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According to the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran, the golden calf () was a cult image made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as "the sin of the calf" (). It is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus..
Sacred bull was common in many cultures. In Ancient Egypt, whence according to the Exodus narrative, the Israelites had recently come, the bull-god Apis was a comparable object of worship, which some believe the Hebrews were reviving in the wilderness. Alternatively, some believe Yahweh, the national god of the Israelites, was associated with or pictured as a sacred bull through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism.Day, John. Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan. 2002. pp. 36ff. Among the Canaan, some of whom would become the Israelites, (2025). 9780684869131, Touchstone. ISBN 9780684869131 the bull was widely worshipped as the sacred bull and the creature of El.
Aaron built an altar before the calf and proclaimed the next day to be a feast to Yahweh]]. "Early next day, the people offered up burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; they sat down to eat and drink, and then rose to dance." ()
yhwh told Moses what the Israelites were up to back in camp, that they had turned aside quickly from the way which God commanded them and he was going to destroy them and start a new people from Moses. Moses pleaded that they should be spared "And yhwh renounced the punishment planned for God’s people." ()
Moses went down from the mountain; upon seeing the calf, he became angry and threw down the two Tablets of Stone, breaking them. Moses burnt the golden calf in a fire, ground it to powder, scattered it on water, and forced the Israelites to drink it. When Moses asked him, Aaron admitted to collecting the gold and throwing it into the fire; he said it came out as a calf. ()
The language suggests that there are some inconsistencies in the other accounts of the Israelites and their use of the calf. As the version in Exodus and 1 Kings are written by historians based in the southern Kingdom of Judah, there is a proclivity to expose the Israelites as unfaithful. The inconsistency is primarily located in Exodus 32:4 where "gods" is plural despite the construction of a single calf.Coogan, 2009, pp. 116–117.
The episode of the golden calf is also mentioned in the New Testament, by the apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, as a warning against idolatry. "Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were... ."
Scholars are divided on other intertextual references to the golden calf in the Torah, notably the ordeal of the bitter water in the Book of Numbers 5:17–24. Specific elements of the ritual, such as the powder mixed into water and being forced to drink, echo similar language in the aftermath of Moses punishing Israel at the end of the narrative.
His concern was that the tendency to offer sacrifices in Jerusalem, which is in the southern Kingdom of Judah, would lead to a return to King Rehoboam. He makes two golden calves and places them in Bethel and Dan. He erects the two calves in what he figures (in some interpretations) as substitutes for the built by King Solomon in Jerusalem.Coogan, 2009. p. 117.
However, in the Antiquities of the Jews (v. VIII: 8), which is taken from the Septuagint, Josephus states: "He made two golden heifers, and built two little temples for them, the one in the city Bethel, and the other in Dan...and he put the heifers into both the little temples in the aforementioned cities."
Richard Elliott Friedman says "at a minimum we can say that the writer of the golden calf account in Exodus seems to have taken the words that were traditionally ascribed to Jeroboam and placed them in the mouths of the people." Friedman believes that the story was turned into a polemic, exaggerating the throne platform decoration into idolatry, by a family of priests sidelined by Jeroboam.Friedman, Richard Elliott, "Who Wrote the Bible?", 1987, pp. 72–73.
The declarations of Aaron's people and Jeroboam are almost identical:
The devotion of Israel to this worship of the calf was partly explained by a circumstance at passing through the Red Sea, when they beheld the most distinct creature about the Celestial Throne which is the resemblance of ox, then they thought it was an ox who had helped God in their journey from Egypt. After seeing Hur, son of Miriam, who was carelessly murdered by the people following his rebuke of their ingratitude action to God, Aaron was willing rather to take a sin upon himself to make an idol than to cast the burden of an evil deed upon the people if they commit so terrible sin of killing a priest and prophet among them.
Also there would be among the Israelites no priestly caste, and the nation would have been a nation of priests only if Israel had not sinned through worshiping the golden calf that the greater part of the people lost the right to priesthood, except the tribe of Levi as the only tribe who remained faithful to God and did not partake in this sinful deed.Ginzberg, Louis (1909). The Legends of the Jews Volume III: The Revelations in the Tabernacle, (Translated by Henrietta Szold). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Jewish Publication Society.
According to Nachman of Breslov, everyone contributed to the building of the Tabernacle, and the contribution that each Jew made was his or her good points. Thus, the Tabernacle was built by the good points found in each person; this was sufficient to counteract the blemish of the golden calf. Likutey Halakhot I. The "good points" are reflected in the "gold, silver and copper" that the Jews donated. The various colors of these metals reflect the Supernal Colors and the beauty of a person's good deeds.Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Exodus-Leviticus Jerusalem, Israel/New York, New York, Breslov Research Institute.
The Israelites grew restless, since Moses had not returned to them, and after thirty days, a man the Quran names as Samiri raised doubts among the Israelites. Samiri claimed that Moses had forsaken the Israelites and ordered his followers among the Israelites to light a fire and bring him all the jewelry and gold ornaments they had. Samiri fashioned the gold into a golden calf along with the dust on which the angel Gabriel had trodden, which he proclaimed to be the God of Moses and the God who had guided them out of Egypt. There is a sharp contrast between the Quranic and the biblical accounts of the prophet Aaron's actions. The Quran mentions that Aaron attempted to guide and warn the people from worshipping the golden calf. However, the Israelites refused to stop until Moses had returned. The righteous separated themselves from the pagans. God informed Moses that He had tested the Israelites in his absence and that they had failed by worshipping the golden calf.
Returning to the Israelites in great anger, Moses asked Aaron why he had not stopped the Israelites when he had seen them worshipping the golden calf. The Quran reports that Aaron stated that he did not act due to the fear that Moses would blame him for causing divisions among the Israelites and that he was afraid of being killed, he explained "Son of my mother, indeed this people thought me to be weak, and they were about to kill me. So do not let the enemies gloat over me, and do not take me with the wrongdoing lot." Moses realized his helplessness in the situation, and both prayed to God for forgiveness. Quran 7:167–174 . According to Qur’anic sources Moses then questioned Samiri for the creation of the golden calf; Samiri justified his actions by stating that he had thrown the dust of the ground upon which Gabriel had tread on into the fire because his soul had suggested it to him. Moses informed him that he would be banished and that they would burn the golden calf and spread its dust into the sea. Moses ordered seventy delegates to repent to God and pray for forgiveness. The delegates traveled alongside Moses to Mount Sinai, where they witnessed the speech between him and God but refused to believe until they had witnessed God with their sight. As punishment, God struck the delegates with lightning and killed them with a violent earthquake. Moses prayed to God for their forgiveness. God forgave and Resurrection them and they continued on their journey.
In the Islamic view, the calf-worshipers' sin had been shirk (), the sin of idolatry or polytheism. Shirk is the deification or worship of anyone or anything other than God (Allah in Arabic) or more literally the establishment of "partners" placed beside God, a most serious sin.
Albertz says that when we read in 1 Kings 12:28 that the first monarch of the northern kingdom, Jeroboam, had introduced the worship of golden calves in Bethel and Dan, we must interpret that what Jeroboam really does is to return to the traditional Israelite religion, as opposed to the syncretistic innovations introduced by David and Solomon in centralizing the cult in Jerusalem.Albertz, R: Historia de la Religión de Israel en Tiempos del Antiguo Testamento (in Spanish). Göttingen, 1992. Madrid, Spain, 1999.
According to Michael Coogan, it seems that the golden calf was not an idol for another god, and thus a false god. He cites as evidence:
Importantly, there is a single calf in this narrative. While the people refer to it as representative of the "gods", this is a possessive form of the word [[Elohim]] ( ''elo'hecha'', from ), which is a name of God as well as general word for "gods". While a reference to singular god does not necessarily imply Yahweh worship, the word usually translated as 'lord' is Yahweh in the original, so at least it cannot be ruled out. In the chronology of Exodus the commandment against the creation of graven images had not yet been given to the people when they pressed upon Aaron to help them make the calf, and that such behavior was not yet explicitly outlawed.
Another understanding of the golden calf narrative is that the calf was meant to be the pedestal of Yahweh. In Near Eastern art, gods were often depicted standing on an animal, rather than seated on a throne. This reading suggests that the golden calf was merely an alternative to the Ark of the Covenant or the cherubim upon which Yahweh was enthroned.
The reason for this complication may be understood as
The documentary hypothesis can be used to further understand the layers of this narrative: it is plausible that the earliest story of the golden calf was preserved by Elohist (Israel source) and originated in the northern kingdom. When E and Jahwist (Judah source) were combined after the fall of northern kingdom, "the narrative was reworked to portray the northern kingdom in a negative light," and the worship of the calf was depicted as "polytheism, with the suggestion of a sexual orgy" (see Exodus 32:6). When compiling the narratives, Priestly source (a later Priest source from Jerusalem) may have minimized Aaron's guilt in the matter, but preserved the negativity associated with the calf.
Alternatively it could be said that there is no golden calf story in the J source, and if it is correct that the Jeroboam story was the original as stated by Friedman, then it is unlikely that the golden calf events as described in Exodus occurred at all. Friedman states that the smashing of the Ten Commandments by Moses when he beheld the worship of the golden calf, is really an attempt to cast into doubt the validity of Judah's central shrine, the Ark of the Covenant. "The author of E, in fashioning the golden calf story, attacked both the Israelite and Judean religious establishments."
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