Myth #77:

Aaron fashioned a golden calf.

The Myth: And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. (Exod. 32:1–5)

The Reality: The story of the golden calf was invented after the split between Judah and Israel in order to discredit the Aaronite priesthood in Israel.

While Moses was on the mountain, the people of Israel became worried and asked Aaron, brother of Moses, to make gods for them. This violated two of the Ten Commandments, the prohibition against worshipping any god but Jahweh and the prohibition against graven images. Because of textual inconsistencies it is not clear that the Israelites knew yet that such behavior was sinful. Nevertheless, Aaron made them a golden calf and when Moses came down from the mountain with the two engraved stone tablets containing the law and saw the idol, he angrily smashed the tablets.

What is particularly puzzling about the story is that when Aaron finishes making the statue, he says about this idol,“ These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” He made only one statue. Why did he use the plural term “gods” to describe this single creation?

The answer lies in the politics of the split between Judah and Israel. When Jeroboam split Israel from Judah, he needed to develop an alternative set of religious symbols to challenge the theology of the Judahite priests at Solomon’s temple, which had become the central religious symbol of the united kingdom.

Jeroboam feared that once the important holidays came, which required the Israelites to go to the Jerusalem temple, he would lose his hold over their loyalty.

If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the LORD at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their LORD, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. (1 Kings 12:27)

So he set up rival cult centers, one on the southern border of Israel at Bethel and one on the northern border of Israel at Dan.

Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem: behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. (1 Kings 12:28–29)

Note the language used here:“behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” These are the same words previously attributed to Aaron, but here the use of the plural form is proper because there are two calves.

Israel and Judah were engaged in a theological and political conflict. The two golden calves served as a throne for God and they were meant to compete with the throne of God in Judah, the Ark of the Covenant housed in the Jerusalem temple, which had two golden cherubim mounted on top.

The Judahite throne was a modest-sized chest with two golden statues on top to serve as a footstool. Located in the temple, few people had access to it. The Israelite throne straddled the entire kingdom, bringing into its embrace everyone within Israel’s borders but pointedly excluding the territory of Judah .

The Judahites could not allow such a rebuke to go unchallenged so they invented a story about Aaron sinning against God by building a golden calf. They took Jeroboam’s words about the golden calf and put them in Aaron’s mouth, but they forgot to edit the plural form and change it to the singular.

This, of course, created an additional problem. Associating Aaron with a sin against God undermined the authority of the Aaronites. Among the many priestly schisms in ancient Israel was one that pit the Aaronites, one branch of the Levite tree that claimed to be the main priest class, against the other branches of Levi that held lesser posts in the priestly pecking order.

Following the discovery of Aaron’s sin, Moses called out,“Who is on the side of the LORD?” and all the sons of Levi came forward and they slaughtered three thousand of the Israelite sinners. In recognition of their actions, Moses declared, “Consecrate yourselves to day to the LORD, even every man upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow upon you a blessing this day” (Exod. 32:29).

This declaration gave all Levites equal authority and shows that the golden calf incident must have originated with non-Aaronite members of the Levite faction who were based in Jerusalem. They were trying to undercut the religious authority of the Aaronite wing and at the same time enhance their own prestige.