Where to worship? Religion in Iron II Israel and Judah
Traditionally, studies of religion in Iron Age Israel have utilised one of two evidentiary corpora, the biblical or the archaeological; with increasing frequency, such studies are enhanced by scholars who dialogue between them. It is not overly optimistic to suggest that the broad outlines of Israelite religious belief and practice are, by now, known – nor is it pessimistic to accept the fact that the biases inherent in our data (and perhaps within ourselves) mean that we will never fully know all that transpired in the realm of Israelite religion. The factors that advance contemporary studies over those of previous generations include an enriched archaeological database, a fuller understanding of the ways in which the Hebrew Bible pertains to Iron Age religion, the discovery of women as full partners in Israelite society, and newfound attention to the importance of household (as opposed to national) religion. This paper considers some of these advances by looking at what is now known about Israelite religion beyond the Jerusalem Temple: (1) at the level of the nation; (2) at the level of the extended family; and, (3) at the level of the individual.1
Temples to the National Deity: “Houses of God”
Absent archaeological evidence for the Jerusalem Temple, scholars are forced to rely upon relevant passages throughout First and Second Kings, which describe the Temple, its construction and consecration, its renovations and alterations, and finally, its destruction at the hands of the Babylonians. They are aided by comparanda from earlier and contemporary temples at sites such as Hazor, Tell Tayinat, and ‘Ain Dara. The literature on these and other temples is rich.2 Briefly stated, the temple in Jerusalem was tripartite in plan, accessed through a spacious courtyard, and well appointed with elegant cultic paraphernalia.3 It was constructed as a royal chapel at the beginning of the Monarchy (1 Kgs 6–7);4 later, its national importance grew in response to moves toward centralisation and institutionalisation. Recent studies convincingly place this transition (which additionally and for the first time, allowed for public access to the Temple) in the second half of the eighth century, during the reigns of Jotham (2 Kgs 15:35b) and Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:10–18; Hurowitz 2005, 90–95; Lemaire 2011). This religious centralisation was later amplified by the actions of Hezekiah (2 Kgs 18:4; Bloch-Smith 2009) and Josiah (2 Kgs 23:4–24; Dever 1994). While the Jerusalem Temple may never have played as important a role in Israelite and Judaean life as it would come to play later, once it was but a memory, it was nonetheless significant throughout the Iron Age II as an emblem of monarchy and priesthood, and as a national “organising principle”. It was the one sacred building that stood throughout the entire Monarchy, United and Divided alike. The other sacred places of the Iron II were of lesser longevity; none spanned both eras and some were comparatively short-lived (for further on dating, see Dever 2004; Mazar 2005).
The Hebrew Bible notes Jeroboam’s construction of two royal temples for the northern nation of Israel (c. 930 BCE; 1 Kgs 12:26–33).5 Excavations at Tel Dan have revealed a prominently sited monumental platform on which, perhaps, Jeroboam’s temple with its bull image once stood; it was modified and used throughout the Iron Age and even as late as the Hellenistic period.6 Cultic objects including seven-wicked oil lamps, clay and faience figurines, ceramic incense stands, a four-horned stone altar, and a sunken stone basin, were associated with it. So, too, were two subsidiary rooms half a dozen metres to the west, which contained an altar made of six uneven stone blocks, two small stone incense altars, burnt animal bones, a bronze sceptre head, and three iron shovels. In addition, four maşşebâ (standing stone; plural maşşebôt) shrines can be related to Dan’s gateway system. They contained 3–5 standing stones; a modest array of cultic materials indicates sacrifice and other ritual acts (Biran 1994, 159–233; 1998; 2001; Zevit 2001, 180–96; Bloch-Smith 2006, 73–74). References to Bethel, Dan’s counterpart to the south, were common in the Bible (e.g. 1 Kgs 13; 2 Kgs 17:25–28) even long after the Assyrian destruction of the northern nation (Rainey 2006 and references therein), although no physical evidence for a temple (let alone a golden calf) has been uncovered there. Indeed, Bethel became emblematic of all that the Deuteronomists (who gave the narrative in Deuteronomy-2 Kings much of its ideological stance, as well as its final form) and Israel’s many prophets (Jer 48:12–13; Hos 10:15; Amos 3:14, 4:4, 5:5, 7:10–13), considered wrong with the nation and with its people.7
A. Faust recently underscored the prevalence of cultic buildings (“any structure built specifically for religious purposes”) at Late Bronze Age sites in the southern Levant, identifying them at more than 20 sites (Faust 2010, 23; see also Mazar 1992; Nakhai 2001, 119–160). Significantly, every excavated LBA site had at least one, and some had more than one. In contrast, in the Iron II, dedicated cultic buildings were rare in Israel and Judah – even though this was not the case in neighboring lands. In his opinion, the small number of cultic buildings in Israel and Judah highlights a radical restructuring of religion between the Canaanite Late Bronze Age and the Israelite/Judaean Iron Age II (see also Gilmour 1997). The extent of this restructuring becomes even more apparent when one factors in the exponential growth in population and in the number of settlements in the Iron Age, as compared to the Late Bronze II (Faust 2010, 28–29).8 W. Mierse articulated this insight differently, describing the shift between the abundance of temples of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and their scarcity in the Iron II as a move from the prestigious to the vernacular in sacred architecture. The few prestigious temples of the Iron Age Levant (including those at Jerusalem and Dan) are understood to have been components of royal complexes constructed by new dynastic heads (see also Ahlström 1982), structured so as to accommodate formal movement such as stately processions. Elsewhere, at sites with smaller places of worship, the range of architectural forms and the informality of design were purposeful, intended to accommodate a variety of cultic needs and to reflect different ways of approaching the Divine (Mierse 2012, 300–308).
In addition to the three religious “capitals” (Jerusalem, Dan, Bethel), several other sites contained places for worship that evoked the tropes, motifs and symbols of national religion, even as public access to them was unlikely. The sacred places at Arad, Lachish, Megiddo and (presumably) Beersheba were small, integrated into larger buildings, and were more easily identifiable by their contents than by their physical structure. As a whole, they embodied elements of the nation’s formal religion, which included at least some from among the following features and ritual objects: dedicated space for the placement of ritual objects and for worship; stone altars (often four-horned) that were too heavy to move easily; maşşebôt; chalices and other ritual vessels; unornamented, fenestrated and/or decorated ceramic offering stands and altars; cultic implements; and, storage space.
Massive horned altars comprised of multiple nicely hewn stone blocks, as well as stationary and movable horned altars carved from a single stone block, comprised a common element of Iron II cultic paraphernalia. S. Gitin has demonstrated that the presence of stone altars (whether four-horned or not) “should be considered a criterion for defining sacred space” (2002, 117).9 Horned altars (like the differently constructed altars in Jerusalem and Arad) stood in the courtyards of royal sanctuaries (although they were not always discovered in those courtyards). The nicely hewn “horns” from the monumental altars that were found at Dan and Megiddo match those of the (reassembled) horned altar from Beersheba (Lamon and Shipton 1939, 24, fig. 29; Aharoni 1975b; Biran 1994, 203, fig. 16).10 The remains of Megiddo’s monumental horned altar stood in front of a large residential structure, Building 2081 (Area AA; Str. VA–IVB; Iron IIA). Most of the cultic paraphernalia, including smaller horned altars, an offering table, a ceramic stand with downturned petals, a tripod mortar, pottery, and a krater containing nearly 700 astragali (of which 20% were worked), was found tucked away in a niche in the broad courtyard at the front of the building (May 1935; Loud 1948, 45, figs 100–102; Ussishkin 1989, 170–172; Negbi 1993; Frick 2000, 67–68; Zevit 2001, 220–225).11
Beyond its monumental horned altar, archaeological evidence for the Beersheba temple (Iron IIB–C) remains scarce, despite extensive excavation of the site.12 However, its importance as a site of national religious importance is highlighted by Amos’s inclusion of Beersheba, together with Bethel, Gilgal, Samaria and Dan, as a venue for illegitimate worship (5:5, 8:4). It is further highlighted by the popular phrase “from Dan to Beersheba” (Judg 20:1, 1 Sam 3:20, 2 Sam 3:10, 17:11, 24:2, 15, 1 Kgs 5:5), which is used to describe Israel’s full geographic – and demographic – extent. This phrase suggests more than compass points, north to south. Rather, it encompasses Israel’s entirety, holy space and holy community, from its northernmost to its southernmost sacred site.13
In the Iron IIB–C, a small temple stood within the Judaean fortress at Arad. Constructed within this remote military installation, it bore little resemblance to the larger one in Jerusalem. In the courtyard stood a large altar, constructed of stone boulders. Animal bones and ashes lay in front of it, while a ceramic stand, two offering bowls inscribed with the letters qof kap (standing for qōdeš kōhănîm, consecrated for the priests), and a bronze figure of a crouching lion were found nearby. Paired stone altars flanked the entry to the raised cella in the back of the temple, and paired maşşebôt stood at its back wall (Aharoni 1968).14 A large krater from Beersheba inscribed with qdš (holy; Aharoni 1975a, 167), ostraca from Arad with the names of the priestly families Meremoth (Ezra 8:33) and Pashhur (Jer 20:1), and more, connect both these sites with the Jerusalem priesthood (Aharoni 1968, 11; see also Ahlström 1982, 41) and underscore the inclusion of the Beersheba and Arad temples within the realm of national religion.
In addition to the monumental horned altars found at Dan, Megiddo and Beersheba, smaller versions were found at Dan (Biran 1994, 196, fig. 155), and at Megiddo in both the 2081 and 338 sanctuaries (May 1935, 12–13, pl. 12). D. Ussishkin identified Megiddo Building 338 (Area BB; Str. VA/IVB; Iron IIA) as a royal (governor’s) residence, fronted by a spacious courtyard. The shrine room within it, Room 340, originally contained an offering table, a bench, four short stone stands, model shrines, a tripod mortar, horned and columnar stone altars, and a simple male figurine, although at the time of discovery, some of these materials had been dispersed to other rooms and to the courtyard (Ussishkin 1989, 1993; see also Negbi 1993; Zevit 2001, 227–31).
During the Iron IIA, Lachish also contained a sacred space that revealed a connection with the Jerusalem cultus. Cult Room 49 (Str. V), a small, benched chamber with a built-in altar, was filled with cultic paraphernalia. A small horned altar stood in front of the permanent altar. Four ceramic stands, of which two were fenestrated, originally supported bowls used for burning. Z. Zevit’s reconstruction of the room and its contents, much of which was discovered in situ, pairs the stands and places them at opposite sides of the built-in altar.15 The numerous ceramic vessels include chalices, lamps, bowls, jugs and juglets, a storage jar, and cooking pots. Due to structural damage, it is not possible to determine whether Cult Room 49 was part of a larger building, although this is suggested by the fact that its rear wall extended well beyond the confines of Room 49. A nearby open area, Locus 81, contained a maşşebâ and an olivewood pole; its two favissae contained additional maşşebôt and a seven-cupped stone (Aharoni 1975c, 26–32; Nakhai 2001, 178–179; Zevit 2001, 213–218).
To summarise, this informal network of royally sanctioned temples in Israel and Judah fulfilled elements of the monarchic agenda, establishing authority and providing prestige, visibility, and some degree of control over a populace more accustomed to kin-based forms of worship. While this was true throughout the Monarchy, it was truer of the Iron IIA, during which time the full extent of governmental organisation was still being crafted; in the Iron IIB–C, governmental infrastructure and leadership were more fully imposed on the cities of Israel and Judah (Shiloh 1979; Nakhai 2001, 176–93; Mazar 2005, 25–26; Faust 2012, 13–27, 263–268). The shift in nationally significant places of worship from the Iron IIA to the Iron IIB–C reflects two related political and military phenomena. The first is the split between Israel and Judah subsequent to the death of Solomon, which resulted in the establishment of two new religious centers in the north (Dan, Bethel). The second is the devastation caused by the c. 925 BCE attack on Israel by Egypt’s king Sheshonq I (biblical Shishak; for more on Shishak’s campaign and its affect on Israel and Judah, see Stager 2003; Shortland 2005; Mayes 2011; Dever forthcoming). Not only was there damage throughout the land (Bruins et al. 2003), but also the Jerusalem Temple and the nearby palace were plundered (1 Kgs 14:25–26). Just as the consequences of the later 701 BCE attack by the Assyrian king Sennacherib included not only destruction and impoverishment, but also religious centralisation (Bloch-Smith 2009), so too was religious centralisation among the consequences of Shishak’s military campaign.16 As Judah reconstituted itself, official control over religion was to some extent tightened, in consequence of which royally sanctioned worship took place only in Jerusalem, and in strategic sites along its southern border (Arad, Beersheba). The sanctuary at Lachish was never reconstructed. In Israel, the situation was somewhat different since that nation needed to inaugurate its own national sanctuaries (Dan, Bethel), but with that accomplished, the sanctuaries at Megiddo were not reconstructed and no other prominent place of Yahwistic worship was established. At the same time, in response to both the freedom of worship of the Iron I and the deep clan ties that had developed during those 200 years, much Iron II worship continued to take place in alternate venues, whether outdoors, in houses, or in modest structures integrated into housing compounds.17 An examination of religion in the context of Israel and Judah’s extended families provides insight into this more common form of worship.
Community shrines and worship by the extended family
Those places at which the Hebrew Bible claims that Israelites worshipped in the era prior to the Monarchy number approximately thirty (Zwickel 2012; see also Na’aman 1987),18 of which only four (Beersheba, Bethel, Dan, Jerusalem) were later adapted for formal royal worship. Since most of these places cannot be connected to actual sites in Israel or Judah, consideration of archaeological correlates for these biblical narratives remains beyond reach. Of the places at which sanctuaries of some sort are indicated (including Shiloh [Judg 18:31, 21:19–23; 1 Sam 1:1–28, 4:4, 14:3; 1 Kgs 2:27]; Nob [1 Sam 21–22]; and, Gilgal [Josh 4:20; Judg 2:1; 2 Sam 11:14–15; Hos 4:15; Amos 4:4–5]), only Shiloh has been identified archaeologically and it yielded cultic materials but no sacred structure (Finkelstein 1988, 220–234). To complicate matters further, cultic materials have been found at some Iron I sites that cannot be identified with pre-monarchic sacred places mentioned in the Bible (Nakhai 2001, 39–57, 170–176; Edelman 2010). The typical form of worship in these biblical narratives was animal offerings, the fat burned and the meat shared by the family (Anderson 1992, 870–882). In some but not all instances, the intercession of a priest was required to manage the sacrifice and to wear the ephod, which was important for its oracular function (Zwickel 2012).
It is significant that this material, composed during and just after the Monarchy but purporting to describe the pre-monarchic period, not only portrays – but also expresses no discomfort with – the well-accepted Israelite custom of worshipping at multiple locales, occasionally with priest-led ceremonies but more often without the mediation of formal leadership (Nakhai 2001, 44–57). It is, of course, difficult to equate these biblical narratives with real-life practices, given the many complexities. Still, it seems clear that even as the structure of Israelite society began to change with the introduction of kingship, a royal chapel, and a centralised administration, religious practice continued at the local level, with local shrines officiated over by clan leaders and family elders. As for the newly disenfranchised priests, they too claimed a place within local religious practice, as they settled in towns and villages and passed their priestly traditions down to their descendants (Nakhai 2001, 161–168).19
Scholars have emphasised the sharp break in religious praxis between the Late Bronze II and the Iron I (most recently, Nakhai 2001; Faust 2010; Mierse 2012; Zwickel 2012; and references therein). The open-air shrines, priesthoods of limited size and scope, and personalised cultic practices of the Iron I, highlight early Israel’s subsistence economy and social structure. According to W. G. Dever, the typical Israelite four-room house was a marker of an egalitarian ethos (2003, 110). Iron Age villages, as well, exhibited elements of this ethos of egalitarianism (Faust 2012, 220–223). To this I would add that throughout the Monarchy, the popularity of worship venues in homes and housing compounds, and in settlements of all sizes, was yet another aspect of the Israelite reaction against centralised authority (even as the tropes of formal religion resounded among these local shrines).20 Taken together, these factors focus attention on the more prevalent dimension of worship in Israel and Judah, that is, worship that was decentralised and locally-based, in contrast to the better-known components of worship, the formal temples that served the monarchy and other elites.21
In recent years, scholars have delineated Israelite social structure both by mining relevant biblical passages and by turning their attention to the archaeology of the everyday – to housing compounds and houses, to households and families, and (occasionally) to women.22 R. de Vaux offered a detailed analysis based on the Hebrew Bible, ancient Near Eastern comparanda, and near-contemporary ethnographic studies (1961, 19–90; see too Matthews and Benjamin 1993; Blenkinsopp 1997). L. Stager formulated explicit connections between Israelite social structure and those places in which Israelites actually lived (1985; see too Albertz 2012a, 21–46; Faust 2012; and references therein). D. Schloen contextualised the Israelite household within its broader Near Eastern world (2001, 135–183), while others have focused on household archaeology at a single site (Hardin 2010; essays in Yasur-Landau et al. 2011; Dever 2012; and references therein). C. Meyers, J. Ebeling, S. Ackerman and B. Alpert Nakhai have strongly argued for the inclusion of women in all studies of Israelite and Judaean social structure, religion, economy, and daily life (Meyers, inter alia, 1988; 2013; Ackerman 2003; 2008; Nakhai 2005; 2007; 2008a; 2008b; Ebeling 2010; and references therein). Too, the focus by some text scholars, epigraphers and art historians on names and images within the Bible, and on seals, sealings, and inscriptions, on coroplastic and other figurative imagery, and more, directs attention to the individual rather than to the community at-large (see, inter alia, van der Toorn 1996, 181–372; Bodel and Olyan 2008; Ziffer 2011; Albertz and Schmitt 2012; and references therein). One outcome of this scholarship is a growing awareness of the physical manifestations of worship at the local level, in contradistinction to national, royal religion (see, most recently, R. Albertz and R. Schmitt’s encyclopedic Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant [2012]). Such awareness facilitates the interpretation of previously obscure installations and of the panoply of small finds that are found within houses, housing compounds, and settlements of all sizes.23
By now, then, the basic structure of Israelite society, the nuclear family (bayit), extended family (bēt ’av), and clan (mišpāḥâ) is well known, thereby facilitating the identification of venues for worship and modes of worship at the community and/or family level. Community shrines were part of the religious infrastructure of Israelite and Judaean settlements, and they functioned alongside the royal religious network described above. Their identification depends less on isolating discrete archaeological structures than on recognising constellations of features and artefacts that point toward non-official community worship.24 These shrines, which I have described as “shrines of the family elders,” functioned within a continuum of size and accessibility (Nakhai 2011; 2014a). In toto, they were utilised by the extended family units (Albertz’s “multigenerational joint family” [2012a, 25]), which were the bedrock of these communities.25 Some of the material culture factors that distinguish these community shrines from the national ones are: monumental or large stone altars (found at royally sanctioned but not at community shrines); maşşebôt (common at royally sanctioned shrines and rare at community shrines); stationary or portable stone altars, ceramic altars, and model shrines (common at community shrines and rare at royally sanctioned shrines); clay figurines (found at community shrines and not at royally sanctioned shrines). These factors (and others too) must be evaluated according to the preponderance of the evidence rather than by any absolute calculation; that is, the preponderance of the evidence points toward identifying a number of worship sites as community rather than royally sanctioned shrines. A brief examination of several of these shrines, found at Iron II sites including (but not limited to) Ta‘anach, Beth Shean, Tell el-Far’ah (N), Tell en-Nasbeh, and Lahav/Tel Halif, follows.26
A mid-8th century building at Beth Shean was one of the largest four-room houses in Iron II Israel (Area P, Str. P-7, L. 28636; Mazar and Fink 2006, 212–230; Mazar 2006a, 269–278). Its central roofed chamber (L. 28638, L. 28641) contained numerous daily life installations and artifacts, including a small bin, a grinding installation and grinding stones, pottery that included a number of store jars, charred wheat, two looms and textile tools (Mazar 2006b, photos 12.2–12.5). Other artifacts underscore the family’s wealth; they include a finely carved miniature alabaster cosmetic dish,27 a bone spatula likely used for cosmetics, and a small gypsum juglet. Here, women made clothing and prepared food, cooking it in the open space in front of the house. At the same time, religious ephemera suggest that ritual acts were integrated into the daily lives of the women who lived here (Nakhai 2014a). The ephemera of domestic rituals, including the head of a female figurine, a Bes amulet, an astragalus, and an animal figurine, were found near the house. So, too, was an uninscribed clay tablet; a second one was found nearby (Yahalom-Mack and Mazar 2006, 471–473).
The room to the right of the central chamber (Room 18601) contained a shrine of the family elders (Nakhai 2014a). It was comprised of a libation area just left of the entrance, consisting of an unusual stone and brick installation that held a large water jar, a small vessel and a basalt bowl. In one corner of the room, domestic pottery lay on and around a low bench. Luxury goods, some of which was used ritually, include a stone cosmetic bowl and lid, small gypsum juglets, a blue faience bead, seashells, juglets, and five iron arrowheads (Yahalom-Mack and Mazar 2006).28 This spacious house, stocked with ceramic vessels sufficient for feeding some twenty people, was inhabited by a single wealthy family (Mazar 2006a, 273–274). I would suggest that among its inhabitants were family elders, responsible for convening their extended family for ceremonial occasions that included ritual meals, for which they maintained their extensive pantry.
A similarly equipped house was discovered at Ta‘anach. The so-called “cultic structure” was founded in the late-11th century BCE (Period IIA = late 11th–mid-10th century BCE); the scant remains from that era highlight the wealth and status of the building’s occupants (Frick 2000, 40–43). The more extensive mid-10th century material (Period IIB = c. 960–925 BCE; Area B; squares SW 1-7, 1-8, 2-7, 2-8 [Frick 2000, 43]) reveals the partial remains of a four-room house, and not the remnants of a sacred building (contra Rast 1994; Frick 2000).29 Of the two better-preserved rooms, Room 1 was used primarily for storage and Room 2 for food preparation (Rast 1994, fig. 21-1; Frick 2000, 43–44, 51, 170; Schmitt 2012b, 169–172). The building contained domestic materials (including ample pottery for food preparation, serving and storage; pounding and grinding tools;30 and, ceramic and bone tools for textile production); installations (including a hearth; a stone-lined basin [presumably for olive oil preparation]; and, a lined silo); and, cultic paraphernalia. Ritual objects and mundane household items were also found discarded in Pit 69, just outside the house. The exterior courtyard contained two silos and a cistern. Not only the quantity of quotidian materials but also the quality of some of the small finds point to the continuing wealth of the resident household. These luxury items include a serpentine pendant, bronze beads, ivory pieces, a stamp seal impression, ten stone weights, and knives and other tools made of iron (Frick 2000).
The cultic assemblage is comprised of three caches of astragali (with a total of nearly 200, some of which were worked); three fragmentary clay figurines (2 female, 1 equine); a mould for producing figurines; a highly stylised stone figurine; stone tripod bowls; and, cultic vessels (Frick 2000).31 Most noteworthy are the ceramic cult stands, especially the two that are elaborately decorated (Frick 2000, 114–29). The imagery on these stands, which includes lions, goddesses, a tree of life, horses, and more, has been the subject of intense scrutiny; the fantastic representations are redolent of a religious culture rich in symbolism and in creative imagination.32 To summarise, while the 10th century Ta‘anach “cultic structure” has commonly been assigned a solely religious function, I would suggest that it was the home of a wealthy family, responsible not only for managing myriad domestic activities, but also for enacting rituals designed to ensure the well-being of the extended family.
At other sites as well, including Tell el-Far‘ah (N) (biblical Tirzah; Level 7b = 10th century BCE; Houses 355, 436 and 440 [Chambon 1984]), Tell en-Nasbeh (biblical Mizpah; Str. 3 = Iron II [Brody 2009]), and Lahav/Tel Halif (Field IV, House 1, Str. VIB = 8th century BCE [Hardin 2004; 2010, 124–160]), small shrines have been identified within housing compounds. These shrines, like those at Ta‘anach and Beth Shean, were used for community worship by extended families; elders, male and female alike, would have officiated at them. They are identified by the inclusion of some range of built features (alcoves, offering benches, niches, altars, partially sunken vessels for libations, and so forth), and of small finds (tripod mortars, chalices, miniature ceramic vessels, arrowheads and knives, anthropomorphic and/or zoomorphic figurines, miniature vehicles and/or model furniture, and fenestrated or otherwise elaborated ceramic stands) (Nakhai 2011; 2014a). The shrines express the worship patterns delineated in the biblical narratives that purport to describe the era before the Jerusalem Temple, an era that favoured local worship by family leaders and allowed for the participation of family members. While the venue for the biblical rituals was commonly outdoors (see, inter alia, Gen 8:20–21; 12:7, 8; 13:4, 18; 22:9; 26: 25; 33:20; 35:1, 3, 7; Ex 17:15; Num 23:1–4, 14; Josh 8:30; 22:10; Judg 6:24; 13:20; 21:4; 1 Sam 7:17; 14:35; 2 Sam 24:18; 1 Kgs 18:32), rituals could be enacted at indoor shrines, as well (see Judg 17:5 for a “House of God” [bêt ’elohîm] in the hills of Ephraim; in Judg 17:12, its location in “Micah’s house” [bêt mîkâ] is clarified). The rituals described in these biblical texts replicate the rituals important within the extended family, attended to by its elders and by other family members: ceremonies for naming and renaming, circumcision, acts of thanksgiving, atonement and purification, acknowledgment of theophany, and more. In addition, the responsibilities that the elders bore for ensuring food security for their extended families required ritual engagement at family shrines.33 These shrines would not have been the only venues for worship. Members of the larger community might also have worshipped at gateway shrines (for Dan, see Biran 1994, 235–249; Blomquist 1999, 57–59, fig. 2a–b; for Jerusalem, see 2 Kgs 23:8 [Keel 2012, 323] and Ezek 8:14, 16: 24, 41 [Blomquist 1999, 163–181]; for further discussion, see Blomquist 1999), at outdoor altars within cities (e.g. Rehov Area E [Mazar 2008, 2016–217]; see also Jer 11:13), on nearby hilltops (Nakhai 1994; 2001, 56–69, 161–168; for Jerusalem, see Keel 2012), or at other easily accessed places (see also Edelman 2010).34
Religion in the realm of the personal
To the extent that scholars have been able to identify acts of personal piety in the archaeological record, they have focused on those enacted by women and, primarily, on those related to lifecycle events including pregnancy and childrearing (Willett 1999; 2008; Meyers 2005; 2013, 147–70; van der Toorn 1994, 19–26, 77–92; Albertz 2012b, 269–298; Schmitt 2012c, 387–399; Nakhai 2011; 2014b).35 That women would seek the Divine at multiple points during their childbearing years seems obvious. Women – and especially women without children – were disadvantaged in Israelite society. This can be seen in the Bible, in the piercing stories of childless women, in the oft-repeated injunction to care for the widow (a woman who lacked not only a husband but also a son to care for her), and in the problems encountered in the transmission of land and other real property in the absence of male heirs (e.g. Sarah [Gen 17–18]; Rachel and Leah [Gen 29–30]; Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Noah [Num 26:33, 27:1–11]; Hannah [1 Sam 1–2]; see also Schneider 2008). It can be seen, as well, in mortuary statistics, which identify the lifespan of a woman as 30 years, ten less than her male counterpart, due to pregnancy and childbirth related morbidity and mortality, and which indicate that as many as a third of all children died by age 5, and half by age 18. Women were both midwives and healers, of children, of women, and of men; this responsibility had both medical and ritual components (Nakhai 2014b).
Women bore many other responsibilities, for which they would similarly desire Divine intervention and support. That women were fully engaged in all aspects of nutrition – crop and livestock products alike – is obvious. Matters relating to sustenance, to food and drink, farming and herding, processing, preserving, and preparing, were among women’s primary responsibilities. So, too, was their engagement in the production of clothing and other textiles, and these required raw materials drawn primarily from the same resources as food. Procuring ample supplies of clean water was similarly within their portfolio. This suggests that women shared the concerns of the extended family and the larger community and would have needed not only personal but also community-based worship, whether at shrines of the elders or at other community shrines in their cities, towns, and villages (Jer 7:17–18, 44:15–21).
Assemblages of women’s ritual paraphernalia have been identified at a number of Iron II sites, including Beth Shean, Beersheba, Tell en-Nasbeh, Tell Beit Mirsim, Tel Masos, Lahav/Tel Halif, and Tell el-Far’ah (N) (Holladay 1987, 275–280; Willett 1999, 157–165; 2008; Meyers 2005, 27–35; Nakhai 2011; 2014a; Singer-Avitz 2011). This material evidence for women’s religious lives is found interspersed among the ephemera of daily life activities, especially in those parts of the house in which women worked. Most often, these small ritual objects were of little value to anyone other than the women who used them to protect themselves and their families.
Of interest are the smooth, blank ceramic tablets, two of which were discovered at Ta‘anach (Frick 2000, 134–135), and two at Beth Shean (Yahalom-Mack and Mazar 2006, 471–473). Although their function remains speculative, I have suggested elsewhere (Nakhai 2014a) that they may relate to women’s religious “literacy”. According to S. Starr Sered, the physical nature of a sacred text may allow that text to attain a religious value and ritual function that transcend its words and their meanings (1995).36 According to K. van der Toorn, in the Deuteronomistic vision of the Torah, “…the sacred image and the holy book served the same function: they were each an embodiment of the sacred, and both were perceived as incarnations of God” (van der Toorn 1997, 242). In Iron Age Israel, women, by all odds illiterate, might have made tablets void of either word or image and yet still sacred, replicating the lamaštu plaques, inscribed apotropaic plaques designed to bring healing, ensure safe childbirth, and protect women and their babies from demons, which they used for ritual purposes.
Additional apotropaic objects used in women’s rituals include beads of specially chosen colors, shells, amulets (including the popular “eye” and Bes amulets); women used, as well, clay figurines, and miniature chairs and lamps (Willett 1999, 292–388; 2008; Meyers 2005, 27–35; Limmer 2007, 160–162, 394–395). Some of these pieces were surely heirlooms, passed down from mother to daughter. While it is not simple to distinguish between women’s ritual ephemera and the objects used in shrines of the elders, their positioning in areas in which women worked – rather than within the permanent or semi-permanent installations that situated the family shrines – is helpful in determining ownership and function (Nakhai 2014a).37
Conclusions
So, where to worship? For Israelites and Judaeans of the Iron Age II (c. 1000–587 BCE), this depended upon one’s identity, social status and gender, upon when and where one lived, and with whom. For kings, there was the Jerusalem Temple, and those at Dan and Bethel. Each had its own priesthood, but also, depending on the era, some configuration of priestly networks might interconnect nationally sanctioned places of worship. Over time, public access to the Jerusalem Temple increased; Dan, too, became pilgrimage site. These temples held no monopoly on legitimacy, however.38 Hilltops, gateways, and common areas in town squares all offered opportunities for formal and informal worship. Easier to substantiate archaeologically is worship that took place within housing compounds, as family elders officiated over worship for their extended families at shrines of the family elders. Women, some of whom were counted among the family elders, worshiped with their families and on their own in their homes, in those places in which they bore and raised their children and performed their daily tasks. Each of these settings was legitimate; each had its own constellation of space, installations and ritual paraphernalia; and, each filled a different need within Israel and Judah’s various constituencies. Overall, it mattered little if one were lord or liege, priest or layperson, elder or youngster, woman or man. For each and all, there was a place to worship, be it dedicated ritual space or profane space made sacred through the performance of ritual acts – and for each and all, there was the wherewithal to worship, utilising ritual objects and sacrificial offerings commensurate with one’s means.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Nicola Laneri, University of Catania, for inviting me to contribute to this important volume. I extend thanks, as well, to William G. Dever, for taking the time to comment on a draft of this article.
Notes
1 For the premier – now classic – articulation of this tripartite model for Israelite religion, see Albertz 1994. See also Holladay 1987; Nakhai 2001, 191; Albertz and Schmitt 2012. Funerary beliefs and rituals, another important component of religion, are not treated here. For the literature on funerary traditions, see, inter alia, Bloch-Smith 1992; Lewis 2002; Schmitt 2012a; and references therein. For funerary traditions within the context of family religion, see van der Toorn 1996, 42–65; Olyan 2008; Schmitt 2012a.
2 For Late Bronze and Iron Age temples in Israel, Judah and neighboring lands, see inter alia, Dever 1987; 1995; Mazar 1992; Nakhai 2001; Zevit 2001; Hess 2007; Faust 2010; Daviau 2012; Ji 2012; Mierse 2012; Zwickel 2012. For Hazor, see Zuckerman 2012 and references therein. For ‘Ain Dara, see Monson 2006; Novák 2012 and references therein. For Tayinat, see Harrison 2012 and references therein.
3 For more on the Jerusalem Temple, see Meyers 1992; Bloch-Smith 1994, 2002; Dever 2006b; Smith 2006; Ussishkin 2009; and the many references therein. Courtyard altars had a rich past in the Levant, as they were found in Canaanite royal temples (for overviews, see Mazar 1992; Nakhai 2001; for the tripartite temple in LB II Hazor Area H, see Yadin 1961, 212–71), and in the Temple in Jerusalem. These courtyards were likely the single component of royal temples to which there was (limited) public access.
4 According to A. Lemaire, it was “a kind of outbuilding of the royal palace” (2011, 195); according to L. Stager, Jerusalem was “the regal-ritual symbolic ‘center’ of the kingdom and the cosmos” (2003, 66). See also Ahlström 1982.
5 The Bible refers to the golden calves Jeroboam placed at Bethel and Dan (1 Kgs 12:28–30). The only other reference to the Dan sanctuary is 2 Kgs 10:29. That references to the Bethel sanctuary are more common may be attributed the relatively early loss of Dan to the Aramaeans (pace Eran 2008, 37–38). Bethel contained an altar and a bāmâ (2 Kgs 23:15), a miqdaš melek (king’s sanctuary) and a bêt mamlākâ (royal palace; Amos 7:13). A (presumably golden) calf is also indicated at a sanctuary at Beth-aven (Hos 10:5; see also Hos 4:15, 10:8). N. Na’aman suggests that this sanctuary should be identified with the sanctuary at Bethel, rather than considered a separate entity (1987).
6 For more on the bovine imagery at Dan and Bethel, see Smith 2007.
7 The Bible indicates, as well, a temple in Samaria, the capital of the northern nation of Israel. Dedicated to the worship of Baal, it was built by Ahab (1 Kgs 16: 32) and destroyed by Jehu (2 Kgs 10: 18–28).
8 Even if, to A. Faust’s short list of sacred buildings at Arad, Dan and Jerusalem, one adds those at Beersheba, Megiddo and Lachish, the situation changes not too much. The latter sites, like the former, served administrative needs and were populated by governmental functionaries. It is, therefore, to be anticipated that these sites had formal places for official worship.
9 The many rather small portable altars – horned and otherwise – found at these and other sites were used in rooftop rites that involved the burning of incense (Gitin 2002). Needless to say, the enormous horned altars at Megiddo, Dan and Beersheba stood at ground level.
10 The Dan horn, found in a corner of the 9th–8th century “walled temenos” south of the large platform, was in a secondary context, and seems to have originated in the earlier, 10th century stratum (Zevit 2001, 187).
11 Contra, see Albertz and Schmitt 2012, which considers Megiddo 2081 to be a domestic or neighborhood shrine (Additional Tables: tables 3.7–3.8).
12 For reconstructions of the original setting for the temple and horned altar, see Aharoni 1975b, 154–156; Herzog et al. 1977, 56–58; Yadin 1976, 8.
13 One might think, comparably, of the refrain of a song quite popular in the United States, “America the Beautiful,” which was written by Katherine Lee Bates and first published in 1895. It, too, considers the expanse of the country as sacred space:
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
14 In this way, the worship of both Yahweh and Asherah is indicated (Dever 2006a, 469; 2008; see also, Dever 2006b and references in fn. 23).
15 In this way, the worship of two deities is indicated (Zevit 2001, 213–218).
16 Of Shishak’s campaign, A. D. H. Mayes writes: “In the course of all the major areas affected by the invasion, the Negeb, the international coastal route, the Jezreel valley, and even the area of Gibeon in the highlands, which belongs to the direct route linking the southern coastal region to the Jordan valley, it is clear that it is the protection of trade routes that the invasion was designed to secure. A study of the consequences of the invasion, on the other hand, and especially perhaps its unintended consequences, may give it a significance with wider implications” (2011, 68). Certainly the reframing of patterns of worship in Iron II Israel and Israel and Judah are among those unintended consequences.
17 The caution offered by R. Schmitt (2012d, 241) bears notice: “… we find that the interdependence and coexistence of several layers and realms of cultic activity are perhaps best understood using the concepts of internal religious pluralism, which permitted multiple intersections among the circles of domestic, local, and official religion to meet the entire range of needs in the various levels of social organization involved in these cult practices.”
18 A number of these are described as bāmôt, commonly understood to have been high or elevated places for worship, especially popular in the Iron I (Zwickel 2012). The bāmâ of the Iron II was an integral to how the people of Israel and Judah worshiped. For further discussion, see Nakhai 1994; 2001, 56–69, 161–168; and references therein. See also Larocca-Pitts 2001; Barrick 2008; and references therein.
19 Stories about Aaron, Eli and Samuel highlight the priest’s role as pater familias, responsible for the religious and ethical behaviors of his sons. Levites and Zadokites were similarly dynastic.
20 For points of continuity between national and local religious practice, see Olyan 2008.
21 As Faust notes, “However the Israelites practiced their religion, the archaeological evidence suggests that it generally was not performed in temples and other cultic buildings erected for this purpose” (2010, 31). This does not, of course, obviate the fact that Israelites and Judaeans adapted spaces within extant structures for worship, or worshipped in spaces that required no special construction.
22 As I noted in a 2005 review article, those many studies of daily life that do not incorporate women into the discussion cannot be considered successful.
23 For a discussion of Israelite and Judaean settlements in the 10th–9th centuries, including size and population, see Dever 1997, which posits a three-tier settlement hierarchy (cities; towns; villages, hamlets, camps, etc.). His more recent analysis of 8th century Israelite and Judaean sites delineates a more complex, four-tiered settlement hierarchy (Tier 1 = capitals and administrative centres/district capitals; Tier 2 = cities/urban centers; Tier 3 = towns; Tier 4 = villages; and, finally, forts [2012, 47–105]). Faust’s recent, comprehensive study identifies different settlement patterns in Israel and in Judah, and highlights social stratification as a particularly urban phenomenon (2012).
24 I exclude the well-known shrine at Kuntillet ‘Ajrûd from this discussion, since it was located in a fortress/caravanserai in the Sinai Desert. The site (and especially its cultic finds) has been published and extensively discussed in the literature. See, most recently, Dever 2012, 262–266; Meshel 2012.
25 Albertz and Schmitt distinguish between “neighborhood cult installations or shrines” used by groups ranging from “the nuclear or extended family to the co-residential lineage and the neighborhood,” and “village sanctuaries” for the “co-residential lineage and/or the local community” (2012, 480).
26 Tel Rehov’s elaborate Building F (Area C; Str. V–IV=10th century–830 BCE) may have been the home of an elite family. Its cultic materials, including a horned ceramic altar, an unusual model shrine, and numerous chalices (Mazar 2008) might derive from a similar shrine. A shrine of the family elders has also been identified at Iron I Tall al-‘Umayri, on Jordan’s Madaba Plain (Herr 2010; Nakhai 2014a). For household shrines at Megiddo and Hazor, see Dever 2012, 266–269.
27 A second one, with blue coloring in one set of the concentric circles carved into its rim, was found nearby, in a slightly later stratum (Yahalom-Mack and Mazar 2006).
28 The ritual function of two of the arrowheads is suggested by the fact that they were fixed to an iron ring.
29 W. G. Dever considers the building to have been a neighborhood shrine in a small village (pers. comm.).
30 Included among these may be three worked stone slabs, not found in situ and originally described as maşşebôt (so Bloch-Smith 2006).
31 One ceramic stand with downturned petals (Rast 1978, 54) resembles a stand from Megiddo 2081 (May 1935, fig. 20).
32 Most scholars agree that the imagery on these stands indicates the worship of Yahweh and Asherah (Hestrin 1987; Taylor 1988; Beck 1994; Dever 2005, 151–154, 176–251).
33 For more on the responsibilities of elders in rural communities for the success of crops and livestock, see Faust 2012, 164–168.
34 See, too, 2 Kgs 17:29, which complains that, subsequent to Assyria’s destruction of the nation of Israel and its repopulation of the territory with people from other nations, “…each nation continued to make its own gods and to set them up in the cult places which had been made by the people of Samaria; each nation set them up in the towns in which it lived.” This suggests that the people of Israel had constructed community shrines in towns across the land.
35 Even S. Olyan, who cautions against most scholarly efforts to engender ritual activities by placing women at the center of baking cakes for Asherah (Jer 7:18), utilising Judaean pillar base figurines, and more, agrees that in almost all cases, it was women who engaged in rituals surrounding pregnancy and childbirth (2010).
36 See S. Sered’s discussion of illiterate Jewish women of Middle Eastern origin living in Jerusalem subsequent to 1948 CE. She writes that, “When the women treat texts as ritual objects, they incorporate the texts into their interpersonal, relationship-oriented religious world: books, mezuzot and pages with Hebrew writing guard over one’s home and loved ones” (1995, 211).
37 L. Avitz-Singer notes the difficulty of using the locations in which ceramic figurines were found to determine whether they had been used exclusively by women (2011, 294).
38 Even Jerusalem contained evidence for worship in locations other than the Temple. Domestic cultic materials include a cult stand fragment showing a male divinity (Area G), and two chalices from a “cultic corner” (Area E1 North) (Schmitt 2012b, 108–112; Pioske 2013, 5). O. Keel’s recent analysis of glyptic materials from Jerusalem (2012) suggests that it was home to a number of open air sanctuaries (2 Kgs 23:13; Jer 11:13), in addition to a gate shrine (2 Kgs 23:8). For these, as well as “cult caves” or favissae containing extensive cultic materials including figurines, see Holladay 1987, 259–261; Nakhai 2001, 190; Zevit 2001, 206–213 and references therein.
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