“The Horns of the Altar” and bulls?

[onlinebiker]

Do you think that in a couple thousand years - people will still be arguing if Batman could kick Superman' s ass?


I expect they will.....

I expect so too but what’s that got to do with horns of the altar? XD

Awfully selective of which bit of fiction is to be discussed within this thread, are we???

[JairCrawford]

Well, the phrase “horns of the altar” in the Amos 3:14 verse appears to be a polemic specifically against the altar at Bethel, which is one of the places we know that a golden calf/bull was erected.

“On the day I punish Israel for her sins,
I will destroy the altars of Bethel;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
and fall to the ground.

As you say, it's probably a polemic against altars erected/readopted for other gods.

It's not about bulls or calves, no matter what connection you may have thought about with regards to these altars.

No connection even here?

“So the king consulted , and he made two golden calves; and he said to the people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt. And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.“ 1 Kings 12:28-29

I expect so too but what’s that got to do with horns of the altar? XD

Awfully selective of which bit of fiction is to be discussed within this thread, are we???

I didn’t mean to come across like that. I didn’t understand the point you were making at first. Now I do. I promise I’m not being snarky towards you at all I hope I didn’t come across that way.

[Anomalocaris]

Do you think that in a couple thousand years - people will still be arguing if Batman could kick Superman' s ass?


I expect they will.....

Superhero stories often lack the sufficiently naked appeal to worst human characters required to burrow through the skin of common sense and become a permanent cyst in the subcutaneous fat of human culture for 3000 years.

[GrandizerII]

“On the day I punish Israel for her sins,
   I will destroy the altars of Bethel;
the horns of the altar will be cut off
   and fall to the ground.

As you say, it's probably a polemic against altars erected/readopted for other gods.

It's not about bulls or calves, no matter what connection you may have thought about with regards to these altars.

No connection even here?

“So the king fnconsulted, and he made two golden calves; and he said to fnthe people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt. And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.“ 1 Kings 12:28-29

Where's the connection in the text made between a golden calf and altar? I'm not seeing it.

Golden calves != altars (even per the Bible). Golden calves were representations of the other gods. Altars were where you sacrifice animals at for the gods. The corner horns of the altars in Exodus and elsewhere have nothing to do with the golden calves or calves/bulls perse (AFAIK). Rams had horns also, so do goats.

BTW: I'm just a layperson going by what he's reading, so a reminder to refer to scholars for the actual answers.

[The Valkyrie]

Do you think that in a couple thousand years - people will still be arguing if Batman could kick Superman' s ass?


I expect they will.....

Not in a straight up fight.

He'd need gadgets and tricks.

[onlinebiker]

Do you think that in a couple thousand years - people will still be arguing if Batman could kick Superman' s ass?


I expect they will.....

Superhero stories often lack the sufficiently naked appeal to worst human characters required to burrow through the skin of common sense and become a permanent cyst in the subcutaneous fat of human culture for 3000 years.

Maybe they could have Superman wank off - and his " faster than a speeding bullet" spunk hits a girl down the block - and they could do the virgin birth bit again....

I' m sure the copyright on that idea has run out by now....

[JairCrawford]

No connection even here?

“So the king fnconsulted, and he made two golden calves; and he said to fnthe people, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your gods, Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt. And he set up one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.“ 1 Kings 12:28-29

Where's the connection in the text made between a golden calf and altar? I'm not seeing it.

Golden calves != altars (even per the Bible). Golden calves were representations of the other gods. Altars were where you sacrifice animals at for the gods.

BTW: I'm just a layperson going by what he's reading, so a reminder to refer to scholars for the actual answers.

Right that’s a good point. I probably need to do some reading about where the graven images representing deities in ANE religion were placed in conjunction with altars. That would give more historical context to understanding these verses.

[Fake Messiah]

However from my online searching and digging I have yet to find any writings that attempt to connect the bull iconography with the biblical horns of the altar. I’m wondering if any of you have come across resources that have, or if any of you have any insights on the topic?

I have come upon some explanations by the biblical schoolar Francesca Stavrakopoulou. Here is some of what she says:

The bull was an enduring ancient symbol of an aggressively potent, unrestrained hyper-masculinity. It manifested military might, sexual prowess and divine generative power. These were the qualities of the masculine gods of creation, who harnessed the wildness of chaos to impose order upon the cosmos and bring fecundity into the world. It is an ancient and sophisticated constellation of religious ideas, offering an image of a raw, animalized sexual virility that is celebrated in a Sumerian myth dated to about 2000 BCE. [...] god Enki – himself ‘engendered by a [divine] bull, begotten by a wild bull’ – fertilizes the world by digging irrigation ditches with his penis and creating the great rivers of Mesopotamia with his semen: [...]
Alongside El at Ugarit, the god Baal used what is described as his ‘tumescent’ penis to mate with a heifer, fathering the wild bull who impregnated the city’s cattle. The Assyrian storm-god Adad was often depicted standing atop a great bull, while various unidentified goddesses across the region are depicted upon a divine bull, commanding its virility – an image seemingly recast and abased in the famous Greek myth of Zeus’ sexual abduction of Europa, whom he carries off across the sea on his back while disguised as a bull. Among these high-status deities, it is no surprise to find that Yahweh, too, was often understood as the divine bull. Bovine language (the Hebrew term abbir) underlies his biblical designation as the ‘Mighty One [abir] of Jacob’ who grants genital fertility to the Israelite tribe of Joseph, and in some biblical texts, Yahweh’s cult statue is said to take the form of a bull or a bull calf.

Like the Sumerian god Enki, Yahweh’s status as a fertile creator god of the highest order is also confirmed in the Bible with a fleeting portrayal of his sexual encounter with the earthly realm. Although the biblical writers (and their later translators) have done their best to sanitize the story by diluting Yahweh’s corporeal sexuality, its erotic features nonetheless suggest that an older myth lurks in the background: the God of the Bible sexually takes the land of Israel as his wife and excites the cosmos into an aroused, mutually reproductive fecundity as he impregnates his bride at a place called Jezreel (‘He Seeds’) – a region famed for its rich agricultural soils: ...

You can read more in her book "God: An Anatomy".

[JairCrawford]

However from my online searching and digging I have yet to find any writings that attempt to connect the bull iconography with the biblical horns of the altar. I’m wondering if any of you have come across resources that have, or if any of you have any insights on the topic?

I have come upon some explanations by the biblical schoolar Francesca Stavrakopoulou. Here is some of what she says:

The bull was an enduring ancient symbol of an aggressively potent, unrestrained hyper-masculinity. It manifested military might, sexual prowess and divine generative power. These were the qualities of the masculine gods of creation, who harnessed the wildness of chaos to impose order upon the cosmos and bring fecundity into the world. It is an ancient and sophisticated constellation of religious ideas, offering an image of a raw, animalized sexual virility that is celebrated in a Sumerian myth dated to about 2000 BCE. [...] god Enki – himself ‘engendered by a [divine] bull, begotten by a wild bull’ – fertilizes the world by digging irrigation ditches with his penis and creating the great rivers of Mesopotamia with his semen: [...]
Alongside El at Ugarit, the god Baal used what is described as his ‘tumescent’ penis to mate with a heifer, fathering the wild bull who impregnated the city’s cattle. The Assyrian storm-god Adad was often depicted standing atop a great bull, while various unidentified goddesses across the region are depicted upon a divine bull, commanding its virility – an image seemingly recast and abased in the famous Greek myth of Zeus’ sexual abduction of Europa, whom he carries off across the sea on his back while disguised as a bull. Among these high-status deities, it is no surprise to find that Yahweh, too, was often understood as the divine bull. Bovine language (the Hebrew term abbir) underlies his biblical designation as the ‘Mighty One [abir] of Jacob’ who grants genital fertility to the Israelite tribe of Joseph, and in some biblical texts, Yahweh’s cult statue is said to take the form of a bull or a bull calf.

Like the Sumerian god Enki, Yahweh’s status as a fertile creator god of the highest order is also confirmed in the Bible with a fleeting portrayal of his sexual encounter with the earthly realm. Although the biblical writers (and their later translators) have done their best to sanitize the story by diluting Yahweh’s corporeal sexuality, its erotic features nonetheless suggest that an older myth lurks in the background: the God of the Bible sexually takes the land of Israel as his wife and excites the cosmos into an aroused, mutually reproductive fecundity as he impregnates his bride at a place called Jezreel (‘He Seeds’) – a region famed for its rich agricultural soils: ...

You can read more in her book "God: An Anatomy".

I will have to take a look at that book for sure. That’s what I’m looking for. I’d be very curious to see if the horns are mentioned in any connection to what she’s talking about. Thanks for the reference!

[GrandizerII]

I have come upon some explanations by the biblical schoolar Francesca Stavrakopoulou. Here is some of what she says:


You can read more in her book "God: An Anatomy".

I will have to take a look at that book for sure. That’s what I’m looking for. I’d be very curious to see if the horns are mentioned in any connection to what she’s talking about. Thanks for the reference!

I'm a bit wary of the credibility of some of the stuff that author says, but putting that aside, I really think you'd be hard-pressed to find any scholarly work on the connection between the horns of the altar and specifically bulls of ANE religions, simply because that connection doesn't exist.