Astarte/Ishtar

As strange as it may seem, Believers are usually afraid to study this subject, leaving themselves ill-equipped to understand more than 250 verses in the Biblical Text and approximately 4o different gods and goddesses.
1 Sam. 31:10 – Ashtaroth or Ashtoreth = Ashtoroth is the plural and Ashtoreth is the singular form of the name of the Canaanite principal female deity. Ashtoreth was given to the moon in which this deity was supposed to be embodied. The idol was a female with a crescent moon on her brown. This idol was set up in the temples and worshipped in many forms of sexual perversions and immorality. Ashtoreth is also commonly known as Astarte a consort or partner to Baal. Astarte among other things was viewed as an idol of war.
Jer. 7:18; 44:17-18 some scholars believe Astarte may be the Queen of Heaven in Jerusalem. She is referred to as a mystery of Heaven in a number of Egyptian texts.
Ashtoreth or Astarte is the Phoenician (Philistine) and Canaanite name of the fertility goddess of the Babylonians named Ishtar. Astarte was originally the deification of the earth, but in the course of time she became an idol associated with the moon and was represented with horns. The named of the goddess appears as a city in Transjordan named Ashteroth-karnaim meaning the Astarte of the horns in Gen. 14:5. The location is the present day Tell Asherta, about two miles south of Shech Saad and according to Talmudic sources is the land of Uz which is the home of Job. This was the home town of Og, king of Bashan in Josh. 12:4. It was later allotted to the half tribe of Manasseh and settled by the house of Machir. The town continued to be a cultic center until it was overthrown by the Maccabees under Judas in 165 B.C. in 1 Macc. 5:44.
The term Ashtaroth is actually more of a title such as my lady or my goddess instead of a specific name. One of the reasons given for Israel’s defeat at the hands of the Philistines was apostatizing after the Canaanite cult of Ashtaroth.
Just as Baal was the male innovator that caused things to happen, Astarte was the female factor of fertility and growth.
Ashtoreth is also seen in connection with the productivity of sheep in Gen. 31:38; 32:14; and Ps. 78:71, and was thought to have been envisioned an ewe.
The known period of worship of Ashtoreth and Astarte was approximately 1500 B.E. until 200 B.C. She was known as the evening start, the goddess of sexual love and war. Her animal was the sphinx, which typically appears on either side of her throne. The sphinx, a Egyptian mythological creature with the lion’s body and man’s head represented the idol of the morning. Astarte is typically a naked statue, and in the Egyptian style, wears a crown of cow’s horns enclosing a disk. Solomon is said to have built a high place to honor Ashtoreth in Jerusalem to please some of his pagan wives in 2 Kgs. 23:13.