Did The LORD "originally have a wife called Ashera"?

IV Kings 21:7 He set also an idol of the grove, which he had made, in the temple of the Lord: concerning which the Lord said to David, and to Solomon his son: In this temple, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put my name for ever.

So, yes, unlike what some on a livestream were saying to a random objector to Catholicism - there actually was an Asherah idol in the temple.

But the thing is, the culprit was not Solomon but Manasses.

Check out verses 1 to 3 in the same chapter:

Manasses was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned five and fifty years in Jerusalem: the name of his mother was Haphsiba. And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, according to the idols of the nations, which the Lord destroyed from before the face of the children of Israel. And he turned, and built up the high places which Ezechias his father had destroyed: and he set up altars to Baal, and made groves, as Achab the king of Israel had done: and he adored all the host of heaven, and served them.

Now, I think Ezechias was around the time of Romulus - but King David was in times between the Fall of Troy and the founding of Rome.

The documents we have in the four books of kings (or two books, one of Samuel, one of Kings, or four books again, two of Samuel, two of Kings) do not say that the Asherah idol originally was part of the temple, but that this came as an intrusion, just as it would be totally erroneous to pretend St. Peter was venerating Pachamama back before Nero had him crucified, just because an intruder was doing so very recently, and arguably fairly close to the dark chapters of the Apocalypse.

But some people like to cherry pick some line of a document and ignore the rest.

I told the person he (or she?) was preferring fantasy novels on religious history over the actual documents. But it is true that this particular false goddess actually at one point was idolised in the Temple of the true God.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Eve of Holy Cross
13.IX.2022