Heavenly Mother (Mormonism), the wife of God the Father in the LDS Church and other Mormon churches.
A Mixing Of Canaanite Cultism and Judaism
Ancient Semitic religions also worshipped Asherah - one of the three great Goddesses of the Canaanite pantheon. Asherah is a powerful fertility Goddess and there is evidence that at one point in Israelites' history, an "Asherah pole" became part of their worship.
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.
God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped 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 worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah.
In the LDS Church, the doctrine of "Heavenly Mother" or "heavenly parents" is not frequently discussed; however, the doctrine can be found in some church hymns and has been briefly discussed in church teaching manuals and several sermons.
In the first edition of the Book of Mormon (1830), Mary was referred to as "the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh," a reading that was changed by Joseph Smith to "the mother of the Son of God" in subsequent editions (1837–).
The Church is called the Bride of Christ and Christ is declared the Head of the Church, His Bride. As individual believers and as the Church we have an intimate relationship with Christ. This is a relationship that is closer than an earthly husband and wife relationship.
Asherah, along with Astarte and Anath, was one of the three great goddesses of the Canaanite pantheon. In Canaanite religion her primary role was that of mother goddess. Canaanites associated Asherah with sacred trees, an association also found in the Israelite tradition.
Episodes in the Hebrew Bible show a gender imbalance in Hebrew religion. Asherah was patronized by female royals such as the Queen Mother Maacah (1 Kings 15:13). But more commonly, perhaps, Asherah was worshiped within the household and her offerings were performed by family matriarchs.
Queen of Heaven was a title given to a number of ancient sky goddesses worshipped throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Goddesses known to have been referred to by the title include Inanna, Anat, Isis, Nut, Astarte, and possibly Asherah (by the prophet Jeremiah).
Theological basis. Queen of Heaven (Latin: Regina Caeli) is one of many Queen titles used of Mary, mother of Jesus. The title derived in part from the ancient Catholic teaching that Mary, at the end of her earthly life, was bodily and spiritually assumed into heaven, and that she is there honored as Queen.
"Christian tradition has long held that Jesus was not married, even though no reliable historical evidence exists to support that claim," King said in a press release.
The Four Daughters of God are a personification of the virtues of Truth, Righteousness/Justice, Mercy, and Peace in medieval Catholic religious writing.
Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is a central figure of Christianity, venerated under various titles such as virgin or queen, many of them mentioned in the Litany of Loreto.
Yahweh, name for the God of the Israelites, representing the biblical pronunciation of “YHWH,” the Hebrew name revealed to Moses in the book of Exodus. The name YHWH, consisting of the sequence of consonants Yod, Heh, Waw, and Heh, is known as the tetragrammaton.
The title “Mother of God” is a western derivation from the Greek Theotokos, which means “God-bearer”. Mary being chosen by God, the Father, to bring Jesus Christ into this world, and her willingness to do so is great cause for celebration.
Many studies on Asherah in the Bible have concluded that Asherah was a popular and beloved Mother-Goddess in the religion of Israel. Asherah was regarded as a benevolent, divine kingship (also known as the “Queen of Heaven”) who bestows abundance and protection to the people.
Asherah worship was deeply sensual, involving illicit sex and ritual prostitution. It was closely associated with the worship of Baal: “The Israelites did evil in the LORD's sight. They forgot about the LORD their God, and they served the images of Baal and the Asherah poles” (Judges 3:7, NLT).
As the consort of Yahweh and the Supreme Goddess of Creation, Asherah is said to be every bit as powerful as God. As such She is commonly attributed to omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, and divine simplicity.
“Asherah's themes are kindness, love, divination and foresight. Her symbols are lions, lilies, a tree or a pole. Asherah, a Canaanite Goddess of moral strength, offers to lend support…
Shekhinah, the feminine Presence of God, is a central metaphor of divinity in Jewish mystical and Midrashic texts from the first millennium C.E. onward.
In other words, if (as seems reasonable and is accepted by many) Kretschmer is correct, not only are Aphrodite and Asherah (Athirat) often the same goddess in terms of their roles, functions and characteristics, but they may actually have the same name [GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI][varphi][Iuml]/á½δá½·[tau]η ( ...
Asherah, also known as the Queen of Heaven, is the mother goddess of the Canaanite religion, wife of the Most High God and the daughter of Dyēus and Dʰéǵʰōm, and is the mother of over 70 gods. She is the primeval goddess of Motherhood, Fertility, of Divinity, Lordship and transcendence.
Verse 14 states that Lot has sons-in-law, "which married his daughters". This seems to contradict the earlier statement that his daughters were virgins.
Mary Magdalene as Jesus's Wife
She also featured prominently in the so-called Gnostic Gospels, a group of texts believed to have been written by early Christians as far back as the second century A.D., but not discovered until 1945, near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi.