> To sum up, 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.E. Her statue was worshiped in the Temple for 35 years, until King Asa removed it in 893 B.C.E. It was restored to the Temple by King Joash in 825 B.C.E. and remained there for a full century, until King Hezekiah removed it in 725 B.C.E. 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.E. She remained in the Temple for 78 years, until the great reformer King Joshiah removed her in 620 B.C.E. Upon Joshiah’s death eleven years later (609 B.C.E.), she was again brought back into the Temple, where she remained until its destruction 23 years later, in 586 B.C.E. 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. (Patai, *The Hebrew Goddess*, pg. 50).