Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 20/09/2004 08:09, Michael Banyai wrote:

> Dear Peter,
>
> we have several mentions of "idolatric golden calf" adoration in the bible 
> between Moses and Jerobeam but no attestation of an iconoclastic movement till Jerobeam.
>  

References, please. I dispute the facts here.

> Since the Judahite iconoclasm is no movement developing isolated but gets its 
> counterpart in Israel, while both states holding to Jahwism, it is most 
> probable that similar to Judah who derived its rejection of idolatry from the 
> autority of a Jahweh oracle, Israel too brought a Jahweh oracle to support 
> their view of the cult.
>
> Should this have happened, I can not imagine an alternative to this, would such a 
> Jahweh positive oracle, commanding the Israelites to make the initial calf at Sinai 
> have sounded: "now take down your (golden) rings and make me a calf". Exactly 
> what we see at the end of the Sinai calf story. ...

Which verse are you referring to here? 33:4-6? There is no mention of 
"gold" or of making a calf, nor explicitly of "rings". The point is that 
the Israelites were to take off all their jewellery as a sign of mourning.

> ... So we can assume that the Judahite text we posess is just reacting and 
> argumentating that only the interpretation of the oracle by the Israelites 
> was wrong. Point.
>  

I understand the viewpoint that the golden calf story is a Judahite 
reaction to the golden calves in Israel. But I have not argued against 
this view, but against your originally very different reconstruction.

> ...
> That the bible is tendentiously calling the adepts of the (older?) Jahweh cult in the mean-time typical for the north, Baal-priests should not mean we have to take this serious. They were as Jahwists as their counterparts in Judah in the way catolicism and protestantism are both belonging to the same religion. 
>  

What is your evidence that those who are called priests of Baal in the 
Bible, or any other texts, were in fact Yahwists? The narrative implies 
that they were devotees of the Phoenician Baal whose worship was brought 
to Israel by Jezebel wife of Ahab. Do you have any good reason to 
dispute the general accuracy of that picture? If you reject the accuracy 
of this part of the books of Kings, you are rejecting the references to 
priests of Baal completely.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/