Two Early Israelite Cult Sites Now Questioned

Home > Magazines > BAR > January/February 1988

In recent years, two early Israelite cult sites have been discovered. The first is referred to as the “Bull Site” because archaeologists were led to it by the accidental discovery there of a cultic bronze statuette of a bull.a The second early Israelite cult site encloses the massive altar discovered in the course of an archaeological survey on Mt. Ebal.b Both sites date to approximately the early 12th century B.C., the early part of Iron Age I in archaeological terms; in Biblical terms, this is the period of the Judges, when the Israelites first emerged in the Promised Land. […]

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Footnotes

See Amihai Mazar, “Bronze Bull Found in Israelite ‘High Place’ from the Time of the Judges,” BAR 09:05).

See Adam Zertal, “Has Joshua’s Altar Been Found on Mt. Ebal?” BAR 11:01).

See Aharon Kempinski, “Joshua’s Altar—An Iron Age I Watchtower,” BAR 12:01) and Adam Zertal, “How Can Kempinski Be So Wrong!” both in BAR 12:01).

For an example of a four-room house, see Yohanan Aharoni, “The Israelite Occupation of Canaan,” BAR 08:03.