The cult itself was evidently celebrated in high places, on the tops of hills and mountains, where altars dedicated to Baal and carved wooden poles or statues of Asherah (or "the Asherahs"; in the past "Asherah" has also been translated as "grove", or "wood", or "tree").

There, sacrifices were made, and incense burnt not only to Baal but also to the sun and the moon, the "twelve signs" and to "all the host of heaven" by which is meant all the stars (Hosea 4:13). The latter grouping of moon, twelve signs, and stars all signify Asherah. It seems clear that Asherah and Baal were worshipped together. When King Hezekiah (727-698 BCE) set about destroying cult sites, he "cut down the Asherah and broke into pieces the Brazen Serpent [i.e. Baal] which Moses had made" (II Kings 18:4).

That it was principally women who were involved in the cult of Baal/Asherah is made clear from passages in Jeremiah 44. When threatened with destruction for not following Yahweh, it is the women who respond saying that

we will continue doing what we had proposed; we will burn incense to the queen of heaven and pour libations out to her, as we and fathers, our kings and princes have done in the cities of Juda and the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had enough food to eat and we were well off; we suffered no misfortune.
(Jeremiah 44:17)

The women explain that they have resumed burning incense and pouring libations because when they stopped they have since suffered deprivation and destruction. They also point out to Jeremiah that their activities are supported by their husbands (Jeremiah 44:19).

The cult evidently had adherents also among high-ranking women, such as Maacah, the mother of King Asa of Juda, who was clearly some sort of priestess of Asherah and played a role in cult rituals (I Kings 15:13). King Asa, however, removed her from her position as priestess and physically destroyed the cult centre, breaking and burning the sacred wooden pole or statue of the goddess.

In the Yahwists' scathing condemnation of the cult of Baal/Asherah, women are frequently singled out and blamed for leading Israelites astray. Solomon, for example, has his heart "turned away" from Yahweh by women (I Kings 11:3) and he worships "Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians" (I Kings 11:5). The Phoenician city of Sidon was a centre for the worship of Asherah.

In another case, Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Sidonians (Ethbaal, of course, is a cognate of Baal, as is Jeze-baal), caused her husband, King Ahab (873-852 BCE), to worship Baal and Asherah (I Kings 16:31-33). Accordingly, Jezebel has been condemned ever since as a wicked woman.

The Baal-Asherah cult, therefore, was demonized not only because it was perceived as inimical to Yahwism, but also because its principal adherents were women. This may explain some important features of the Genesis story.

First, it is noteworthy that in the scene of the temptation, the serpent approaches not Adam, as you might expect, but Eve. Although this is usually explained by the "fact" that Eve, being a woman, was more weak-willed than Adam and therefore more susceptible to temptation, it is more believably the case that the narrator of the story was witnessing an already established association between the serpent and the woman.

The point of Genesis 3 is to make this otherwise obvious link but then to show how the serpent in fact deceived and betrayed the woman. Indeed, to underscore this the woman is actually made to say "The serpent deceived me and I ate" (Genesis 3:13). The narrator then cleverly has Yahweh punish the serpent for deceiving the woman, but at the same time uses it as an opportunity to drive a wedge between the serpent and the woman with a curse putting everlasting "enmity" between them and their offspring. The story successfully alienates the woman from her long-time ally, the serpent.

The curse metered out to Eve as punishment for her listening to the serpent is also interesting in this respect. Yahweh tells Eve that he "will make great your distress in child-bearing; in pain shall you bring forth children."

This is, when all is said and done, a curious punishment for disobedience. It makes sense, however, when it is placed within the context of the Baal/Asherah cult. Cults which focused on a Mother Goddess were attractive to women because in most instances they addressed the concerns of women.

Among these concerns would be sexual health ranging from fertility in general to particular matters such as menstruation, conception, pregnancy, child-birth, breast-feeding, and infant care (see also "Snake Charmers" in The Minoan Snake Goddess).

Significantly, as in the case of Baal/Asherah, the serpent, as an aspect of the Mother Goddess, was identified with health and healing. Especially in an age when child-bearing was potentially life-threatening to the mother, cults associated with the Mother Goddess were a source of support and consolation. A Hebrew incantation text from the 7th century BCE, for example, seeks the help of the goddess Asherah for a woman in childbirth. The punishment Yahweh enacts on Eve is a slap in the face of one of the principal functions of the Mother Goddess which is to protect women in child-bearing.

In a logic similar to that used by Jeremiah 44 (see above), who tried to explain to the women that the deprivation and suffering among the Israelites was Yahweh's punishment for their continued adherence to the cult of Baal/Asherah (whereas the cult followers believed the opposite, that their suffering was the result of their neglect of cult practices), Genesis argues in effect that, contrary to the belief that women found help and relief in childbirth through the Baal/Asherah cult, the distress of child-bearing and the pain of childbirth in fact is the result, in the form of Yahweh's punishment, of their (Eve's) continued adherence to the cult, indicated by Eve's listening to the serpent and disregarding the orders of Yahweh.

If the Baal-Asherah cult was associated primarily with women, an additional reason for the Yahwists' condemnation of it may also have been that it existed in and was perhaps supported by non-patriarchal social institutions.

Hosea clearly associated the Baal-Asherah cult with promiscuous sexual behaviour among women ("your daughters play the harlot, and your daughters-in-law are adulteresses" 4:13) which may be a reflection of his patriarchal distaste of the attitudes towards sexual relations found among matrilineal societies (see Matriliny in the Aegean Bronze Age for further discussions of matriliny).

The point that needs to be stressed is that the "holy war" waged by the Yahwists against the cult of Baal/Asherah was not simply or only a conflict between two religious groups but was also a fight conducted by the masculine against the feminine.

This conflict would perhaps be of little consequence were it not for the fact that its values have been transmitted down through the centuries and have contributed significantly to the shaping of Western ideas and attitudes. As Anne Baring and Jules Cashford point out [see BIBLIOGRAPHY], it established a "paradigm of opposition" not just of men against women, but of good (men) against evil (women).

And so, while it may be argued that analysis of the original context of the Genesis story outlined above would not have been generally available during the Christian period, the basic "truth" of the story identifying women with evil would have been all too familiar as part of the patriarchal Judaeo-Christian tradition.

7. EVE & LILITH