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Asherah

In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “major northwest semitic mother goddess”. Today it says “goddess in ancient semitic religions”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-02. In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “major northwest semitic mother goddess”. Today it says “goddess in ancient semitic religions”.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Asherah (from Hebrew אשרה) generally taken as identitical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat (more pedantically but accurately ’A t irat ) was a major northwest Semitic mother goddess, appearing occasionally also in Akkadian sources as Ashratum / Ashratu and in Hittite as Asherdu(s) or Ashertu(s) or Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s) . In the Ugaritic texts (before 1200 BCE ) Athirat is three times called ’a t rt ym , ’A t irat yammi , 'Athirat of the Sea' or as more fully translated 'She who treads on the sea', the name understood by various translators and commentators to be from the Ugaritic root ’a t r 'stride' cognate with the Hebrew root ’šr of the same meaning. In those texts, Athirat is the consort of the god El and there is one reference to the 70 sons of Athirat, presumably the same as the 70 sons of El. She is clearly distinguished from ‘Ashtart (better known in English as Astarte). She is also called Elat (the feminine form of El) and Qodesh 'Holiness'. Among the Hittites this goddess appears as Asherdu(s) or Asertu(s), the consort of Elkunirsa and mother of either 77 or 88 sons. In Egypt, beginning in the 18th dynasty, a Semitic goddess named Qudshu ('Holiness') begins to appear prominently, equated with the native Egyptian goddess Hathor . Some think this is Athirat/Ashratu under her Ugaritic name Qodesh. This Qudshu seems not to be either ‘Ashtart or ‘Anat as both those goddesses appear under their own names and with quite different iconography and appear in at least one pictorial representation along with Qudshu. But in Persian , Hellenistic and Roman periods there was a strong tendency towards syncretism of goddesses and Athirat/Ashrtum then seems to have disappeared, at least as a prominent goddess under a recognizable name. Biblical references have been taken to indicate that a goddess Asherah was worshipped in Israel and Judah , as the Queen of Heaven whose worship Jeremiah so vehemently opposed: "Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger." — Jeremiah 7:17–18 "...to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem" —Jeremiah 44:16 The Hebrews baked small cakes for her festival. But the word asherah also refers to a standing pole of some kind, pluralized as a masculine noun when it has that meaning. Among the Hebrews' Phoenician neighbors, tall standing stone pillars signified the numinous presence of a deity, and the asherahs may have been a rustic reflection of these. Or asherah may mean a living tree or grove of trees and therefore in some contexts mean a shrine. Many older translations render Asherah as 'grove'. There is still disagreement among scholars as to the extent to which Asherah (or various goddesses classed as Asherahs) was/were worshipped in Israel and Judah and whether such a goddess or class of goddesses is necessarily identical to the goddess Athirat/Ashratu. Most of the 40 references to Asherah in the Hebrew Bible derive from sources edited by the Deuteronomist . Her idols were found also in forests , carved on living trees , or in the form of poles beside altars that were placed at the side of some roads. When the young reformer Hezekiah came to the throne of Judah: "He removed the high places, and broke the pillars ( massebahs ), and cut down the Asherah." (2 Kings 18.4). In the Authorized Version of the Bible , the name Asherah is always mistranslated "grove": that error caused a theory that "the Hebrews cut down all the sacred groves, whereupon the land soon stopped flowing with milk and honey": see deforestation .1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16127581.
Today
In 2005 Wikipedia's first sentence called it “major northwest semitic mother goddess”. Today it says “goddess in ancient semitic religions”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined between 2005 and 6 October 2023.

Then

major northwest semitic mother goddess

Now

fertility goddess in ancient semitic religion who appears in a number of ancient sources

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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