Israel and Humanity - The episode of the golden calf
§ 3.
THE EPISODE OF THE GOLDEN CALF.
Apart from cases of plurals that we have studied, there are others where the text is clearly marked by polytheistic ideas, and because it addresses the pagans, as in the words of Abraham to Abimelech "When Elohim made me wander away from the house of my father, either because they are pagans who are speaking out. It is worthwhile that we stopped a few moments on the relationship of idolatry in the scene-what we should expect to find expressions of this kind, but we can not seriously argue, however, consider the cons antiquity of the Mosaic monotheism. We refer to the episode of the golden calf. [1] When the Israelites are preparing to celebrate the feast of the idol that comes from their make Aaron, they exclaim "Israel! behold your gods (your Elohim) who brought you out of Egypt! "[2]. These words certainly prove that those speaking were idolaters, that nobody has ever questioned, but there seems little doubt either that the language they use was also evident in opposition to the Mosaic that the very fact that provided the opportunity. It is rather a proof in favor of the monotheistic doctrine that the people revolted against in this circumstance. But perhaps it is not difficult to find yet another way of monotheism in this episode of the golden calf. What was in fact that this idol rough? To his admirers, there was certainly one god or the representation of a single god. One wonders if in the name of Elohim the sacred writers included several gods or one, but the golden calf was a good and not double or triple and yet showing the Hebrews cried out: "Israel ! behold your gods who brought you out of Egypt! "That is to say that here again they use the plural to refer to a single god. This proves he not the plural was used instead of singular in religious language? Thus are explained many passages where monotheistic employ, to speak of the true God, expressions of polytheistic appearance. The golden calf made up of the God of Moses was still in the minds of the Hebrews, a fake, but real monotheism.
If one accepts the hypothesis of those who see in the idol made by Aaron, a tangible image of Avaya , the evidence does not allow to be conclusive, because it would not remain under established that the Hebrews used the plural to designate the single image of one God. Their words on this occasion were not the echo of ancient beliefs perpetuated in the forms of language, they expressed a good idea now. Even if we were to see those who speak on this occasion the crowd of Egyptian converts who had followed Israel, as some commentators have suggested, we would consider even the difference between the unity of their new faith and the plurality of the former, difference made more sensitive by the recent date. [3] of their conversion, they would have avoided this language, if it had to necessarily be seen as an expression of polytheism.
A more difficult question is presented to us, if we wanted to know what does it mean that explanation and said that if the rabbis in the sentence in question, the verb "which took him out" was not plural, it is not a single survivor remained in Israel. We believe, for us, the doctors of the synagogue be turned into a plural verb form undetermined and it is precisely this vagueness of the thought that somehow mitigates the sin of the Hebrews [4] as polytheism something acceptable as it involves a confused view of the infinite and it is a step toward synthesis, toward absolute unity, while the worship of a false god, a fetish, more definitively away from monotheistic religion such as the Mosaic proposes.
