Free Republic

Archeologists made a rare discovery at Tel Motza, to the west of Jerusalem, recently: evidence of the Jewish religious practices and rituals in the early days of the Kingdom of Judah. Among the finds are a ritual building and a cache of sacred vessels some 2,750 years old. Anna Eirikh, Dr. Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz, the directors of the excavation, released a joint statement provided by the Israeli Antiquities Authority in which they said: “The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual...

God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshipped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar. In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshipped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence because of the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter. Information presented in Stavrakopoulou's books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now...

'Female figurines and inscribed prayers to a "divine couple" found in temples in Israel suggest that the “one God” of the Bible may not have been entirely alone. A recent excavation in Tel Motza, not far from Jerusalem, found what archaeologists believe to have been a ritual building - with clay figures of animals and men from the time of the First Temple, according to Israel's Haaretz news site. The find suggests that Iron Age religion in the area around Jerusalem may not have been monotheistic just before the time the Hebrew Bible – the basis of the Old Testament...