{"id":953,"date":"2014-04-04T16:19:23","date_gmt":"2014-04-04T23:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=953"},"modified":"2014-04-10T10:29:40","modified_gmt":"2014-04-10T17:29:40","slug":"tel-motza-excavation-points-to-pagan-yahwism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2014\/04\/04\/tel-motza-excavation-points-to-pagan-yahwism\/","title":{"rendered":"Tel Motza excavation points to “pagan Yahwism”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A horse figurine is evidence of early Jewish ritual practice.
\n(photo by Clara Amit\/IAA.COM)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

One might think that a significant archeological find a few hours\u2019 walk from Solomon\u2019s Temple in Jerusalem would turn up artifacts we would recognize as Jewish. But since the Judaism of the day was not what we know, the find yielded ritual objects that seem vaguely pagan, almost heretical by today\u2019s standards.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Archeologist Shua Kisilevitz describes the religion of the era as “pagan Yahwism.”
(photo from cjnews.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shua Kisilevitz, the archeologist who was part of the team that excavated the site at Tel Motza, about seven kilometres west of Jerusalem, prefers the phrase \u201cpagan Yahwism\u201d to describe the religion of the era.<\/p>\n

Last December, Kisilevitz and three fellow archeologists announced what they called an \u201cunusual and striking\u201d find, unearthed in construction for a highway: the 2,750-year-old walls of a temple, along with a cache of ritual objects that included a pedestal decorated with lions and sphinxes, pendants, pottery and vessel fragments, and figurines \u2013 two human and two animal \u2013 that may or may not have depicted deities.<\/p>\n

The dig provides \u201crare archeological evidence for the existence of temples and ritual enclosures in the Kingdom of Judah in general and in the Jerusalem region in particular,\u201d the team announced.<\/p>\n

The uniqueness of the find is even more remarkable, the archeologists said, because of its proximity to the First Temple, built, according to the Bible, under King Solomon in 960 BCE. But archeologists know little about the period\u2019s religious practices because there are hardly any remnants of ritual buildings from the era, according to Kisilevitz.<\/p>\n

While more study is needed, the find provides valuable insights into what those rituals might have been, she said in an interview prior to her recent talk on the subject at the University of Toronto. While those practices may seem strange and un-Jewish today, they were in keeping with the rules of the time, Kisilevitz said.<\/p>\n

Previous excavations showed that Motza functioned within the royal administration of the Kingdom of Judah, she said. \u201cIt was very much connected to Jerusalem. [It couldn\u2019t] create its own religion. The people of Motza didn\u2019t wake up one morning and say, \u2018Oh, we want to create something new.\u2019 They couldn\u2019t break off so easily.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
According to Shua Kisilevitz, artifacts such as these found at Tel Motza, are important because they reflect a formative time for Judaism.
(photo by Clara Amit\/IAA.COM)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The artifacts are important because they reflect a formative time for Judaism, she noted, adding they show that the ancient Israelite faith was not always centralized in Jerusalem and its practitioners may have used ritual objects now forbidden as graven images.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThere are all these presumptions we have which we project onto the early formation of religion,\u201d Kisilevitz said. \u201cThis temple finally shows us how the religion started out and what it really looked like at the time. They [were] doing what was common in the period.\u201d<\/p>\n

The find also conforms to biblical accounts, which mention local religious precincts outside Jerusalem, she added. And \u201cMotza\u201d is mentioned in the Book of Joshua as a town in the tribal lands of Benjamin, which bordered Judah.<\/p>\n

Kisilevitz, who works for the Israeli Antiquities Authority and is in Ontario for several months on an exchange with the University of Toronto, said the team does not know whether the human and animal figurines served a religious purpose. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of tricky and a little bit hard to say,\u201d she noted.<\/p>\n

The archeological team believes the temple at Tel Motza must have functioned before religious reforms enacted in the times of kings Hezekiah and Josiah, which abolished all ritual sites outside Jerusalem and concentrated religious practices solely in the Temple.<\/p>\n

Kisilevitz believes the artifacts do not conflict \u201cat all\u201d with modern understanding of Judaism. \u201cWe just have to change the way we think of the religion at the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ron Csillag <\/b>is a Toronto freelance writer. A version of this article was originally published in the<\/i> Canadian Jewish News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A horse figurine is evidence of early Jewish ritual practice. (photo by Clara Amit\/IAA.COM) One might think that a significant archeological find a few hours\u2019 walk from Solomon\u2019s Temple in Jerusalem would turn up artifacts we would recognize as Jewish. But since the Judaism of the day was not what we know, the find yielded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[224,222,219,223,216,218,220,226,217,215],"class_list":["post-953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-archeology","tag-book-of-joshua","tag-first-temple","tag-israel-antiquities-authority","tag-jerusalem","tag-judaism","tag-king-solomon","tag-shula-kisilevitz","tag-solomons-temple","tag-tel-motza"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}