Deuteronomy 16:21-22—"Do not set up any wooden Asherah pole beside the altar you build to the Lord your God, and do not erect a sacred stone, for these the Lord your God hates."
In no way does the passage say that it is permissible for Gentiles to worship Asherah and that it is exclusively evil for Israelites to do the same, as the text must directly state in order to truly declare the kind of relativism that Rabbinic Jews and evangelical Christians pretend is taught in other miscellaneous cases (the former would arbitrarily think pagan worship is one of only very specific things which are evil for Gentiles as well). What these verses in Deuteronomy do say is that God despises Asherah poles and that they are incompatible with ethically worshiping what is elsewhere in the same book presented as the only God (Deuteronomy 4:35-39, 32:39), with worshiping false gods/goddesses being invalid. Moreover, Deuteronomy repeatedly brings up how morality is the same for Jews and Gentiles because it is simply morality, sometimes with particular examples of intrinsic evils and sometimes without (4:5-8, 8:19-20, 9:4-6, 12:29-31, 18:9-14, 20:16-18).
An abundance of similar declarations are found throughout the Bible. Genesis (15:13-16), Leviticus (18:5-30, 20:1-27), Old Testament books outside the Torah (Ezekiel 5:5-7, Isaiah 2:2-4, Jeremiah 18:5-10, Zechariah 14:16-19, etc.), and the New Testament (such as in Romans 3:9-31) all teach that morality is the same for both Jews (or their ancestors in the case of Genesis 15) and Gentiles, directly mentioning non-Jews/non-Israelites as being under the same moral standard. Other verses that do not specifically mention Israelites and Gentiles nonetheless condemn certain acts as evil in themselves or clearly present the components of the Law Yahweh revealed to Moses as binding on all people at all times (Genesis 9:4-6, Exodus 21:12-32, Ecclesiastes 12:14, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, and so on).
More specifically pertaining to the worship of Asherah, Chapter 14 of the book of 1 Kings also refers to such practice explicitly as a sin when conducted by non-Israelites. In typical Old Testament fashion, these verses speak of sins of the Gentiles, sometimes called "the nations" beyond Israelite society, using plural language to indicate multiple kinds of sins, with only one key example or category highlighted. Keep in mind that for something to be morally detestable, it must be inherently evil, and so anyone who engages in must be guilty. For the sake of the focus of this post, though 1 Kings 14:22-24 does mention an additional example/category of the sins of these Gentile groups beyond idolatry, I will only include the references to pagan or distorted forms of worship out of the detestable deeds brought up:
1 Kings 14:22-24—"Judah did evil in the eyes of the Lord. By the sins they committed they stirred up his jealous anger more than those who were before them had done. They also set up for themselves high places, sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree . . . the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites."
In Deuteronomy 16, God is said to hate Asherah poles themselves, as particular forms of expressing devotion to pagan philosophies. Whether a Gentile installs such a thing in a land occupied by other Gentiles or an Israelite sets up such a thing is logically and Biblically irrelevant. The same is true of whether a person used an Asherah pole before or after the Law is formally revealed as codified in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Using a pole to worship Asherah or by extension any other being besides Yahweh, from an actual being to a false deity, is either evil or it is not, and no inconsistencies (like those of moral relativism) are logically possible. One moral standard for Israelites and another for Gentiles, a form of relativism and hypocrisy and a racist one at that, is illogical already. And Deuteronomy 16 alone makes it clear what the Biblical position is on Asherah poles and worship of the goddess!
1 Kings 14 says something similar with even more emphatic straightforwardness. Gentile nations in the Promised Land before the Israelites sinned by using Asherah poles and engaging in pagan worship, both using illicit means of worship and by worshiping false gods or lesser beings than Yahweh. After all, even if a being like Baal exists, even according to the mythology featuring it, it did not exist without a cause and bring the cosmos into existence. It is a mere created being itself. Its nature would not ground morality or be worthy of reverence for any person of any ancestry. An idol constructed by human effort would not even be the same as the alleged god or goddess it depicts, making idol worship even further removed from the only worship of a deity that could be valid (worship of an actual uncaused cause and not a nonexistent entity or an object composed of mere matter). Hence, as Paul says in the New Testament, it is a logical fact that worshiping the natural world or idols created from materials in the natural world springs from delusion (Romans 1:22-23).
There is no exception for Gentiles or for those who have access to neither the Torah nor the evidence for its veracity, as fallible as evidence is and as secondary as such matters are to pure logic. If something is evil, it is evil, for this is its nature no matter the gender, race, nationality, class, location, etc. of the evildoer. Nor could not knowing the exact objective obligations absolve someone of guilt. Indeed, no person can know morality exists anyway: at most, human limitations allow us to discover evidences for the truth of a certain moral system, but there is no logical necessity in morality existing because a book says so, because there is evidence that the contents of the book are true, and especially not because of conscience (personal intuitions/feelings about morality).
But all the things articulated here are true regardless. Morality must be universal if it exists, with all people capable of an action being required to engage in it or abstain from it if it is obligatory or evil respectively. Literal inability to do something is the only reason some people could logically be exempted from a genuine moral duty. For instance, a man or woman unable to walk cannot be obligated to run over to rescue someone else from an assault. A person in the 21st century cannot be obligated to avoid eating fruit in the first four years of the Israelite possession of the Promised Land (Leviticus 19:23-25) since this window of time has passed.
Worship of the goddess Asherah is just one of many potential ways a person could err from worship of Yahweh on Judeo-Christianity, the morality of the act not contingent on historical setting or covenant status with Yahweh. The terms of the Mosaic ("Old") Covenant for the Israelites entails doing what is in the vast majority of cases already morally required of all people. Other narratives in the books of Kings attest to this as well, some using Asherah worship as an example just like 1 Kings 14.
2 Kings 21 1) calls practices like Asherah worship evil and thus intrinsically immoral (21:2 6), 2) repeatedly condemns Gentiles for carrying out the very same practices which make Jews guilty (21:2, 9), and 3) equates violating Mosaic Law with transgressing universal moral obligations that other people and cultures are likewise under (21:8-9). Some of these exact actions are separately condemned in Deuteronomy 18:9-13, such as human sacrifice of one's son or daughter or consulting the dead, as evils pervading Gentile societies for which God would drive them out of their land. There are so many affirmations in the Bible that the Law of Moses is not an arbitrary contrivance made to encourage racist separation between Jews and Gentiles. In 2 Kings 21 and elsewhere, there is also no escape for the Rabbinic Jew or pseudo-Christian who thinks that Biblical morality is culturally or racially relative:
2 Kings 21:1-11—"Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem fifty-five years . . . He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, following the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said. 'In Jerusalem I will put my Name.' In the two courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced divination, sought omens, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger. He took the carved Asherah pole he had made and put it in the temple, of which the Lord had said to David and to his son Solomon, 'In this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my Name forever. I will not again make the feet of the Israelites wander from the land I gave their ancestors, if only they will be careful to do everything I commanded them and will keep the whole Law that my servant Moses gave them.' But the people did not listen. Manasseh led them astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites."
In contrast, 2 Kings 23 mentions a righteous king who opposes Asherah worship along with that of other false deities, which the passage call vile and detestable alleged deities of various Gentile groups. No divine lenience is extended to these Gentiles because of some nonexistent double standard or because they did not have the Law formally revealed to them:
2 Kings 23:13-15—"The king also desecrated the high places that were east of Jerusalem on the south of the Hill of Corruption—the ones Solomon king of Israel had built for Ashtoreth the vile goddess of the Sidonians, for Chemosh the vile god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the people of Ammon. Josiah smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles and covered the site with human bones. Even the altar at Bethel, the high place made by Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had caused Israel to sin—even that altar and high place he demolished. He burned the high place and ground it to powder, and burned the Asherah pole also."
The Torah calls many things besides Asherah worship detestable, which as aforementioned already requires on its own that the worldview espoused by the text holds that thing as evil for literally anyone at all to practice. Another handful of examples come right after Deuteronomy 16:21-22.
Deuteronomy 17:1-5—"Do not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep that has any defect or flaw in it, for that would be detestable to him. If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in violation of his covenant, and contrary to my command has worshiped other gods, bowing down to them or to the sun or the moon or the stars in the sky, and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death."
If something is evil, it is evil for all people; if it is evil for all people, it is evil for Israelites, to whom the most elaborate moral revelation in the entire Bible is directly given. Particular mention of an action being wicked for the Israelites in no way contradicts Gentiles being under the same obligation, nor does it follow from one person or group receiving moral revelation that the morality of the behavior in question is irrelevant to or different for others. And even the isolated text says nothing to the contrary! No one reading Deuteronomy 17, which immediately follows Deuteronomy 16:21-22 and its obvious doctrine of universal obligation, without making assumptions would ever conclude that verses 17:1-5 say anything in conflict with the objective, rigid logical truths I just articulated. This includes when it comes to the particulars of just punishments, in this case, stoning someone who worships anything besides Yahweh to death. Worshiping anything besides Yahweh is a moral abomination for everyone, Jew or Gentile, man or woman (this is directly stated), old or young, rich or poor, able-bodied and disabled, etc.
And as mild as it is by comparison, sacrificing a blemished animal to God is likewise morally abominable in itself. It does not matter if a precursor to the Hebrews sacrificed a blemished animal long before Mosaic Law was revealed to the Israelites detailing objective morality binding on all people. Nor does it matter if a Gentile living on a completely separate continent at any time in history, before or after the initiation of the Old Covenant or the death or resurrection of Christ, is the one offering a blemished animal as a sacrifice to God, though they very likely would not associate names like Yahweh with this uncaused cause. As for the covenant referenced in the passage, yes, the Pentateuch does say God entered into a covenant specifically with Israelites, but this has nothing to do with whether the terms of the covenant, doing what is right and just, are automatically supposed to be relative to culture and ancestry according to the Bible. More importantly, if the Bible taught moral relativism as Rabbinic Judaism and evangelicalism hold, then Judeo-Christianity would be false due to contradicting logical facts about how moral duty, if it exists, cannot be relative for different communities.
Asherah is a false goddess, so worshiping her is immoral in itself not specifically because she is a goddess or because this constitutes the one manifestation of pagan practice that is evil for all people, but because morality is universal except where the very nature of the act itself requires otherwise, as with the subject of Leviticus 19:23-25. Some inside and outside the church, whether their allegiance is supposedly to Christianity, Judaism, or some form of humanism, entirely misunderstand the logically necessary nature of morality—morality does not exist by logical necessity, but some ideas about morality can only be false—and what the Old Testament itself puts forth about Mosaic Law. Today, Asherah worship might not be mainstream or practiced by anyone but some adherents of Neo-Paganism, but it would be no less evil today or for non-Israelites on actual Judeo-Christianity. The same is true of all other sins detailed in the Torah except where it is logically impossible for the obligations they deviate from to be universal.
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