From Goddess Worship to Patriarchy: The Monotheistic Revolution

(13) Rabbi Hiyya said: Terach was a manufacturer of idols. He once went away somewhere and left Abraham to sell them in his place. A man came in and wished to buy one."How old are you?" Abraham asked the man. "Fifty years old," he said. "Woe to such a man, who is fifty years old and would worship a day old object!" Avraham said. On another occasion a woman came in with a plateful of flour and requested him, "Take this and offer it to them." So he took a stick and broke them, and put the stick in the hand of the largest. When his father returned he demanded, "What have you done to them?" "I cannot conceal it from you. A woman came with a plateful of fine meal and requested me to offer it to them. One claimed, 'I must eat first,' while another claimed, 'I must eat first.' Thereupon, the largest arose, took the stick and broke them." "Why do you make sport of me? Have they any knowledge?" Terach said. "Should not your ears hear what your mouth has said?" Avraham said. Thereupon Terach seized him and delivered him to Nimrod. "Let us worship fire," Nimrod said. "Let us rather worship water which quenches fire," Avraham said. "Let us worship water," Nimrod said. "Let us rather worship the clouds which bear the water," Avraham said. "Let us then worship the clouds," Nimros said. "Let us worship the wind which disperses the clouds," Avraham said. "Let us worship the wind," Nimrod said. "Let us worship human beings which can stand up to the wind," Avraham said. "You are just bandying words, and we will worship nothing but the fire. Behold, I will cast you into it, and let your God whom you adore come and save you from it!" Nimrod said. Now Charan was standing there undecided. "If Avraham is victorious, I will say that I am of Avraham’s belief, while if Nimrod is victorious, I will say that I am on Nimrod’s side," he thought. When Avraham descended into the fiery furnace and was saved, Nimrod asked him, "Of whose belief are you?" "Of Abraham’s," he replied. Thereupon he seized him and cast him into the fire; his innards were scorched and he died in the presence of his father. Hence it is written, "And Charan died in the presence of his father Terach."

(6) Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, at the terebinth of Moreh . . . (7) God appeared to Abram and said, “I will assign this land to your offspring.” And he built an altar there to the God who had appeared to him.

(1) King Solomon loved many foreign women in addition to Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Phoenician, and Hittite women . . . (3) He had seven hundred royal wives and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned his heart away. (4) In his old age, his wives turned away Solomon’s heart after other gods, and he was not as wholeheartedly devoted to the God as his father David had been. (5) Solomon followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Phoenicians, and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

(23) The people also built for themselves shrines, pillars, and sacred posts on every high hill and under every leafy tree;

(13) The king also had shrines facing Jerusalem, to the south of the Mount of the Destroyer, which King Solomon of Israel had built for Asherah, the abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom, the detestable thing of the Ammonites.

(9) The Israelites committed against their God acts which were not right: They built for themselves shrines in all their settlements, from watchtowers to fortified cities; (10) they set up pillars and sacred posts for themselves on every lofty hill and under every leafy tree; (11) and they offered sacrifices there, at all the shrines, like the nations whom God had driven into exile before them.”

(4) He [King Hezekiah] abolished the shrines and smashed the pillars and cut down the sacred post. He also broke into pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until that time the Israelites had been offering sacrifices to it; it was called Nehushtan.

(3) He [King Menasheh] rebuilt the shrines that his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he erected altars for Baal and made a sacred post, as King Ahab of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the host of heaven and worshiped them,

(4) Then the king ordered the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second rank, and the guards of the threshold to bring out of the Temple all the objects made for Baal and Asherah and all the host of heaven. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron, and he removed the ashes to Bethel. (5) He suppressed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had appointed to make offerings at the shrines in the towns of Judah and in the environs of Jerusalem, and those who made offerings to Baal, to the sun and moon and constellations—all the host of heaven. (6) He brought out the [image of] Asherah from the House of God to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem, and burned it in the Kidron Valley; he beat it to dust and scattered its dust over the burial ground of the common people.

(5) but look only to the site that God will choose amidst all your tribes as His habitation, to establish His name there. There you are to go, (6) and there you are to bring your burnt offerings and other sacrifices, your tithes and contributions, your votive and freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and flocks.

(2) If there is found among you, in one of the settlements that your God is giving you, a man or woman who has affronted God and transgressed His covenant— (3) turning to the worship of other gods and bowing down to them, to the sun or the moon or any of the heavenly host, something I never commanded— (4) and you have been informed or have learned of it, then you shall make a thorough inquiry. If it is true, the fact is established, that abhorrent thing was perpetrated in Israel, (5) you shall take the man or the woman who did that wicked thing out to the public place, and you shall stone them, man or woman, to death.—

(26) You shall not practice divination or soothsaying.

(4) It is forbidden to practice divination as the idolaters do, even as it is said: "Nor shall ye use enchantment" (Ibid. 19.26). How is divination practiced? For instance, those who say: "Seeing that the bread fell out of my mouth", or, "my cane fell out of my hand I shall not go to-day to that place, for if I do go, my desire will not be fulfilled; seeing that a fox passed by my right hand I shall not leave my door step to-day, for if I do leave a false person will encounter me". Likewise those who hear the chirping of a bird say: "It will be so, but not so; it is good to do that thing and bad to do the other thing". So are those who say: "Kill this rooster, he crowed during the evening; kill that hen, she crows like a rooster". So, too, is one who sets certain signs for himself to regulate his actions, saying: "If such thing will come to pass I shall do that thing, but if it will not come to pass I shall not do it", even as Eliezer, Abrahams servant did. And so are all like practices of such things forbidden. And whosoever commits an act as a result of any one of such practices, is lashed.⁶Sanhedrin, 65b–67b; Shabbat, 67a; Sifra, Lev. 20; Tosefta, Shabbat, Ch. 1. C. G.