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The Women of Asherah: Weaving Wickedness in 2 Kings 23:7
- The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
- The Catholic University of America Press
- Volume 83, Number 2, April 2021
- pp. 208-219
- 10.1353/cbq.2021.0045
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
In this essay, I examine a long-standing crux interpretum in 2 Kgs 23:7 that reads, “And he tore down the homes of the male prostitutes, which were in the temple of Yhwh; where the women were weaving there בּתִָּים for the Asherah.” Though a number of proposals have been offered for understanding the crux, most have opted for an ad sensum interpretation that renders בָּתִּים as a curtain, tent, vestment, or other woven object that one might find in a sacred precinct. Nevertheless, I submit that, while the passage indeed describes the role that women played in producing textiles for the Asherah cult, the pervasive association of weaving with spiders also evokes a widespread androcentric stereotype that associates weaving women with female sexuality, deception, and entrapment. In turn, this enables us to understand בּתִָּים as idiomatic for “webs.”