Asherah is a Hebrew word for what was either a goddess or a cultic object or perhaps both. Although many see evidence for Asherah being an individual goddess known to the Israelites, some scholars believe that the context of the word primarily denotes it as a cultic object, as Mark Smith suggests in The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, 2nd Edition. The Bible frequently addresses asherah (singular) and asherim (plural) as cult symbols from the time of the Israelite judges until right before the destruction of Judah in the early 6th century BCE. On the other hand, some passages in the Bible clearly reference Asherah as being a goddess. In the Bible, the Iron Age text of 1 Kings 18:19 states that Asherah had prophets in Tyre just as the Canaanite god Baal had prophets. Additionally, 2 Kings 23:6 declares that the priests of Solomon's Temple brought out “all the objects made for Baal and Asherah and all the host of heaven”. This verse also seems to indicate that Asherah was at least sometimes considered to be a deity.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/Asherah/.