Brant Gardner notes that after the brief introduction of the miracle of Christ’s birth, the angel does two important things for Nephi. The first is to identify the baby as the one who would fulfill the Messianic role, and the other is to clearly identify the Eternal Father as the very father of the child: “And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?” … The angel then continues to make the clear association of Christ and the tree by immediately tying the vision of the birth of the Savior back to the tree. [Brant Gardner, “Book of Mormon Commentary,” 1Nephi/1Nephi11.htm, p. 8]
“Knowest Thou the Meaning of the Tree Which Thy Father Saw”
According to Daniel Peterson, Nephi’s vision of the tree of life in 1 Nephi 11 expands upon the vision received earlier by his father, Lehi. In that vision Nephi wanted to know the meaning of the tree that his father had seen and that he himself now saw (see 1 Nephi 11:8-11). One would expect “the Spirit” to give a straightforward answer to Nephi’s question, but his response is surprising. He allows Nephi a vision of Nazareth and a virgin, “exceedingly fair and white” and then asks: “Knowest thou the condescension of God?” Nephi responds, “I do not know the meaning of all things.” Then the Spirit says, “Behold the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.” Nephi then sees that after she was carried away in the Spirit for a time, she once again appears bearing a child in her arms. The angel then says to Nephi: “Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Son of the Eternal Father!” (1 Nephi 11:12-21)
Then “the Spirit” asks Nephi the question that Nephi himself had posed only a few verses before: “Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?” (1 Nephi 11:21) Strikingly, though the vision of Mary seems irrelevant to Nephi’s original question about the significance of the tree--for the tree is nowhere mentioned in the angelic guide’s response--Nephi himself now replies that, yes, he knows the answer to his question. “It is the love of God … ” (1 Nephi 11:22-23)
Peterson then asks, How has Nephi come to this understanding? Clearly, the answer to his question about the meaning of the tree lies in the virgin mother with her child. It seems, in fact, that the virgin is the tree in some sense. Even the language used to describe her echoes that used for the tree. Just as she was “exceedingly fair and white,” “most beautiful and fair above all other virgins,” so was the tree’s beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.“ Significantly, though, it was only when she appeared with a baby and was identified as ”the mother of the Son of God" that Nephi grasped the tree’s meaning.
Why would Nephi see a connection between a tree and the virginal mother of a divine child? Peterson believes that Nephi’s vision reflects a meaning of the “sacred tree” that is unique to the ancient Near East, and that, indeed, can only be fully appreciated when the ancient Canaanite and Israelite associations of that tree with the worship of Asherah (the Mother Goddess) are borne in mind. Of course, Mary, the virgin girl of Nazareth seen by Nephi, was not literally Asherah. She was, as Nephi’s guide carefully stressed, simply “the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.” (1 Nephi 11:18) But she was the perfect mortal typification of the mother of the Son of God. [Daniel C. Peterson, “Nephi & His Asherah,” in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies , FARMS, Vol. 9, Num. 2, 2000, pp. 16-18, 22]
Note* In order to better understand the concept of Asherah, I will refer to reader to the remarks of another author below. But before I do, I will also note that this vision of Nephi’s concerning Mary and the Son of God has many similarities to a vision given to King Benjamin. For that reason I will refer the reader to the commentary on Mosiah 3. As a final note, the reader should be aware that in the first edition, 1 Nephi 11:18 significantly read “mother of God” rather than the “mother of the son of God.” This seems to be even a stronger link to the concept of Asherah, the Mother Goddess of all gods.
Now the excerpts which follow are taken from an article by Fred Collier (“The Common Origin of Ancient Hebrew/Pagan Religion and the Demise of the Hebrew Goddess”). Though I do not subscribe to many of his beliefs, nevertheless in reviewing his article I found a number of items worthy of consideration concerning the veneration of Asherah in ancient Israel. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]
Fred Collier writes:
Archaeological excavations have revealed that although there were many languages and cultures which existed in the ancient Near East, their ideas about God and religion were incredibly alike--and this rule of thumb does not altogether except the Hebrews. The gods of the Pagans went by different names, but for the most part, the roles which they played all seemed to follow a basic pattern What is significant here is that anthropomorphic polytheism along with belief in a Father and Mother in Heaven was one of the most fundamental beliefs. Not only so, but it was a belief which prevailed from the time of Adam to Christ, and that too, in both Pagan and Hebrew religion. This is in sharp contrast to the religion of abstract monotheism which, as scholars have discovered, did not come into existence until the time of the Greek philosophers who first invented it. In fact abstract monotheism or so called pure monotheism of any kind is entirely foreign to the Bible Even in Isaiah there is plenty that remains from the old religion of the Patriarchs.
To the Patriarchs, the gods were many, but their loyalties centered in the supreme God whose name was El. El was “the father of the gods” and the “father of men,” the “creator of created things,” the “father of years,” He was conceived of “as an old man with a white beard.” He was “wise,” “benevolent” and “merciful.” He was also married and His wife’s name was Asherah, and together they ruled supreme among the gods. The whole pantheon was a patriarchal order, composed of the sons and daughters of two heavenly parents who were thought of as God the Father and God the Mother--El and Asherah. It is significant that El and Asherah were thought of in the same light as Eloheim and wife are in Mormon theology, and as it turns out this is with good reason, for Eloheim is the plural expression of the divine name El, and throughout the Old Testament, El and Eloheim alternate interchangeably as different names for the same great God.
In accordance with Patriarchal religion, the creation of man in the image and likeness of God as described in Genesis was originally understood in terms of procreation. That this is so is still manifest in the fifth chapter of Genesis where the same words, “image” and “likeness” are used to describe the birth of Seth and the resemblance which he bore to his father Adam. On two different occasions the New Testament perpetuates this same tradition: first in the book of Luke where it states that Adam was the son of God just as Seth was the son of Adam (Luke 3:38); and then again in Acts where it is declared that “we are the offspring of God.” (Acts 17:28-29) All this fits in perfectly with the old patriarchal religion, for not only was El declared to be the Father of all the gods in heaven, He was also believed to be the Father of all mankind on earth.
In ancient Canaanite texts it is attested that El and Asherah worship was associated with images or idols and the Bible indicates that the Patriarchs made use of these in their cultic rituals. Now before any of you jump out of your skin, you should realize that there was more than one form of idolatry, and the form to which the Patriarchs subscribed was not the worship of a stone or a carved image under the delusion that it was God. They did not worship the image any more than we worship the Christus statue in the visitors center. The images used by the Patriarchs and Prophets during the early period of the Old Testament were thought of in the same way … that ancient Israel thought of the Ark of the Covenant.
In the case of the Patriarchs, it was customary to set up a sacred stone pillar near a sacred tree and to consecrate it with oil. Often this would be in some high place on a hill or in the mountains. The stone pillar was to symbolize the presence of the Father God, El, and it is believed by many that these sacred stones were the original meaning behind such divine names as “the Stone of israel,” or “The Rock of Jacob.” On the other hand, the sacred tree was to symbolize the presence of El’s wife and our Heavenly Mother, Asherah. Another method of depicting Asherah was to carve the figure of a woman in a log and plant it upright in the ground like an Indian totem pole. Usually it would be planted under a large spreading leafy tree or in a grove of trees, where both the sacred stone and the sacred tree or pole would stand side by side.
It is regrettable that most of the references to sacred trees have been obscured in the King James translation. This is because the Kings James version was based on the Masoretic Text which was tampered with by Jewish interpreters in an effort to remove the implication of Asherah worship. However, other Old Testament manuscripts have survived, and these consistently show that sacred trees formed a part of Patriarchal religion, and this information is now available in some of the newer translations of the Bible. One example of this is found in the beginning of the eighteenth chapter of Genesis. The King James translation says that “the Lord appeared unto [Abraham] in the plains of Mamre.” But the Jerusalem Bible translation says that “Yahweh appeared to him at the Oak of Mamre.”
Fortunately, even in the King James translation a vestige of Asherah worship as practiced by the Patriarchs still remains. It is found in the twenty first chapter of Genesis, where it is stated that Abraham planted an grove, and called upon Jehovah the Everlasting El.
Anciently to a Hebrew woman fertility was considered as the greatest blessing from the Lord, and to be barren was to be cursed. Even in the creation, the first law of heaven as decreed by God was to “multiply and replenish the Earth.” Bearing this in mind the importance of Asherah worship to the Patriarchs and their wives is easy to understand, for it wa believed among Hebrews that Asherah “promoted fertility in women and facilitated childbirth.” Asherah was the wife of El and the primordial mother of all gods and men and all this came about through the power of procreation. In the most perfect sense of the word Asherah and El were the Fountain of Life and the ultimate symbol thereof.
Yet the worship of Asherah became corrupt. What was originally intended to be reserved for the marriage bed began to be passed out indiscriminately in public affairs which were nothing less than a communal sex orgy. Images to Asherah were erected all over the hill country, almost as it were under every green tree, and whole communities would go up to these altars and have an orgy.
It is in this area that there was a great distinction between the religion of the Patriarchs and that of the Canaanites. The difference was not in the idea that they prayed to a different God, for they did not. Nor was the difference to be found in the practice of their rituals. The great distinction between the religion of the Patriarchs and that of their neighbors was their belief in the basic morality of God. It was a belief in a certain moral code of right and wrong which God had given to His children, but which through varying degrees of degeneration, other cultures had lost sight of.
Thus, during the 400 years that passed between the Patriarchs and the time of Moses, the land of Canaan went through several significant religious changes. Probably the most important of these is found in the fact that an alien Storm God by the name of Baal Haddu was imported into Canaan and ultimately succeeded in displacing El and becoming the ruling god of the pantheon. There is no reference to Baal in Genesis, but by the time of Moses his cult flourished in Canaan. He is first mentioned in the twenty second chapter of the Book of Numbers.
Originally Baal was the son of Dagon, but once his cult succeeded in becoming strong he was written into the mythologies as though he was one of El’s sons… . Finally El even lost Asherah to Baal, who took her for his wife. Thus all over the hill country in Canaan, there were stone pillars erected to Baal with an image of Asherah standing at his side, and all the communities in Canaan would go up to these and in the process of worshiping Asherah and Baal commit whoredom.
When God first appeared to Moses in the desert He identified Himself as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” In continuing, the Lord instructed Moses to go down into Egypt and tell the children of Israel that “Yahweh the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” had sent him to them.
It has already been stated that the God El was thought of as an exalted man. Still in both Israelite and Canaanite religion, El’s cultic symbol was the bull. even in the Bible God is referred to as the “Bull of Jacob.” Many scholars have argued that the symbol of a bull was intended to signify El’s prolific powers as the great procreator of all gods and men. In other words the basic idea was that of a fertility symbol, which took the form of a copulating bull. Still others have thought that the Bull symbolizes power and strength. It is significant that Baal also took on this same royal symbol. Sometimes he was portrayed standing on a bull, and at other times he was depicted with a helmet on, which had horns coming out of each side.
The evidence indicates that a symbol for the presence of Yahweh/El was the intended meaning of the Golden Calf. “The word calf does not preclude the figure of a mature ox (Psalm 106:20)” which was constructed by the children of Israel in the desert. The Encyclopedia Judaica makes the following statement: “The rabbis report that the golden calf was made as a replica of the bull in the divine throne. This tradition corresponds to the religious ideas current at that time in the Near East. Reference to the ”heavenly bull“ is found in very ancient Egyptian sources. The bull was considered to be the seat of different gods in Egypt, Babylonia, and Aram In Israelite tradition the bull formed part of the divine throne. The same is also true of he other two calves which were built later in the northern Kingdom by Jeroboam, and set up in Dan and at Bethel. In all three cases the scriptures clearly state that in the mind of those who constructed them the image was built to Yahweh/El, the true God of Israel. In speaking with reference to the Golden Calf, it states ”Here is your God, Israel“ … ”who brought you out of the land of Egypt!"
It is [Fred Collier’s] opinion that the real cause for offense on this occasion is to be found in the nature of the celebration which they held the following day in honor of Yahweh/El. To be sure it was the image which inspired their transgression, but it was what Moses found them doing when he came down from the mount which was so abhorrent. The scriptures tell us that after they had offered sacrifices, “then all the people sat down to eat and drink, and afterwards got up to amuse themselves.”
It is this terse comment on the end which wants looking into. They “go up to amuse themselves.” Another version reads they “got up to indulge in revelry.” The Septuagint suggests that they were having a sex orgy, and most scholars and commentaries agree that this is the case.
There was no mention of the presence of Asherah at the festival, but you can bet her image was there, for in the mind of ancient Israel Yahweh/El and Asherah were a pair--they went together--and besides, one without the other just would not do for an orgy.
Moses’ response to what he found taking place as he descended the mount is found in the book of Exodus: “Who is for Yahweh? [come] To me!” he called out. “And all the sons of Levi rallied to him. And he said to them, This is the message of Yahweh, the God of Israel, Gird on your sword, every man of you, and quarter the camp from gate to gate, killing one his brother, another his friend, another his neighbor” … “and of the people about three thousand men perished that day.”
In other words kill anyone and everyone that comes in your sight, friend or foe, father, brother or son, for the whole camp of Israel were guilty. The old patriarchal religion had become corrupt. Even in the case of Israel their concept of the morality of God had become degenerate.
The result was that the use of nay image or idol as a symbol for God’s person was outlawed. From then on, worship would take place completely void of any visual personification of a person… . They knew that God was a man, but it was contrary to their law for them to portray Him as such through the use of any drawing, image or idol. They also knew that God was their father, and that of necessity He had a wife who was their mother, but it was against the law of Moses for them to acknowledge her existence in any of their cultic rituals. Hence, the worship of our Mother in Heaven was outlawed all together. The 16th chapter of Deuteronomy proclaims the new law: “Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to Yahweh your God, and do not erect a sacred stone, for these Yahweh your God hates.”
And what did the Lord have in store for the Canaanites? The scriptures say that their cup was full to overflowing. “Thou shalt utterly destroy,” the Lord said
But, as the Old Testament record faithfully attests, old ideas as basic to life and human nature as belief in a Mother in Heaven did not die easily! One would suppose from the Lord’s devastating edict that Asherah worship would have come to a quick end, but it continued to flourish among the children of Israel for more than 600 years after they entered Canaan According to Raphael Patai, for hundreds of years the image of Asherah stood next to the altar of Yahweh/El in the temple and as such both Yahweh/El and Asherah were understood to be Husband and Wife, the supreme God and Goddess of the universe. After rehearsing the whole history, Patai summarized his findings as follows:
We find that the worship of Asherah, which had been popular among the Hebrew tribes for three centuries, was introduced into the Jerusalem Temple by King Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, in or about 928 B.C. Her statue was worshiped in the Temple for 35 years, until King Asa removed it in 893 B.C. It was restored to the Temple by King Joash in 825 B.C. and remained there for a full century, until King Hezekiah removed it in 725 B.C. After an absence of 27 years, however, Asherah was back again in the Temple: This time it was King Manasseh who replaced her in 698 B.C. She remained in the Temple for 78 years, until the great reformer King Josiah removed her in 620 B.C. Upon Joshiah’s death eleven years alter (609 B.C.), she was again brought back into the Temple where she remained until its destruction 23 years later, in 586 BC. Thus it appears that of the 370 years during which the Solomonic Temple stood in Jerusalem, for no less than 236 years (or almost two-thirds of the time) the statue of Asherah was present in the Temple, and her worship was a part of the legitimate religion approved and led by the king, the court, and the priesthood and opposed by only a few prophetic voices crying out against it at relatively long intervals."
Reference is made to the male and female Cherubim which were found in the Temple at Jerusalem at the time of its destruction. The Law of Moses forbade the making of any image in the likeness of God, and it would seem that the Jews got around this by making images of Cherubim. These were fifteen-foot tall winged humans who were plated with gold and set in the Holy of Holies. They were portrayed in sexual embrace, and it is thought by many that their purpose was to symbolize what in accordance with their own law, they could not portray through the use of an image of Yahweh/El and Asherah. [Fred C. Collier, “"The Common Origin of Ancient Hebrew/Pagan Religion and the Demise of the Hebrew Goddess,” in Doctrine of the Priesthood, Vol. 8, No. 2, February 199, pp. 9-11, 21-42]
Daniel Peterson notes that the great reforming king Hezekiah removed Asherah from the Temple, along with the so-called Nehushtan, which 2 Kings 18:4 describes as “the brasen serpent that Moses had made.” The Nehustan was not a pagan intrusion, but had been carefully preserved by the Israelites for nearly a millennium until Hezekiah, offended by the idolatrous worship of “the children of Israel [who] did burn incense to it” (2 Kings 18:4), removed it and destroyed it. In other words, the Nehushtan had an illustrious pedigree entirely within the religious world of Israel, and there is no reason to believe that the asherah was any different in this respect. Moreover, what is striking in the long story of Israel’s Asherah is the identity of those who did not oppose her. No prophet appears to have denounced Asherah before the eighth century B.C… . What was the “asherah” that stood in the temple at Jerusalem and in Samaria? Asherah was associated with trees. A 10th-century cultic stand from Ta’anach, near Megiddo, features two representations of Asherah; first in human form and then as a sacred tree. She is the tree.
Peterson adds that the menorah, the seven branched candelabrum that stood for centuries in the temple of Jerusalem, supplies an interesting parallel to all of this: Leon Yardmen maintains that the menorah represents a stylized almond tree. He points to the notably radiant whiteness of the almond tree at certain points in its life cycle. Yardmen also argues that the archaic Greek name of the almond (amygdala, reflected in its contemporary botanical designation s Amygdalin communis), almost certainly not a native Greek word, is almost likely derived from the Hebrew e gedolah, meaning “Great Mother.” [Daniel C. Peterson, “Nephi & His Asherah,” in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies , FARMS, Vol. 9, Num. 2, 2000, pp. 19-20, 22] [See the commentary on Alma 7:10; Alma 39:3]
Warning* Readers should be aware that in Peterson’s original article which appeared in Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World, there is a footnote in which Peterson tries to disassociate himself from any false doctrine that might be implied by his article. The footnote reads as follows:
William J. Hamblin, Paul Y. Hoskisson, Dana M. Pike, Matthew Roper, and John A. Tvedtnes furnished several interesting references and, with Deborah D. Peterson, offered useful comments on earlier drafts of this essay. Of course, the author alone is responsible for the paper’s arguments and conclusions.
So that there will be no mistake about my position, let me briefly speak rather more personally: this essay should not be misinterpreted as a brief for theological or ecclesiological innovation within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of that church have long understood and accepted the idea of a divine Mother in Heaven. If further information or instruction relating to her is to be made public, my conviction is that this will come through revelation to the proper authorities, not through agitation nor even, in any significant way, through scholarship. Unless and until revelation dictates otherwise, I believe that we are to stay within the bounds set by our canonical scriptures on this matter. I suspect that the ancient notion of Asherah as the wife of El reflects true doctrine, albeit frequently garbled and corrupted. I suspect, furthermore, that it was such garbling and corruption that impelled the Deuteronomistic reformers, whom I believe to have been inspired, to oppose and suppress the veneration of Asherah, just as they opposed and suppressed the veneration of the Nehushtan of Moses. My suspicions are not, however, essential to the fundamental thesis of this paper, which is simply that the representation, by a tree, of a divine consort bearing a divine child--to us a rather unexpected juxtaposition--was intelligible to Nephi because, whatever his personal opinion of Asherah may have been, such symbolism was familiar to him. (Daniel C. Peterson, “Nephi and His Asherah,” in Mormons, Scripture, and the Ancient World: Studies in Honor of John L. Sorenson, pp. 218-219)
Readers should also note that Fred Collier was excommunicated from the Church. Furthermore, that the tree represents Christ is apparent from 1 Nephi 11:7: “And behold this thing shall be given unto thee for a sign, that after thou hast beheld the tree which bore the fruit which thy father tasted, thou shalt also behold a man descending out of heaven, and him shall ye witness; and after ye have witnessed him ye shall bear record that it is the Son of God.” [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]
Note* The Book of Mormon claims that the ancient Americans were taught the gospel (for example, see 2 Nephi 30:5). Richardson, Richardson and Bentley write that one of the “mysteries” of the gospel is that we have a Mother in Heaven.* This concept was first taught and publicly announced in The Mormon (August 29, 1857, pp. 348-351). It is also mentioned in an early poem by Eliza R. Snow called “O May Father,” which was alter set to music and has become a favorite LDS hymn.
An evidence that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church is the fact that the ancient Americans also believed in a Mother in Heaven. Though this concept is not mentioned in the Book of Mormon, it is an important principle of the eternal gospel that was taught in its fullness in ancient America. According to Laurette Sejourne, the ancient Americans believed in “a place where there are the great God and Goddess.”
Other ancient American documents speak of a heavenly Father and Mother of Life. According to the Popol Vuh, (a modern translation of the ancient history of the Quiche’ Maya of Guatemala): “These are the names of the divinity, arranged in pairs of creators in accord with the dual conception of the Quiche’: Tzacol and Bitol, Creator and Maker, … Mother and Father, they are the Great Father and the Great Mother, so called by the Indians, according to Las Casas; and they were in heaven.”
*The Latter-day Saint concept of a Mother in Heaven is that of a glorified, perfected, and eternal woman who has lived with The Father as His eternal companion from the beginning--She is not Mary the mother of Jesus as taught by a few other religions. Likewise, Latter-day Saints do not worship, nor do they pray to Her. [Allen H. Richardson, David E. Richardson and Anthony E. Bentley, 1000 Evidences for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Part Two-A Voice from the Dust: 500 Evidences in Support of the Book of Mormon, pp. 38-39]