101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

Myths of the Heroes 213
bols 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 Beth-el 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 Beth-el, 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