Karel van der Toorn vs. the "Pedestal Interpretation" of the Golden Calf

  

In the royal temple at Bethel, worshippers venerated YHWH by focusing their devotion on a gold-plated bull image (1 Kgs 12:28-29; Exod 32:1-6). The bronze bulls from Hazor and northern Manasseh show that the icon was not new to the area. Did it represent YHWH? In the Canaanite iconographic repertoire, there are images of Baal riding on a bull (fig. 22). This suggests to some scholars that the bull images of Bethel and Dan represented YHWH’s vehicle rather than the god himself. It is an interesting theory that suits the aniconic ideology that became the norm in Judah, but the interpretation lacks a solid basis. In the Israelite tradition, YHWH was “the Bull of Jacob” (‘ăbîr ya’ăqôb; Gen 49:24-25; Ps 132:2, 5; Isa 49:26, 60:16) or “our Bull.” Those who were kissing the bull icon (Hos 13:2; cf. 1 Kgs 19:18) were expressing their devotion to YHWH, not to his vehicle. Eventually, voices would be raised against the cult of images (Hosea). But until the mid-eighth century BCE, in the Northern Kingdom the veneration of images was apparently uncontested. (Karel van der Toorn, Israelite Religion: From Tribal Beginnings to Scribal Legacy [The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025], 105)

 

 

Here is the image from p. 104:

 

Elsewhere, commenting on the Jewish colony at Elephantine (c. 5^th century BCE):

 

The presence of a Samarian element in the Egyptian diaspora comes to the fore as well in the three songs to Yaho. They call Yaho “our Bull” and identify him with the god Bethel. “Bull” as a divine title fits the religion of the Northern Kingdom (Samaria) in which the “golden calf” was a symbol of YHWH. Also, the book of Jeremiah implies that the veneration of Bethel was specifically Israelite (Jer 48:13). At Elephantine, too, at least some of the inhabitants identified Yaho and Bethel, since at times they refer to the divine consort Anat-Yaho as Anat-Behel. (Karel van der Toorn, Israelite Religion: From Tribal Beginnings to Scribal Legacy [The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2025], 174)