Chapter Thirteen - Stavrakopoulou - The God Who Had a Wife

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stavrakopoulou - The God Who Had a Wife

FRANCESCA STAVRAKOPOULOU ISN’T a former believer.
She didn’t deconvert. She didn’t preach.
She came to the Bible as a historian and read it like she would any other ancient source.

Born and trained in the UK, she’s a professor of Hebrew Bible and ancient religion. Her work focuses not just on what the Bible says, but on what it was trying to do and what it quietly reveals about the culture that produced it.

One of her most talked-about claims is simple, but jarring:
The God of the Bible wasn’t always alone.

She argues that early forms of Israelite religion were not monotheistic, but polytheistic. That Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, likely had a consort. A goddess figure named Asherah, who appears in both biblical and archaeological sources.

She points to references in texts like 2 Kings and inscriptions found in ancient sites like Kuntillet Ajrud, where blessings are offered “by Yahweh and his Asherah.” These aren’t just poetic flourishes. They hint at a time when Yahweh was one god among many and not yet the sole deity of a monotheistic system.

This, she argues, is evidence that biblical monotheism evolved over time, through a process of religious centralization, cultural reform, and political control.

Her work also reexamines how the biblical authors portrayed women and divine embodiment. She’s suggested that the biblical God’s masculinity, which is often depicted through imagery of war, kingship, and even physical form, was a reflection of ancient social structures more than timeless truth.

None of this is framed as scandal.
It’s framed as history.

She treats the Bible as a composite document, shaped by its authors' political needs, cultural assumptions, and religious rivalries. For example, the destruction of rival gods in the Old Testament like Baal, Asherah, and Molech may reflect not just spiritual warfare, but religious consolidation, where one priesthood or faction is trying to stamp out competing traditions.

In her book God: An Anatomy, she explores the physicality of the biblical God. Not metaphorically, but literally. The Bible often gives God a body: feet, hands, a back, a voice, and sometimes even emotions and appetites. Stavrakopoulou asks what that imagery meant in the ancient world, and how it shaped worship.

Her work challenges readers to set aside modern assumptions. Especially the idea that the Bible reflects a single, unified vision of God. Instead, she sees it as a literary battleground, where older religious ideas were reshaped, edited, and sometimes erased.

She doesn’t frame herself as anti-religion.
But she is unapologetically secular.
Her focus is not on faith, but on the text and the archaeology that surrounds it.

To Stavrakopoulou, understanding the Bible means stepping back from reverence and leaning into context: ancient cities, regional gods, and a slow process of religious editing that left traces behind.

She’s not trying to change anyone’s beliefs.
She’s just asking what the Bible says, and what it used to say before the edits.