מוסדות אור שמח מרכז טננבאום ע.ר. 58-00-21343-00 רח' שמעון הצדיק 22-28 ירושלים ת.ד. 18103 טל: 02-581-0315 Kislev 5788 Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein is a very talented young scholar who has already published a wonderful book on the development of the Hebrew language and several smaller monographs on complex topics in Talmudic law. He is bright and creative, a disciplined and comprehensive researcher, a lucid communicator, and one of the relatively few people who are able to combine mastery of traditional sources with contemporary academic research. In his latest work, he tackles a topic which has been largely ignored. Much of the Bible is an attack on various pagan rituals that were practiced by the Israelites and their neighbors. There are many references throughout the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud and the Midrashim to these practices. But the exact meaning and nature of what is being condemned and why are shrouded in mystery—with the result that large parts of our own sacred texts are simply not understood. Rabbi Klein is providing a very useful service in filling this lacuna and his careful scholarship will enhance the reader’s understanding of Tanach, Chazal, and the history of Am Yisrael. Yitzchak A. Breitowitz Rav, Kehillas Ohr Somayach (Jerusalem) Magid Shiur, Yeshivas Ohr Somayach TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface. XV UNIT I The History of Monotheism Unit I Table of Contents . 3 CHAPTER 1 Introduction . 9 CHAPTER 2 The Genesis of Idolatry and the Guardians of Monotheism. 33 CHAPTER 3 Holy Sheep and Golden Calves in Egypt and the Exodus. 75 CHAPTER 4 Settling the Holy Land under Joshua, Judges, and Kings . .110 CHAPTER 5 The Slippery Slope to Paganism: Idolatry in the Kingdom of Israel . 149 CHAPTER 6 Royal Blunders and Betrayal: Idolatry in the Kingdom of Judah . .191 CHAPTER 7 The End of an Age: Idolatry as Obsolete Superstition. 244 XIII XIV God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry UNIT II Encyclopedia of Gods in the Bible Introduction . .279 Unit II List of Deities. 283 Bibliography . .362 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION In order to properly understand the history of Jewish monotheism and how idolatry affected the Jewish People, we must extract the rele- vant information from the Bible itself. However, first we must clearly define the proper methodology for deriving historical data from the Bible. While tradition does not view the Bible as primarily a history book, historical data can nevertheless be derived from it. To lay out the exact methodology used in this work, we will first outline the tradi- tional approach to studying history from the Bible and how it differs from the methods of Biblical Criticism so prevalent in the study halls of contemporary academia. Afterwards, we will offer a brief overview of the major issues that this unit discusses, and how we can understand them using the traditional methodology of Bible study. In doing so, we will outline the recurring patterns and general principals found throughout the rest of the book. This chapter will also serve as a thematic summary of the history of the Biblical period. Finally, we will discuss the recurring problem of private altars which, although not idolatry, per se, is integral to our understanding of the nature of Jewish monotheism. 1.1 TRADITION VS. BIBLICAL CRITICISM Although Bible critics definitely broach some very important issues that arise when studying the Bible, an unbridgeable gap stands between 9 10 God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry what academia views as true and what tradition accepts as fact.1 Judaism believes that essentially the entire Pentateuch is one holistic unit given by Hashem to Moses at Mount Sinai and in the few years thereafter; the scholarly world’s prevailing position is that it was not. Let us choose one example to illustrate the contrast between tra- dition and academia. A plain reading of the Bible indicates that the words of the prophets always presuppose an existing law, which serves as the barometer for the prophets’ expectations of the people. Indeed, tradition, supported by the text of the Bible, teaches that the prophets exhorted the Jews to adhere to pre-existing laws. The prophets did not invent any new laws.2 Thus, the prophets were responsible for ensuring that the people followed all aspects of the Torah — ritual and civil alike. In contrast, some academic scholars believed that the prophets predat- ed the Torah, while others confined the prophets’ role to guardians of moral — but not ritual — practice. Moreover, Jewish tradition has already addressed — and re- solved — many of Biblical Criticism’s concerns. Indeed, the text of the Bible is, in the words of R. Nota Schiller, “repetitive, chaotic, confusing, and contradictory.” Anyone who tries to paint a picture of Judaism and its history based solely on the Bible, and then claim that such a scenario is untenable, has simply set up a strawman and easily knocked him down.3 This is because the Bible was never meant 1 Dr. James L. Kugel, who is an Orthodox Jew and one of the leading Bible scholars in the academic arena, writes, “Modern Biblical scholarship and traditional Judaism are and must always remain completely irreconcilable.” See J.L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now (New York: Free Press, 2007), p. 681. 2 See TB Megillah 14a, which states that of all the many prophets who served the Jewish People throughout the ages, none of them added or subtracted anything from the Torah (save for the Rabbinic commandment of reading the Book of Esther on Purim). 3 About those who place the literal text of the Bible on the highest pedestal and ignore Jewish tradition, Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903–1994) writes, “This kind of bibliolatry is Lutheran, not Jewish... The religion of Israel, the world of Halakhah and the Oral Law, was not produced from Scripture. Scripture is one of the institutions of the religion of Israel. Both religiously and from a logical and casual standpoint the Oral Law, the Halakhah, is prior to the Written Teaching, which includes faith and values ... The Halakhah of the Oral Teaching, which is a human product, derives its authority from the words of the living God in Scripture; at the same time, it is the Halakhah which determines the content and meaning Introduction 11 to be a stand-alone work. In fact, the Bible is known as the Written Torah in order to emphasize the equal legitimacy of the Oral Torah. Without the perspective of the Oral Torah, the Bible is a completely different book. Academians’ irreverence for the very text which they study and their callous disregard for its traditional interpretations have long hampered their ability to truly penetrate the Bible. R. Dr. Yitzchak Isaac ha-Levi Herzog (1888–1959), the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, takes note of Biblical Criticism’s utter disregard for Jewish tradi- tion and writes, Now, irrespective of Jewish tradition — which the Higher Criticism completely ignores, though I fail to understand how true scientific criticisms can totally brush aside in so high-handed a manner the living tradition of a living race — such a view is, I maintain, hardly tenable from the standpoint of the unprejudiced student of law and social progress.4 1.2 THE ORAL TORAH The Talmud relates that a potential proselyte came to the Tannaic sage Shammai with the hopes of converting to Judaism. He asked Shammai, “How many Torahs do you have?” to which Shammai replied, “Two — the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.” The gentile then said, “Convert me on condition that you [only] teach me the Written Torah.” Shammai responded by harshly reprimanding this individual and eject- ing him from his presence. When the same person came in front of Hillel, Hillel proved to him how the Oral Torah is necessary for understanding the Written Torah of Scripture.” See his Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State (Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 10–11. 4 I. Herzog, The Main Institutions of Jewish Law, vol. 1 (London/New York: Soncino Press, 1965), p. xxvii. 12 God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry and the twain must remain unseparated.5 In the spirit of Hillel, we will show how the Oral Torah is a necessary tool for properly reading the Written Torah, and that we will not simply take the traditions of the Oral Torah for granted. The Oral Torah is the Jewish tradition partially recorded in the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Midrash. Other elements of the Oral Torah were committed to writing in post-Talmudic times by the Medieval Torah scholars known as geonim and rishonim, and afterwards by the latter-day scholars known as acharonim. Collectively, these re- cords comprise the traditional Jewish understanding of the Bible. Although the positions of various Torah scholars sometimes contradict each other, they are all derived from the same traditional methodology and thus should all be taken into account. Nonetheless, our respect for those scholars does not bar us from questioning their assumptions and even critiquing their conclusions.6 1.3 OUR APPROACH We will use both the Written Torah and Oral Torah to provide the reader with an outline of the history of the Jewish People in the Biblical period and their relationship with idolatry. To that effect, we make use of classic rabbinic writings in order to sharpen that picture. 5 TB Shabbos 31a. 6 Interestingly, the Chazon Ish embraces the literal understanding of Biblical and Rabbinic text. In his purist view, only that which the Biblical text and the classical Rabbinic sources say explicitly is true in the actual physical sense of the word.