What is the asherah pole mentioned in the Old Testament?

Answer 1

Until the Ugaritic tablets were deciphered from the 1930s onwards, most scholars did not even imagine that the biblical "asherahs" might symbolise a goddess. They interpreted "the asherahs" as either wooden poles, cult objects from Baal worship, or groves of trees. Very few linked "the asherahs" to a goddess found in passages such as I Kings 18, in which "prophets of Asherah" served Queen Jezebel. The first detailed study of Asherah in the Hebrew Bible after the Ugaritic discoveries concluded that "the asherah" represented both a wooden cult object and a goddess.

It is now evident that Asherah was the Hebrew fertility goddess. Numerous small statuettes of an erotically pregnant female have been found all over Israel and identified with Asherah. Inscriptions have even been found at two different sites, describing Asherah as the consort of Yahweh (God).

The "asherahs" were usually upright wooden objects, often standing beside altars, and in at least eight instances they are described as carved. So it seems they were not merely wooden poles, but probably quite large carved images. According to The Bible, an image of Asherah stood in the Temple in Jerusalem for about two-thirds of its existence.