“May I present my wife, Asherah?”

The Fort Wayne News Sentinel has a brief article on William Dever’s recent book, Does God have a Wife? Archaeology And Folk Religion In Ancient Israel (Eerdmans, 2005; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com). Actually, the report was more on his SBL session of the same topic. I particularly liked the quote from Dever which concluded the article:

After quoting a number of feminist scholars arguing for a female deity, Dever then quotes his five-year-old stepdaughter explaining why God must be both “a man and a woman.”

It’s because, she said, “half the people in the world are women and God has to be for everybody.”

God’s Big Toe

I came across what looks like a delightful children’s book by Rabbi Marc Gellman and Oscar de Mejo (Illustrator), called Does God Have a Big Toe?: Stories About Stories in the Bible (HarperTrophy, 1993; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com). This book has been around for a while (it won a number of children book prizes when it was first published in 1989), but I had never heard of it. The back cover describes the book this:

Reflecting Mr. Gellman’s lifelong love for his subject, this witty collection of midrashim provides a wonderful way to learn about and to share the stories of the Bible.

While I can’t recommend it without seeing it; it sure looks like it would be a great Christmas/Hanukkah gift!