Moses and Minimalism: Form Criticism vs. Fiction in the Pentateuch by Price Robert M

Author:Price, Robert M. [Price, Robert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bible
ISBN: 9781942897033
Publisher: Tellectual Press
Published: 2015-09-13T21:00:00+00:00

Why an image of a golden calf? To most readers, the immediate association is with a baby cow, or at best Elmer’s Glue. But in fact the image was very common in the ancient Near East (many specimens have been unearthed), where the association was that of a young bull, powerful and snorting! A fitting image for a god.7 The Canaanite El was called “Bull EL.” So there is nothing incongruous in Aaron (or Jeroboam) causing a golden “calf” image to be fashioned.

If Aaron’s summons to venerate the calf rings a familiar bell, it should. Aaron is made to quote the words of the Northern king Jeroboam, who, declaring independence of Davidic Judah in the south, built great Yahweh temples at the already holy cities of Dan and Bethel to forestall his subjects getting nostalgic for Solomon’s temple and making pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now will the kingdom return to the house of David: if this people go up to offer sacrifices in the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem, then will the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah; and they will kill me, and return to Rehoboam king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Beth-el, and the other put he in Dan. [1 Kings 12:26-29, ASV]

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