Usually rendered as Aholibamah in English.
Genesis 36 names her as one of the wives of Esav (Esau), the mother of Ye'ush, Ya'lam and Korach, all of whom became Edomite chieftains. She was the sister of Dishon and the daughter of Anah, himself the son of Tsiv'on the Chivite, or perhaps Chorite (different verses of the same chapter offer both), who were the original inhabitants of Se'ir before Esav turned it into Edom.
However, verse 24 transforms Ahali-Vamah into an Edomite tribe herself, which is as if a hidden clue to the secret - a matriarchal order with Esav and Yishma-El, after Adam, as tribal hero-ancestors! Who was the goddess? Chavah again? The roots and links will illuminate:
First Ohel (אהל), which is "a tent", or "tabernacle", and especially the Ohel Mo'ed (מועדאהל), the Tent of Meeting also called the Tabernacle of the Covenant, which Mosheh erected in the wilderness. This was a moveable and portable temple (cf Exodus 26 and 36). The Ohel was the outer covering of the tent, consisting of twelve curtains of goat's hair, one for each tribe, but also one for each zodiacal deity. The word Ohel lost its basic meaning when the nomadic Beney Yisra-El became sedentary; a secondary meaning of habitation then took over, as in Ohel David (דודאהל) meaning the House of David. Ezekiel 41:1 uses it to mean the Temple itself (וַיְבִיאֵנִי אֶל הַהֵיכָל וַיָּמָד אֶת הָאֵילִים שֵׁשׁ אַמּוֹת רֹחַב מִפּוֹ וְשֵׁשׁ אַמּוֹת רֹחַב מִפּוֹ רֹחַב הָאֹהֶל), though most English translations ignore the final word - ha Ohel - presumably because they think it is some sort of an error.
However, verse 24 transforms Ahali-Vamah into an Edomite tribe herself, which is as if a hidden clue to the secret - a matriarchal order with Esav and Yishma-El, after Adam, as tribal hero-ancestors! Who was the goddess? Chavah again? The roots and links will illuminate:
First Ohel (אהל), which is "a tent", or "tabernacle", and especially the Ohel Mo'ed (מועדאהל), the Tent of Meeting also called the Tabernacle of the Covenant, which Mosheh erected in the wilderness. This was a moveable and portable temple (cf Exodus 26 and 36). The Ohel was the outer covering of the tent, consisting of twelve curtains of goat's hair, one for each tribe, but also one for each zodiacal deity. The word Ohel lost its basic meaning when the nomadic Beney Yisra-El became sedentary; a secondary meaning of habitation then took over, as in Ohel David (דודאהל) meaning the House of David. Ezekiel 41:1 uses it to mean the Temple itself (וַיְבִיאֵנִי אֶל הַהֵיכָל וַיָּמָד אֶת הָאֵילִים שֵׁשׁ אַמּוֹת רֹחַב מִפּוֹ וְשֵׁשׁ אַמּוֹת רֹחַב מִפּוֹ רֹחַב הָאֹהֶל), though most English translations ignore the final word - ha Ohel - presumably because they think it is some sort of an error.
And lastly, in this regard, when Yitschak first encounters Rivkah (Genesis 24:67), we are told he "brought her into his mother Sarah's tent (אהלה שרה), and took Rivkah, and she became his wife". The reference to the tent in this context is significant. Sarah is the Yehudit form of Aramaic Asherah, the same fertility goddess whom we keep encountering under a variety of different names. That the sacred marriage of her priestess with the priest-king of the Beney Yisra-El should take place in the Ohel, the tent of "ritual harlotry", which is to say "sacred mariage", is perfectly logical; on the other hand, Biblical scholars have wrestled with their moral consciences for years at the idea that Yitschak should have bedded Rivkah so soon upon meeting her, and in his mother's tent at that! In fact, even today, the canopy or chupah under which the bride and groom are married, is still often referred to as the Ohel Sarah.
Thus there is always a religious connotation to the word Ohel, which cannot be ignored in Ahali-Vamah's name. It goes much further however:
Aholah (אהלה) was "a harlot", in the sense that the hierodules of the temples of the fertility goddess served as "ritual prostitutes" in the orgiastic ceremonies of Astarte and Anat. This must be understood without our modern-day moral frowns of disapproval: it was a great honour to be chosen to participate in the sacred marriage, and a priestess spent many years of training and preparation before she was deemed worthy of the honour of standing in as surrogate for the goddess in the ceremony that mimed the Creation of the Universe itself. Biblical harlots - despite the story of Yehudah and Tamar, which is a late derogation of the ritual - should not be perceived as sluttish and woe-begone women of ill repute, selling their bodies to Everyman for a few shekels. Without doubt Mary Magdalene was an Aholah of the goddess Anat, and participated with Jesus in the ritual marriage: anointing him with oil of myrrh, leading him in the palm procession, etc, exactly as still happened in Europe into the late Middle Ages, in the rites of the May King and May Queen, and can still be seen today in some parts of Europe, for example in the "Fête de Filets Bleus" in Concarneau in Brittany.
The practice of ritual "prostitution" was anathematised by the Prophets and the post-exilic Rabbis. Thus Ezekiel 23:4 uses the term Aholah to describe the idol-worshiping Samaritans; in the same verse he describes Yehudah as Aholivah (אהליבה) with the same meaning and from the same root word, a construct also used by the prophet Hosheya (Hosea) in 4:14.
Second there is Bamah (במה). The raised area in a modern synagogue is known as a Bimah. and takes its name from the same root, which means "a high place", but is only ever used in the Tanach in its plural form, Bamot, to refer to those sacred groves to the "pagan" deities located on every hilltop, usually a wooded grove, usually belonging to the goddess, and usually focused either on a single sacred tree of great age, or a circle of planted trees - Eden is such a place. Frazer's Golden Bough explores this in great depth, and should be referred to. When we are told that Esav, the priest-king of the Edomites, married Ahali-Vamah, either the priestess of the grove or in a sense the grove itself, we understand that the sacred marriage is taking place. This is no mere royal wedding, but a religious ceremony as well.
Ahali-Vamah thus becomes quite specifically the hierodule at such a sacred grove, and for those who still think this is a case of a scholar reading into these names what he wishes to find there, rather than accepting them for what they are, it may be suggested that no parent of middle class virtuousness is likely to name their daughter "harlot of the sacred grove" without a maleficent wish to encourage bullying and bad karma on them. The "name" is self-evidently not a name at all, but a title, or an epithet.
One other reference. According to 1 Chronicles 3:20, there was an Ohel who was a son of Zeru-Bavel, the man who led the first group of Yehudim back from exile in 536 BCE (Ezra 2:1-2).
And one final comment. The wikipedia entry, at the time of my writing this, tells us that a hierodule was simply a girl captured in war, raped, and then placed in that section of the Temple used as a brothel. As I have counselled before: do not use wikipedia; or use it, but assume that it is probably - often, as in this case, insultingly - wrong.
Thus there is always a religious connotation to the word Ohel, which cannot be ignored in Ahali-Vamah's name. It goes much further however:
Aholah (אהלה) was "a harlot", in the sense that the hierodules of the temples of the fertility goddess served as "ritual prostitutes" in the orgiastic ceremonies of Astarte and Anat. This must be understood without our modern-day moral frowns of disapproval: it was a great honour to be chosen to participate in the sacred marriage, and a priestess spent many years of training and preparation before she was deemed worthy of the honour of standing in as surrogate for the goddess in the ceremony that mimed the Creation of the Universe itself. Biblical harlots - despite the story of Yehudah and Tamar, which is a late derogation of the ritual - should not be perceived as sluttish and woe-begone women of ill repute, selling their bodies to Everyman for a few shekels. Without doubt Mary Magdalene was an Aholah of the goddess Anat, and participated with Jesus in the ritual marriage: anointing him with oil of myrrh, leading him in the palm procession, etc, exactly as still happened in Europe into the late Middle Ages, in the rites of the May King and May Queen, and can still be seen today in some parts of Europe, for example in the "Fête de Filets Bleus" in Concarneau in Brittany.
The practice of ritual "prostitution" was anathematised by the Prophets and the post-exilic Rabbis. Thus Ezekiel 23:4 uses the term Aholah to describe the idol-worshiping Samaritans; in the same verse he describes Yehudah as Aholivah (אהליבה) with the same meaning and from the same root word, a construct also used by the prophet Hosheya (Hosea) in 4:14.
Second there is Bamah (במה). The raised area in a modern synagogue is known as a Bimah. and takes its name from the same root, which means "a high place", but is only ever used in the Tanach in its plural form, Bamot, to refer to those sacred groves to the "pagan" deities located on every hilltop, usually a wooded grove, usually belonging to the goddess, and usually focused either on a single sacred tree of great age, or a circle of planted trees - Eden is such a place. Frazer's Golden Bough explores this in great depth, and should be referred to. When we are told that Esav, the priest-king of the Edomites, married Ahali-Vamah, either the priestess of the grove or in a sense the grove itself, we understand that the sacred marriage is taking place. This is no mere royal wedding, but a religious ceremony as well.
Ahali-Vamah thus becomes quite specifically the hierodule at such a sacred grove, and for those who still think this is a case of a scholar reading into these names what he wishes to find there, rather than accepting them for what they are, it may be suggested that no parent of middle class virtuousness is likely to name their daughter "harlot of the sacred grove" without a maleficent wish to encourage bullying and bad karma on them. The "name" is self-evidently not a name at all, but a title, or an epithet.
One other reference. According to 1 Chronicles 3:20, there was an Ohel who was a son of Zeru-Bavel, the man who led the first group of Yehudim back from exile in 536 BCE (Ezra 2:1-2).
And one final comment. The wikipedia entry, at the time of my writing this, tells us that a hierodule was simply a girl captured in war, raped, and then placed in that section of the Temple used as a brothel. As I have counselled before: do not use wikipedia; or use it, but assume that it is probably - often, as in this case, insultingly - wrong.
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