to find a way to have God with us without a statue- Right.

Dan Beecher God doesn't- ...

Dan McClellan so that this can't happen again.

Dan Beecher So. Because God did live in the statue. God was the statue, or was- Yeah ... directly associated therewith.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And so you had ways to rationalize it, but then you also get this renegotiation going on. But anyway, one of the pre-exilic things that became very, very unpopular around the time of Josiah is, you could say a queen of heaven, you can say Adonai's consort partner or wife, and we've talked about this before with Asherah- Right ... the Israelite goddess, and there are some scholars who think that the queen of heaven is a reference to Asherah. But I'm going to say it's not.

Dan Beecher Okay. I had wondered that.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher I did delve into that a little bit, and it did seem like it was a controversial question.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher And definitely not a slam dunk by any means. No, not a slam dunk.

Dan McClellan I think it's probably not Asherah. We get Asherah, we have explicit connections between Asherah and Adonai. We have inscriptions.

Dan Beecher Right. The Kuntillet Ajrud inscription. I've seen that there is an inscription on a T-shirt that- Yes ... that I have seen multiple times.

Dan McClellan Yes. It's actually printed on the T-shirt, not inscribed.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan But it is an image of an inscription. Yeah, but it talks about blessings by Adonai and by his Asherah, and we have a couple of different inscriptions that make reference to that, and even have a drawing of the male and female divine figures. And you do have in ancient Akkadian, you do have Asherah referred to, or Asheratu, or Asheratum, is how she's referred to in Akkadian. She's referred to as Kalat-shar Shami, which would be bride of the king of the heavens.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan So, there's a sense in which Asherah could be the queen of heaven, but I think there's a closer connection to make. But first, one of the things that we've talked about how In the past, we've talked about how Josiah likely criminalized, vilified, demonized Asherah and Asherah worship. And there are a lot of scholars who think this was part of a broader kind of cult centralization where we're doing away with, not just worship of other deities, not just worship of God's wife, but even ancestor worship.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And even what scholars these days refer to as family religion. Because notice something interesting about the first passage in Jeremiah 7, "The children gather wood."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "The fathers kindle fire, and women knead dough." This is something that involves the entire family. This is a domestic practice.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And this is not something that's going on downtown at the super temple. This is something that's going on in people's individual homes, and we have all kinds of evidence for this family religion going on in pre-exilic Israel- Mm ... where people are doing their own thing. And this seems to be one of the things that falls under the knife with Josiah's cult reforms.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so it's not just the feminine divine that is cut out. It's also other deities. It's also probably ancestor worship, because a lot of the domestic family religion is probably, you go to your mortuary temple, and you share a meal with your deceased ancestor. That's worship.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And in Deuteronomy, again, the project of Deuteronomy in the opinion of a lot of scholars, myself included, began under Josiah as his vehicle for accomplishing, to some degree, this cult centralization. But I say to some degree, because a lot of what's in Deuteronomy, in the Deuteronomistic literature, is later rhetoric, is not an accurate reflection of what was going on on the ground. But there's even a part in Deuteronomy which says, "If you're bringing a food offering to Adonai, it cannot have been shared with the dead."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So, pretty explicitly, they're coming after a lot of domestic religious practices and worship.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Ancestor worship, and the queen of heaven. And I'm going to argue, and there's a phenomenal book on this, by a wonderful scholar named Susan Ackerman, and it's called "Gods, Goddesses, and the Women Who Serve Them," which is all about the worship of gods on the part of female clergy, priests, and things like that- Mm ... as well as goddesses. And she makes what I think is the best argument for identifying the queen of heaven as Astarte.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And Astarte is not Asherah. Astarte would be the West Semitic equivalence of the East Semitic deity Ishtar.

Dan Beecher I was going to say, I am smart enough that I did think of that. That those sound familiar enough- They sound familiar, yes ... and sound linked enough that they sound like they could be the same thing or a version of each other.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, we have Ishtar is Astarte in the West Semitic world. And so in the Bible, we have Ashtart is one of the ways. It's kind of a demonizing, pejorative way to refer to Astarte by making it feminine plural as a way to kind of abstract- Okay ... what's going on here. But- Your various Astartes. Various- That's one of the ways to understand it. But she is the lady of heaven. She is queen of heaven.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan In some places, she is associated with the heavens, with the stars. She is associated with a bunch of other deities in the Greek world that are associated- Mm ... with heaven, and the stars. We also have her associated with war. So, you'll notice that one of the things that the people who are worshipers of the queen of heaven say is, "Once we stopped worshiping her, famine happened."

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan "The land's fertility failed us, but also we've been subjected to violence, and we are no longer at peace."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan "And we are not prospering. And so it could be that we have lost our patroness who ensures that we are protected." So, Astarte is mistress of horses, lady of the chariots, is one of the ways she's represented as battle-worn, battle-tested. But also, we have some inscriptions that talk about bakers who baked baskets of cakes for Astarte- Okay ...

Dan Beecher the queen.

Dan McClellan So, one of the things that the women do, according to the passage, is make cakes for the queen of heaven.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And they're probably raisin cakes- Mm-hmm ... is what a lot of scholars suggest is going on here. And they probably had some kind of form, some kind of mold, that the dough would've been in, that would've made it so when they baked, they took a shape that included either it was a Like shaped like a goddess, or there was some kind of symbol that was baked into it- Right ... that would've represented Astarte. And the interesting thing about that is what are the men of the household doing? They're gathering wood. They're building a fire. The women are the ones actually engaged in the material production of the actual- Right ... offering, the means of worship. So this would be a cult that was focused on the labor of women, and was something that was primarily mediated by women.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan I think Ackerman makes a wonderful case for understanding Astarte as the queen of heaven. And this would also be one of the things that fell under the ax as a result of, not just of Josiah's reforms, but probably if Jeremiah's being written during the exilic period, it's being written in a time when the Judahites who are away in exile are more directly exposed to the worship of Ishtar, which is probably going to be a lot more prominent- Yeah ... in Mesopotamia.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So they're in the lion's den, and getting exposed to that kind of stuff. And so it's probably going to be a lot more attractive, the worship of Ishtar.

Dan Beecher Sorry. Give me the timeframe of Josiah and sort of overlay it on the Jeremiah timeframe that we're guessing.

Dan McClellan My late seventh century BC history I need to bone up a little bit on. But there's probably an overlap between Josiah and Jeremiah. So he reigned from 648, and I want to say it was in a battle with the Egyptians of Necho maybe, not the wafer, but the Pharaoh. I think, like 609 BCE was when Josiah died, was killed in battle. And then Jeremiah, I'm pretty sure starts in like 25 years before that.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Like the last quarter of the seventh century, and then is writing into, or at least is represented as writing into the exile.

Dan Beecher But again- So Jeremiah, it feels like what's happening, as I read those passages in Jeremiah, it feels like these are just accepted practices that he is decrying. Like everybody's kind of doing it. Everybody's into making these cakes for the queen of heaven, and he's saying, "Hey, we shouldn't be doing this." And then by the time we get to Josiah, he's like, "No one's going to do it," and he commands it, and it's no longer just being decried. It's like, "We're going to kill everyone who goes against us on this," or whatever.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And again, parsing apart the Deuteronomistic literature that is later rhetoric versus what might have been Josiah's actual cultic reforms, you've probably got vilification of precisely this kind of stuff. One of the things that you've got in the Books of Kings is you've got a description of Josiah taking an Asherah pole out of the temple.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan Which indicates there was an Asherah pole- Right.

Dan Beecher Yeah ...

Dan McClellan the worship of Asherah alongside Adonai, the God of Israel, was taking place in the Jerusalem Temple. And the way the story is told, Josiah, 2 Kings 22, Josiah's just bopping along doing his thing, and then suddenly somebody shows up and goes, "Hey, we found this book of the law, and turns out we've been getting it all wrong." And then he's like, "Oh, shoot. The Asherah pole's got to come down. That was my favorite thing."

Dan Beecher Meanwhile, Josiah's like, "And the book's in my handwriting. That's weird." Yeah "How did that happen?"

Dan McClellan And they take all that stuff out, and they grind it to dust, and they burn it in the Valley of Kidron. And then the illegitimate priests are also put to death. And there's a lot of violence that goes on, at least the way the story is told in 2 Kings.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan The degree to which that's historical, we don't know for sure. I'm sure there was some pressure put on folks. But I think it is interesting how the queen of heaven is kind of one of the representatives of an earlier time when there was more and broader worship going on, where piety could be directed at a variety of different deities, even on an individual household basis. And that was all taken from people.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And then after that, you could only worship adequately, properly, if you took sacrifices or offerings down to Jerusalem. And if you didn't live anywhere near there, and you couldn't afford to make that pilgrimage, you were kind of cut off- Yeah ... to some degree. And I'm one of the people, and I get called a heretic for this kind of thing all the time, but I'm one of those people who is sad for the loss of that old-timey religion that probably made- ... the relationship with the God of Israel and the family of the God of Israel a lot more meaningful to individuals and households back in the pre-exilic period before this king decided to decided to get rid of all of that and make it so you weren't allowed to- Yeah ... to worship that way. So I think the point I want to make is that, as you said, this was just something that was going on. This was not something that was considered problematic for probably centuries.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Until somebody was like, "Time to tighten up the belt," God-wise anyway, "and you're not allowed to do that anymore. And oh, by the way, we're going to vilify and demonize you for ever having done that."

Dan Beecher Well, and it's not just about centralizing the God worship, right? This is about centralizing power and- Oh, yeah ... and structuring power so that you have to get your salvation, salvation's such a New Testament phrase.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But you have to get- Your deliverance of some kind.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You have to get your holy intercession through us, through me.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You can't just bake a cake in your house, get the whole family involved, and feel like you've done something holy, and feel like you've done something to benefit yourself.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher You don't get to benefit you. I benefit you.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and all of my representatives, who are all, by the way, men.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So the role of women, the direct role of women in worship is just disintegrated.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It's gone entirely. The mother in a household no longer gets to play that direct role, no longer gets to participate directly, and is now an NPC for all intents and purposes, when it comes to the worship of the God of Israel. The only way you get to do it is through a man.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So yeah. There are some folks out there, there's a book, ah, shoot, I think it was called "When God Was a Woman," and it was Merlin, the guy's first name, or the person... Oh, shoot. Now I forget who wrote it.

Dan Beecher You keep talking and I'll look it up.

Dan McClellan Okay. But I'm pretty sure it's called "When God Was a Woman."

Dan Beecher Merlin Stone.

Dan McClellan Merlin Stone, yes. And there are an awful lot of people who take that book and treat it as accurate. And the book is basically making the claim that religion was basically thoroughly matriarchal.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And then one day, it was all just entirely overturned, and they were like, "We're not going to do the matriarchal anymore. We're just going to turn it over, and we're going to make it all patriarchal." And there's a sense in which the role of women was significantly marginalized and downplayed and overturned. But it was not the case that it was the opposites up to Josiah or any Israelite. The patriarchal nature of worship had preexisted the land of Israel, the nation of Israel, the Hebrew language, by many, many generations.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But there was a role for women in that, a central role, and particularly when it comes to folks like Astarte and Asherah and Anat, and there were other deities as well, goddesses that were involved in this. But yeah, I think Jeremiah represents, we get a little peek at a little bit of family religion going on that unfortunately, at least from my perspective, it's going to be fortunate for, I think, the overwhelming majority of the people who are reading the Book of Jeremiah. But unfortunately, in my opinion, we lost some of that old-timey family religion that I think probably went a lot further towards generating a sense of community and belonging for all the members of the household than- Yeah ... than what we were left with.

Dan Beecher Yeah. I think the fact that Jeremiah literally describes the kids gathering the wood, dad building the fire, mom making the cake, literally describes a really heartwarming scenario.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Sets a scene, and then is like, "And it's bad."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's crazy to me.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But I'm really grateful that the author actually did write that whole scene out, because I think that it gives us a little slice of life, a little peek in the window of just sort of a standard household where they might be doing this sort of thing.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And I highly recommend Susan Ackerman's work for anybody who's interested in learning more about this, and particularly her book, "Gods, Goddesses, and the Women Who Serve Them." It's a great book. It is a little technical, but if you'd like to learn more about what's going on there, that's wonderful. Also, there's a book by Bill Dever, William Dever, called "Did God Have a Wife?"

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Now, that's not about Astarte, that's not about the queen of heaven as I'm representing it. That's about Asherah. But that goes into what Dever calls folk religion- Mm ... as opposed to official state religion. And that's kind of a false dichotomy. But I think that's a helpful book as well.

Dan Beecher Love it.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Well, that's it for the queen of heaven. Alas, she has been dethroned. Sad days for her and for us. I think it would be great if she were allowed to continue, as you said. But there you have it. If you would like to become a part of keeping us going, and also get access to an early and ad-free version of every episode of Data Over Dogma, and just feel real good in your heart, you can go and be a patron over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma. You can also gain access to our bonus content that happens every week. That's just for our patrons. So please feel free to head on over there and just break off just a little bit of your coin for us. That's always a nice thing to do. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. Thanks to JJ for being our producer, and we will talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.