Sunday, March 20, 2011

When God Divorced.

Did God have a wife?

How irresistible a headline is that? That question reeled me in faster than Scarlett Johansson wrapped in nothing but the sports section, and that question was posed on MSNBC.com the other day.

According to Oxford scholar, Francesca Stavrakopoulous (she'd have to be a scholar to pronounce that), an early version of the Book of Kings mentions a deity named Asherah—God's wife. Asherah and her husband, Yahweh, were worshipped alongside each other in the ancient temples of the great Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

Over hundreds of years, as these texts were edited by greater numbers of males, Asherah was gradually phased out, effectively divorcing the couple and transforming God into Yahweh, single dad with custody of child, large and in charge.

Upon learning this, I felt compelled to acknowledge the elephant in the sanctuary, the question whose answer would have altered the history of world events like no other:

What if Mr. and Mrs. God had stayed married?

First of all, she would have told her husband to stop changing the outcomes of sporting events when players pointed up to him after touchdowns and dunks. On Sundays, he would have spent less time in front of the television and devoted more time to telling people they're welcome.

She would have prohibited him from speaking directly to George W. Bush and Pat Robertson, unless he agreed to let her correspond with Oprah and Barbara Walters.

Asherah would have insisted that he tone down the Book of Revelation, since he was a little obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons at the time.

She even may have told Yahweh to march down the street to Satan's house (he used to call him Stan) with a six-pack under his arm, knock on the door and apologize for breaking his weed eater, because that's how the whole thing started. Then invite Jezebel and the kids over for a little potluck and Sangria.

Finally, she would've mandated that next time he creates a human and he's holding that crescent wrench, he reads the manual more carefully, so he can avoid that issue he had with Rush Limbaugh where his nuts broke off, tragic victim of too much wrist torque.

"Me Damnit!" God barked. "I already broke off Nugent's nuts and released him into the wild."

"Remember, Hon—you can't twist so hard. Lefty loosey, righty tighty."

"You know what? I married way over my head. I don't deserve you." Kisses her forehead.

"You aren't so bad yourself. Remember when we met? You seemed so full of yourself with the whole 'I'm God' thing. And when I said "no way are you King of Kings.' You, always the Mr. Witty Guy, said, 'Yaweh.'

"Oh, I need to turn on the game. I think today, the teams that point up here the least will be the winners. I like to keep these guys on their toes."

She rested her head on his chest, his downy grizzle tickling the spot where her hair came out. "You're terrible," she said, drinking in the familiar aromas of wood smoke and Speedstick.

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