Beginning with the northern
kingdom, Israel, ostracon no. 41 from Samaria with the phrase cglyw,
"the calf (of) Yahweh", "the Yahweh-calf”, gives us an insight
into how the Israelites conceived of their national deity. This ostracon should
be compared with Hos. 8:5 f., where the prophet mentions "thy calf, Oh
Samaria" (cf. 13:2). This expression is usually understood to be a reference
to Baal. The phrase "cglyw shows, however, that Yahweh
was also worshipped in tauromorph form. Bull imagery is well-established for
Yahweh, as it is for both El and Baal. Hosea's "calf of Samaria",
Jeroboam's reference to Yahweh's being a bull at the festival at Bethel (1 Kgs.
12:28), and the bull statues at the state sanctuaries of Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs.
12) can all be seen as reflections of an old northern Yahwistic tradition which
conceived of Yahweh as a bull. The selective Judean tradents of the Old
Testament have presented this old northern tradition as an innovative act of
apostasy by the "renegade" Northern Kingdom. From the
religio-political viewpoint of the tradents, this kingdom should never have
existed. It was a break-away from Yahweh of Jerusalem and the Davidic dynasty.
It is thus not at all astonishing that the writers do not give us any detailed
information about the religious role of the Israelite capital, Samaria. It is
in harmony with their program that Samaria should not be given any leading
position as a center of Yahweh worship because for them only Jerusalem could
play such a role. (G. W. Ahlström, “An Archaeological Picture
of Iron Age Religions in Ancient Palestine,” Studia Orientalia 55, no. 3
[1984]: 125)
Turning
to Judah, the many figurines found in the soil of Palestine from the Bronze
through the Iron Age, among other things, are very important for drawing a
picture of the religion of the kingdom of Judah. We know from the textual
material that the Judahites and the Israelites used idols in their worship.
Ezek. 44:10 f. is a clear indication that both the Levites and the population
at large worshipped not only Yahweh, but also several other gods in idol-forms.
Ezek. 8:10 and 12 inform us that the people of Judah had many gods. The first
verse, 8:10, says, namely, that all the gods of the "house of Israel"
were depicted on the walls of the temple. Gideon and Micah made ephods, idols.
Nehuštan, the copper serpent, was in the temple of Yahweh until king Hezekiah
terminated his worship. The most well-known idol together with the bulls of
Jeroboam (1 Kgs. 12:28) is probably the bull of Exodus 32, the golden calf that
Aaron, the high-priest, made. Prophetic polemics against the many idols of
Judah testify to their place in the cult. Concerning Ezek. 8:10,12 one may
maintain that the prophet certainly did not invent what he is said to have
seen. Like most visions, his is built on reality and therefore tells us
something about the religion of his time. These pictures on the temple walls
may be representations of the gods of the divine assembly, known in Hebrew as the
qehal/sod qedošim, bene 'elim, or șeba'ot. These terms are
equivalent to the Akkadian puhur ilanī, and to the Ugaritic phr (bn)
'lm.
Like
Yahweh in the north, the southern Yahweh also appears to have been re-
presented as a bull. This is evidenced by a royal palace seal impression found
at Ramat Rachel, south of Jerusalem. It probably dates from the end of the Iron
II period. The stamp features a bull figurine with a sun disc between his
horns. Such symbols usually represent a solar deity. Since Yahweh, like most
Semitic gods, was identified with the bull in various texts, and since this
bull seal is from a royal palace of Judah, one can only conclude that it
represents Yahweh, the main god of the kingdom. The sun disc between the bull's
horns makes identification with the fertility god Baal impossible. (Ibid., 129-30)