In his 2001 book, The Mormon Defenders: How Latter-day
Saint Apologists Misinterpret the Bible, J.P. Holding argued that the golden
calf in Exo 32 was a pedestal for God, therefore providing evidence that God was viewed
as, in his “normative” state as being without form and invisible. The problem is that
many scholars do not believe that the golden calf in Exo 32, or the related golden
calves in the Northern Kingdom temple at Bethel, were pedestals for Yahweh, but
instead, were a representation or symbol of Yahweh (or, in the case of Behel,
El). Furthermore, Hebrew has a perfectly good term for “pedestal” (כֵּן) which appears in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Gen 40:13; 41:13; Exo
30:18; Isa 33:23; 1 Kgs 7:31); instead, the Hebrew uses the term for “god” in
Exo 32:8 and elsewhere (אֱלֹהִים). For
one of many good studies on this matter, see R. Scott Chalmers, The Struggle
of Yahweh and El for Hosea's Israel (Sheffield: University of Sheffield
Press, 2008) that provides, among other things, a solid refutation of the “pedestal”
reading of the golden calf in Exo 32 (Holding argues that, as this thesis
states God is riding this pedestal, he was, substantially, invisible in the
theology of Moses et al.)
Another scholar who takes exception with this reading would
include John Day (author of Yahweh and the God and Goddesses of Canaan
[a must-read]). In a recent essay in a volume he edited, he wrote the following
on the golden calves in Exodus 32 and 1 Kgs 12:
[I]t would appear
that Jeroboam’s aims were to stop the northern tribes from going up to
Jerusalem (1 Kgs 12.28), the golden calves would naturally have been understood
as symbols of Yahweh. Interestingly, the only known Hebrew personal name
contain the word ‘gl, “calf,” namely ‘glwy, “Yahweh is a calf” or
“calf of Yahweh,” attested in Samaria osracton 41 not long before the time of
Hosea coheres with this.
John Day, “Hosea and the Baal Cult,” in Prophecy and
Prophets in Ancient Israel, ed. John Day (London: T&T Clark, 2012),
pp.202-224, here p. 216.
While he was an LDS apologist, Kevin Graham had a good article refuting Holding on this issue, too; one can find a copy of the essay here.
