Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Banyai AT t-online.de (Michael Banyai)]

Hallo W. Mattfeld,

the magical ritual of pulverizing the Golden Calf into dust, placing this 
dust into water and then making Israel "drink" it is constructed similar to 
the law of Numbers 5,11-31 concerning a divine ordeal in the case of 
undemonstrable infidelity in marriage.

A pulverisation of gold into dust and mixing it with water is however a mater 
of phisical impossibility. Gold separates on the spot from water, as a matter 
of fact. We know from several other stories in the Bible, a golden calf was 
not a matter of scandalous nature, until quite late in the Israelite history.

However is the story result of a late monotheistic redaction using the 
ancient historical material. The tradited elements have been reordered to 
conform to a new theological spirit. The original history contained a godly 
order to create a golden calf, which order now appears at the end of the 
story to document exactly the oposite. We can reconstruct this original story 
in this case as well in the case of the story about the destruction of 
Schechem (a conglomerate of stories having originaly an entirely different 
message) on basis of the story of the donation of a golden (calf) image by 
Gideon, which by paradox has been left by the redactors unchallenged. 
Probably because it (was made to) deal with a provincial private temple and 
not concerning an important Israelite state temple.

I reorder the text according to the donation ritual description as described 
in Judges 8.24-27 here following.

...each of you give me an earring he has taken as booty

we will willingly give them 

1700 shekels of gold

Gideon made an wephod of it and put it in his town... 
 
A rearrangement of Exodus following the new sequence the creation of the 
golden calf by a godly appointment, moves Exodus 33.5 formerly at the end of 
the story, now to its beginning. Leaving out the redactor´s own comments just 
the bare godly order - 

Ex. 33.5 for the Lord had said to Moses ... now take down your ornaments...

Ex. 32 2 Aaron said to them, "Take off the gold rings... and bring them to 
me."

He took the gold and ... created an image of a calf...

Ex. 33.6 Therefore the Israelites strpped themselves of their ornaments, from 
mount Horeb onward (originally probably - at mount Horeb) 

Once more the mention of earrings belonging to the Israelite and another 
"foreign" God in connection with Schechem - another garbled story concerning 
a golden calf offering by the Israelites in Gen. 35.

So they gave to Jacob the (foreign) God they had and the rings that were in 
their ears; and Jacob buried them under the oak that was by Schechem (site of 
the later famous temple of Schechem).

In fact the whole history about the rape of Dinah is a puzzle created out of 
older unrelated stories.

1. The creation of an alliance between the Schechemites and Israelites, one 
of the typical patriarchal alliance stories

2. The destruction of Schechem by the Egyptians (historically maybe that 
concerning an alliance of the Sichemim and the Retenu as reported by an 
officer of Sesostris III)

3. The offering of a golden calf by Jacob after the destruction of Schechem 
and the move of the sanctuary to Beth-El

4. The rape of Dinah (feminine gender of Dan) by the sons of Egypt and the 
killing of the groom in the evening before the marriage, followed by the 
flight of the Israelites (known from a parallel Greek myth concerning the 
killing of the sons of Aigyptos by the daughter of Danaos (word-stem Dan), 
the Danaids, in the evening before the forced marriage and the ensueing 
flight of Danaos with his daughters)

The Schechem story contains a number of contradictions besides the one 
concerning the offering of gold earrings. So it is for example clear from 
later stories, like the ones in the Judges, but also from during the 
conquest, concerning an apparent agreement between the former rulers of 
Schechem, leaving them feudal protectors of Schechem while the city itself 
became a holy Levitic city not under a lay resident ruler. Gaal son of Ebed : 
Did not the son of Jerubbaal and Zebul his officer serve the man of Hamor 
father of Schechem? 

It looks like the earlier rulers of Schechem - said in Genesis to have been 
killed by Jacob´s sons - have in fact been greeted as full partners into the 
Israelite confederation. Judges as well as Joshua negate an Israelite 
takeover of Schechem by force.

So is probably the Schechem story in its intermediate form the result of an 
attempt to purge the Israelite history of any negative mention of the 
Egyptians. Probably as it had been necessary for official purpose at the time 
of Jerobeam I to relate the antecedents of the move of the holy places to 
Beth-El from Schechem at an earlier time. This was part of the official 
history of the Beth-El temple most probably from the time of Jerobeam, the 
supporter of this temple, which eliminated the mention of the Egyptians, now 
allied with the house of Jerobeam. THe Egyptians were replaced by the figures 
of the bad brothers of Joseph, with which Jerobeam was in conflict at that 
time.

A later Judahite redaction eliminated the mention of the offer of a golden 
calf at Beth-El following the destruction of Schechem, as it purged any 
testimonies of older divinatory practice.  The golden calf did in fact play 
within the Jahweh cult  somewhat the role of the Qibla in the later islamic 
practice. It gave the direction, where one had to assume God (Jahweh) himself 
riding on the calf, since there was a representation interdiction of Jahweh.

In fact is the book Genesis filled with references to the arrival of the 
"vera icona" of this golden calf with the patriarchs, however turned by 
mockery into utter nonsense by later Judahite redactors. 

So is in Genesis Rachel sitting on the household God(s) of Laban on a camel´s 
saddle. 

Jacob does probably play the part of the Bull of God at Penu-El in Gen.32 
before entering later Israel with Rachel. This might explain the gloss in 
Gen. 32.32 - Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle 
... because he struck Jacob ... at the thigh muscle. One can but assume that 
the early Israelite recognised in this figuration Jacob as a bull (like in 
the story of Gilgamesh´s fight with the bull of God, whose hip he than threw 
as a provocation into the garden of Inana his lover). Otherwise one ought 
assume some canibalistic afinity in the text.

This is an important story since it is the one also explaining the name of 
Israel given to Jacob (Assyrian sirilai) as being the bull of God, in an 
older biblical form probably Jeshurun. One could try to guess more behind, 
since hebrew shor=bull of El might be a convenient etimology too. This 
interpretation of Jeshurun extending also upon Israel departing from sor was 
stated by Wyatt, N. (Where Did Jacob Dream His Dream? SJOT 2:44-57, 1990) as 
swr 'l -- "the bull of El".
This explains also why the interdiction of the adoration of the golden calf 
proved to be so difficult to the ancient Israelites.


Best regards,

Bányai Michael
Stuttgart
>From jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net  Sat Sep 18 12:02:47 2004
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Date: Sat, 18 Sep 2004 08:49:46 -0700
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Use and Misuse of Waw in Verb Tenses
From: "C. Stirling Bartholomew" <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>
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On 9/17/04 3:52 PM, "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org> wrote:

> I am reminded of the lecturer in
> semantics who claimed that in some languages two negatives make a
> positive, and in some two negatives make a negative, but there are no
> languages in which two positives make a negative. To which a student
> replied "Yeah, right".

Peter,

This is a great illustration. It proves an important point that wasn't
particularly on my mind. I though we were talking about the semantic
significance of aspectual marking. I wasn't arguing that the semantic value
of a lexeme is *vacuous. But when it comes to things like imperfect and
perfect aspectual marking I wonder if we should not be looking for discourse
structural function rather than meaning. Again, the division here is between
syntax and semantics. Defining syntax as anything that determines structural
relationships within a discourse.

All attempts I have seen to fix an invariant meaning on the hebrew aspectual
markings seem to end up ship wrecked. Could these folks be barking up the
wrong tree?

greetings,
Clay Bartholomew

*I have been accused of that in the past however. A few years ago on another
list a member of the now defunct "Roehampton Circle" (i.e., a mid-'90s S.E.
Porter student) claimed that I was promoting Humpty Dumptyism, an extreme
form of semiotic relativism. She was wrong.