Idol Remains

Archaeological Evidence of False Gods in Israel

In the first and second of the Ten Commandments given to the children of Israel through Moses, the Lord warned his people not to worship other gods or to construct any graven image as an idol of worship or veneration:

God spoke all these words, saying:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Exodus 20:1–6)

Yet the Old Testament is replete with accounts describing the unfaithfulness of the ancient Hebrews, who soon forgot what God had done for them and instead turned to the false deities of the surrounding nations. For many years, secular scholars have had no strong archaeological evidence to pin these deities to specific sites in or around Israel, but a raft of new discoveries over the last few decades has put these foreign deities on firm archaeological footing. Following are three examples.

Astarte & the Asherah

Astarte represented one of the primary goddesses of the ancient Near East and Egypt. She was worshiped in the land of Canaan throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages and was depicted on cuneiform tablets, stone inscriptions, and stelae. Worshiped as a deity of fertility and war, Astarte was also venerated as a consort to the god Baal.¹ Indeed, it is likely that deities such as Astarte were worshiped alongside Yahweh, with figurines even forming the center of household shrines,² as alluded to in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah: “But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them save you when you are in trouble. The sad fact is that you have as many gods as you have towns, Judah”(Jeremiah 2:28).

Perhaps the best-attested depiction of Astarte was uncovered in Lachish, Israel. The gold plaque, dating to the 13th century b.c., shows a naked female figure standing on a horse, and measures about 20 centimeters tall and 11 centimeters wide.³ More commonly though, Astarte was venerated by the Israelites on simple wooden poles (Asherah poles). The poles had no images of the goddess, perhaps to avoid the wrath of Yahweh, but they became an integral part of the religious syncretism of backslidden Israelites.⁴

There are many references to Asherah poles all over Israel, with some even ending up in Solomon’s temple during the reigns of unfaithful kings. Good kings, however, often had them destroyed and removed from the land. In the reforms of Josiah, for example, we get a vivid account of such activities:

He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the Lord to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes that were in the temple of the Lord, the quarters where women did weaving for Asherah. (2 Kings 23:6–7)

Baal

Baal Hadad was the king of the gods in the Canaan pantheon and was often depicted in action mode, wielding a lightning bolt not unlike later Greek representations of Zeus. Archaeologists have unearthed a wealth of statues, stelae, figurines, and altars to Baal all over Israel, but especially from the period between 1800 and 1100  b.c., including the time of the conquests of Joshua and the Judges.

Baal was a deity associated with fertility, agriculture, and the passage of the seasons.⁵ Secular scholars have long suggested that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Baal and Yahweh on equal terms, but the biblical narrative informs us that Judah’s faithful kings (not all were faithful to Yahweh) instructed the people to destroy the temples dedicated to the former, as well as their idolatrous contents: “Then they broke down the sacred pillar of Baal and tore down the temple of Baal and made it a refuse dump to this day” (2 Kings 10:27).

Archaeologists have excavated a temple dedicated to Baal at Hazor,⁶ Israel, dating to the 15th century b.c., and it shows clear evidence of having been ransacked. The temple was burned and the basalt statue of the Baal idol decapitated. Indeed, according to field archaeologist Titus Kennedy of Biola University, removing the heads of idols was a way of exposing them as powerless false gods.

Molech & Child Sacrifice

Many ancient civilizations, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, engaged in child sacrifice, but it is also mentioned in the Bible in connection with the pagan practices of the Canaanites. According to Scripture, this worship took place primarily in the Hinnom Valley at Topheth, which translates from Hebrew to “pit of flame.”

For example, as part of his reforms, King Josiah ordered the destruction of the places of child sacrifice by fire: “He also defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, so that no one would make his son or his daughter pass through the fire for Molech” (2 Kings 23:10).

Child sacrifice to the cult of Milkom (or Molech) was likely adopted by the ancient Hebrews very early in their history, as suggested in the fifth book of Moses: “You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:31).

Perhaps the best-attested depiction of child sacrifice comes from an archaeological find in southern Spain. Known as the Pozo Moro Relief, dating to the 6th century b.c.,⁷ it depicts a deity holding a child inside a bowl, with the child about to be consumed in a fire. It is likely that similar rituals were practiced by apostate Hebrews from the time of Moses up until the 7th century b.c.

Further evidence of child sacrifice has been unearthed at the Amman Airport Temple in Jordan, dating to about 1400 b.c., where more than 1,000 charred human bone fragments have been excavated. A dedicatory inscription linked to Molech was discovered four kilometers away in the ancient Amman citadel.⁸

Molech is usually depicted as a bull-headed anthropomorphic deity, whose belly was heated until glowing red. The infant would be placed in its hands, and the priests would listen to the infant cry as it burned to death before their eyes. These practices demonstrate the depths of human depravity, with an utter disregard for the sanctity of innocent life that only the most morally degenerate could justify. No wonder the Lord condemned the horrific practice through his prophets:

They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them, nor did it enter into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin. (Jeremiah 32:25)

So these false gods recorded in the biblical record have a firm footing in the findings of modern archaeological science, thus bolstering the historicity of the biblical narrative.

Notes
1. Bernhard W. Anderson, The Living World of the Old Testament (Longman, 1971), 184–186.
2. Ibid.
3. imj.org.il/en/collections/393974.
4. Anderson, 189–190.
5. Anderson, 184–186.
6. Titus Kennedy, Unearthing the Bible, 101 Archaeological Discoveries That Bring the Bible to Life (Harvest House Publishers, 2020), 81.
7. Kennedy, 72–73.
8. Kennedy, 72–73.