Ex 32 - The Golden Calf: sources, intertexts, ideology

by DeusMauzzim 14 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  DeusMauzzim

  First of all: The feeling I have while typing this, the feeling of coming 'home' to JWD after months of study, bears witness to the greatness of this board. And you are the board, my friends! I'm glad to be back, even if it is only for a while!

  And I brought something back from my journey:

  My explorations have now taken me to Ex 32-33:6 - The story of the golden calf. I'm doing research on the tension between word and image within the text: YHWH's word vs Israel's idolatry. The goal is a deeper insight in the nature of idolatry (or: 'what's all the fuzz with YHWH and His problem with graven images?')

  [difficult and probably boring part]

  The abstract theoretical framework is that of W.J.T Mitchell's Word and Image (R. Nelson & R. Shiff (red.), Critical Terms for Art History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). Mitchell conceptualizes the pair word-image not as an analytic category, but rather as a "dialectical trope", a relay through which power relations in texts are constantly shifting, giving rise to specific instances of "word" and "image" - like characters in a drama, joining and seperating in an endless dance of ideology and interests.

  [/difficult and probably boring part]

  That's the theory, in the practice of Ex 32:33-6 I'm interested in:

  - Diachronic: Intertextual links and redaction history of the text (Ex 32-34, Dt 9-10, 1Kings 12, the Ugaritic parallels of ritual god-killing with the destruction of the calf)

  - Synchronic: The text as a literary whole, the chiastic structure of the text (http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/Ted_Hildebrandt/OTeSources/02-Exodus/Text/Articles/Hendrix-Ex33Calf-AUSS.pdf)

  - Ideological criticism: The golden calf story as a Levite protest against Jerobeams calf worship and non-Levite priesthood.

  - All of the above: The ways 'word' and 'image' are transformed into players in a power struggle (eg YHWH can be heard, not seen cf Moses' request after the drama)

  If any of this strikes a bell with you bible scholars.. I would love to discuss!

  - Deus Mauzzim

  (of the glad-to-be-back-and-hopes-on-discussion-class )
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  eclipse

  I missed your posts Deus! Glad to have you back.
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  AlphaOmega

  Contrary to how some read this passage, I see it that the Golden Calf was crafted to represent God, not to replace him :

  (Exodus 32:4)

  And he received [the gold] from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, "This [is] your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!"

  I see it this way because there were no other Gods that bought them out of Egypt apart from God / YHWH.

  So in effect, as they were getting restless about their leader being away for so long and that they had nothing to focus their faith on, in an attempt to hold their faith together until Moses descended from the mountain, Aaron gave them something to focus their faith on AS AN IMAGE OF YHWH.

  Not sure how others read this.

  ...to me, Moses' reaction to the Golden Calf implies that God is in no way to be limited to the perceptions of man. He is in effect saying, "Whatever you perceive me to be, it is wrong - there is no way that you can comprehend me from your limited perspective. If you even try to represent me, you will end up worshipping the representation as it is easier to comprehend than the reality... from then on you will fail to perceive anything of me except that representation"

  So... the gist is that the "word" (in the John 1 sense) can never be fully represented by the "image" - so don't try.

  Are we on the same lines ?
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  ninja

  have you heard of the precession of the equinoxes that the mysteries expound?....in that the golden calf represented the sun in the sign of taurus....they were moving into the next sign ...the sign of aries the ram and moses was guiding them to the new age.........next sign after aries....is pisces and jesus was the one to lead them there....which is why jesus fed the people with 2 fishes...the sign of pisces..........and to this day the popes mitre is like a fish head...and christians have the fish symbol on their cars....next sign is aquarius....look at luke 22:10 jesus instructs his disciples (Luke 22:10) 10 He said to them: “Look! When YOU enter into the city a man carrying an earthenware vessel of water will meet YOU. Follow him into the house into which he enters........the new house is aquarius......which is why the song....this is the dawning of the age of aquarius...age of aquariuuuuuuuus...aquariusssssss.....not saying what I believe ...but what the mysteries teach
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  Narkissos

  Great to "see" you again DM.

  This is an interesting topic and deserves more time than (unfortunately) I have right now. I am generally wary of (chiastic or other) "literary structure" presentations, especially when they serve the not-so-hidden agenda of dismissing the diachronic, historical and literary approaches. The structure charts are always impressive, but one must go back to the text to see exactly what they leave out and distort to make it "neat". Then they offen (but not always) look much less impressive...

  So I guess I've got some homework to do, I may come back to it later...

  Just one word to Alpha Omega: one issue that most translations leave out in 32:4 (and parallels) is the plural syntax, literally: these ('elleh) are your gods, Israel, who brought you up (he`elukha) from the land of Egypt. A plural which is confirmed in the LXX: houtoi hoi theoi sou Israel hoitines anebibasan se ek gès Aiguptou. Actually the same plural is apparent from v. 1, 'elohim 'asher yelku lephanenu / theous hoi proporeusontai hemôn. There seems to be a deliberate will from the monotheist redactor to identify "idolatry" with polytheism, even though it makes poor narrative sense.
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  Leolaia

  Great to see you again too, Deus!!

  I have seen lots of dubious chiastic analyses, where there is lumping together of structural elements and/or broadening the theme of the paired structural elements (i.e. to better fit together two structural elements under a single rubric) in order to reach the desired result. In these examples, I cannot help but feel that the analysis imposes rather than explains the structure of the narrative. In other examples, the chiastic structure seems pretty clear, but this is not necessarily evidence for unity -- for a redactor may arrange material from multiple sources in a chiastic pattern. Hence, I am not swayed by Cassuto's analysis of the Flood narrative, for instance, as indicating that the doublets and features of the text represent the intent of a single original author. When the structural analysis clashes with other evidence in the text of multiple authorship or redaction, I see this as evidence of a structure that arose when the text reached its final form. However, if the structural analysis coincides with other evidence of redaction, then it may serve as a valuable piece of evidence of the composition history of the text. One example of this is the case of the book of Daniel, which has a very neat chiastic structure in terms of theme and genre, i.e. ch. 2, 7 || ch. 3, 6 || ch. 4 (central focus). This chiastic structure, as many Daniel scholars have noted, coincides with the linguistic division of the book, as ch. 2-7 is the Aramaic section of the book. The chiastic evidence thus is one out of several lines of evidence suggesting that ch. 2-7 formed an earlier unit of the book (e.g. an Aramaic apocalypse), to which Hebrew chapters were later added (ch. 1, and ch. 8-12). I have seen those arguing for the unity of Daniel by trying to posit ch. 1 || ch. 8-12 as an outermost layer of the chiasmus, but it just doesn't work at all (i.e. ch. 8-12 do not lump together in a way that suggests a single structural unit that has ch. 1 as its counterpart). So the chiasmus here supports, not unity, but a more complex history of the book.
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  Leolaia

  BTW, I am interested in ideological criticism too, having indulged a little of it in the past (such as my suggestion that there is an anti-Asherah polemic in the Yahwist Eden narrative).
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  AlphaOmega

  Just one word to Alpha Omega: one issue that most translations leave out in 32:4 (and parallels) is the plural syntax, literally: these ('elleh) are your gods, Israel, who brought you up (he`elukha) from the land of Egypt. A plural which is confirmed in the LXX: houtoi hoi theoi sou Israel hoitines anebibasan se ek gès Aiguptou. Actually the same plural is apparent from v. 1, 'elohim 'asher yelku lephanenu / theous hoi proporeusontai hemôn. There seems to be a deliberate will from the monotheist redactor to identify "idolatry" with polytheism, even though it makes poor narrative sense.

  I saw this in some translations.

  It does indeed make poor narative sense unless the golden calf is intended to be a composite god.

  It seems strange that Aaron would have fallen back into polytheism so quickly after such dramatic events.

  I understand that passage (as indicated that the calf is an image of YHWH) links in with the command not to make graven images. The command not to worship false gods is a separate command.

  This passage has always intrigued me. I will put some more study into it when I have some more time.

  Thanks Narkissos
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  DeusMauzzim

  Good morning! Thanks for the reactions and good to see/hear you all again (and there we go with the word-image problem :).

  @AlphaOmega:

  Contrary to how some read this passage, I see it that the Golden Calf was crafted to represent God, not to replace him :

  I agree, and this has been pointed out by several scholars (eg Brichto, "The Worship of the Golden Calf: A Literary Analysis of a Fable on Idolatry"; Adams, "Idolatry and the Invisibility of God"). Aaron explicitly identifies the calf with YHWH and announces a festival for Him (32:4,5). This is not a violation of the first commandment, dealing with "other gods", but of the second, dealing with "idols". I read this second commandment as especially forbidding idol-representations of YHWH himself, because everything having to do with "other gods" is already covered in the first commandment. So I share your conclusion that the problem lies in the representation of YHWH.

  @Narkissos

  The illogical pl. 'elleh' (in Neh 9:18 replaced by m.sg. 'zeh') and the whole 'plurality' of the single calf that you pointed out (cf LXX and Vg) seems to me a Levite attempt to discredit Jerobeam by putting his words in 1Kings 12:28 "Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt." into Aaron's mouth. the ideological functioning of the story would then be the Levites explaining why they alone have the right to the priesthood (which Jerobeam denied cf 1Kings 12:31 and 2Chron 13:9)

  @Narkissos and Leoleia

  I agree that chiastic structures are dangerous hermeneutic tools. However, this particular analysis by Hendrix (linked in previous post) is solidly grounded in the text itself. The intercessions by Moses and the wayedabber / wayyomer structures clearly form some kind of parallelism, and the heart of the text (Hendrix: 32:26a, I would say 32:26 as a whole):

  'So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.

  would perfectly fit the ideological function I described above. Of course this is not to deny the various sources and redactions in the text, only that the Levite-sided redactor made a chiastic pattern out of the whole, like Leoleia pointed out. Commentary and criticism on this specific point would be more than welcome because I thought of using Hendrix' analysis in the paper I'm writing on the subject.

  Which brings us to the problem: What was the Redaktionsgeschichte of this particular text? I will be reading an article on that today so I hope we can discuss this later!

  - Deus Mauzzim

  P.S Leoleia

  BTW, I am interested in ideological criticism too, having indulged a little of it in the past (such as my suggestion that there is an anti-Asherah polemic in the Yahwist Eden narrative).

  That's interesting! I will definitely look this up!
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  Leolaia

  DeusMauzzim....I'm sure you're aware of the OT use of bovine language for Yahweh and El (< precedents in Ugaritic texts), as discussed by Mark Smith and John Day, e.g. "bull of Jacob" in Genesis 49:24, Psalm 132:2, 4, the ox-like "horns" of Yahweh in Numbers 24:8, and the anti-Baal polemic of Hosea 13:2 and Tobit 1:5 which presumes bull iconography, and the latter evidence of Amherst Papyrus 63:11, "Horus-Yaho, our bull is with us".

  My hypothesis is that the Eden narrative at one level contains a veiled polemic against Asherah and alludes to the deuteronomistic reform which removed Asherah iconography from the Jerusalem Temple (= Eden). This is based on [1] the ideological connection between Eden and the Temple, [2] the fact that Eve (i.e. Chawat in Phoenician) is a known epithet for Asherah, [3] Asherah was associated with snakes and the "tree of life" (cf. the arboreal iconography of Asherah and the asherah poles, the etymology of Eve/Chawat and Dat Batni, the possible connection between Nehushtan and asherah poles in Numbers 21:4-9 and 2 Kings 18:4, as well as the healing role of Asherah in cultic practice), [4] Eve is called the "mother of all living" in Genesis in language that evokes Ugaritic texts about Asherah, [5] the eviction of Eve from Eden parallels the eviction of the asherah from the Temple (cf. 2 Kings 18:4, 21:7, 23:4-6), and [6] 2 Kings 23:7 refers to Temple priestesses weaving clothes for Asherah which may be parodied in the nakedness/clothing theme of the story (cf. Ezekiel 16:16 which refers to the cultic practice of placing clothes on idols and the modern practice in the Middle East of tying clothes and rags to sacred trees for healing purposes; curiously, consuming the fruit of such trees is strictly forbidden even today).

  I also hypothesize that this polemic represents the latest stage in the development of the story and that Eve (= Asherah) was displaced from being the mother (as the "tree of life") to being the (naive and deceived) companion of Adam. The narrative fundamentally revolves around a maturation theme of Adam, the first man, and gives an etiological explanation of the origin of life stages. It is hard to deny that the story plays out the maturation cycle at some level. Yahweh is the parent, father figure, Adam is the child, the Garden is the nurturing child-friendly place that Adam is raised in, and Adam's time in the Garden corresponds to childhood. Like a child, Adam is naked and is unashamed of his nakedness in childish innocence. Yahweh gives strict rules to Adam, as a parent would to his child. Yahweh shields Adam from adult knowledge (i.e. the knowledge of good and evil), while Adam is nurtured and sustained by the Tree of Life (mother figure). Like a small child, Adam learns language by naming the animals. Then as Adam grows older, he finds a companion (Ishah, counterpart to Adam; the parallels with Enkidu and Shamhat from the Epic of Gilgamesh here are striking), and they acquire a more adult understanding of the world. They discover that breaking parental rules lead to certain consequences, and they begin to discern right from wrong, and the shame of nakedness. In other words, they lose their childish innocence. Realizing that they are now adults, Yahweh prepares them for life outside sheltered childhood by explaining the facts of life, like sexual attraction for one's husband, childbirth pangs, and the toils of work. It is now time for Adam to work and produce his own food rather than having it provided for him by his parents (Yahweh and the Tree of Life). Yahweh has the two of them, now a married couple, move out of his home, and there is no returning to the sheltered, infantile existence of childhood. Since Asherah originally was a maternal figure in Canaanite mythology, it makes sense that she originally was the (now missing) mother figure in the story, and was subsequently merged with the Ishah companion figure.