Jezebel and Ahab Meeting Elijah in Naboth’s Vineyard by Sir Frank Dicksee (source)
Jezebel, the Painted Queen, is one of the most notorious women to have ever lived. Her name has come to literally mean a woman who uses sex to corrupt men and tempt them into sin. She is the ultimate trollop and has been slut shamed longer and more fiercely than any other woman in history. But why? Did she really lead her husband, King Ahab, astray from the paths of righteousness? Did she really use her womanly wiles as a weapon to destroy God’s chosen prophets? History and archeology suggest not. It seems as if Jezebel’s real “crime” was to embrace the Hebrew religion a little too well. Could she have been maligned not for turning Ahab away from Yahweh, but for keeping him loyal to Yahweh’s feminine side?
Most people don’t know it but Yahweh (AKA Jehovah or God or Allah) had a goddess consort named Asherah for thousands of years. In fact, Asherah may have been more than a consort. Just as a coin has two sides but is a single object, or like the Holy Trinity represents a single deity, Asherah may have been God’s female ‘face’ — the female hypostasis of God. This means that to venerate Asherah was not necessarily a distinct form of worship, but rather would have been an official part of the Hebrew religion itself.
Asherah disappeared from official Judeo-Christian dogma roughly three thousand years ago, but archeological evidence shows…
Read more: Jezebel and Asherah: Controlling a Culture by Slut Shaming the Queen | Saints, Sisters, and Sluts.
First Night History 
An academic argument that I have no intention of challenging.
With apologies to the late Jezebel, I quite like having her name as a description of a sexy and willful woman. I always think of Jezebels as desirable, powerful women, not bad ones.
Think I will stick with it.
Best wishes, Pete.
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