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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] The Golden Calf & the Hathor Cult of Sinai ?

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Michael Banyai <Banyai AT t-online.de>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] The Golden Calf & the Hathor Cult of Sinai ?
  • Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 13:31:15 +0100

On 23/09/2004 12:35, Michael Banyai wrote:

Hallo Peter,

I don´t know how you perceive this but it is for my sensibilty a quite
obscene detail to sit on a camel´s saddle onatop of the teraphim. Except one
was representing a riding scene and a saddle would make peculiar sense. The
judean variant made out of this a camel´s saddle.


I take the obscenity, and the implied proximity of the teraphim and menstrual fluids, as being quite deliberate and intended to mock the alleged holiness of the teraphim.

And why does Genesis treat this scene should this have been some unimportant
teraphim arriving with Rachel - so unimportantr that they had no religious
consequence. Well I suppose, that such an antique reminiscence/memory would
exist only if it was a rather memorial event. The arrival of THE cult image
itself. The proto-icon of those images proliferating later in Israel.


The point is I guess partly to desacralise the teraphim and partly to indicate how Jacob stole Laban's inheritance.

I don´t beleave that any in Genesis is only for gossip.


Agreed.


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






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