Archaeological Views: Alternate Altars

028

Many modern readers tend to skim or outright skip the Torah’s long sections of law concerning ritual sacrifice. Their apathy is understandable. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., the focal point of ancient Judaism shifted from ritual sacrifice to the study of the Torah, and the era of the Talmud allowed Judaism to adapt and survive without the centerpiece of worship and sacrifice in Jerusalem. But with the rise of modern critical Biblical study and the excavation of religious centers, such as Tel Dan in northern Israel, a renewed interest in the sacrificial laws and what they reveal about ancient Israelite religion has developed. At the forefront of this renewed interest are altars and how the remains from the ground match the descriptions found in the Bible.

A number of Iron Age temples and religious spaces that functioned at the time of the First Temple have been excavated. This seems contrary to the Bible’s requirement of centralized worship and sacrifice only at the Jerusalem Temple (see, e.g., Deuteronomy 12:2–27), but we should remember that the Bible’s laws present the ideal practices of ancient Israelite religion. Actual practice may have been very different. At Tel Dan in northern Israel, excavators found evidence of a very large sacrificial altar made of carved stones with four “horns” protruding from the four corners on top of the altar. These “horns” appear to be a decorative motif unique to altars from David’s time until the Babylonian Exile. The northern cities of Gezer, Shiloh, Shechem, Dothan, Kedesh and Megiddo have all revealed smaller carved-stone altars, most of which have four horns.

Archaeologists have long noted the connection between these Iron Age four-horned carved-stone altars and the description of the Tabernacle’s four-horned altar in Exodus 27:1–8, as well as references to the four-horned altar at the First Temple in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

At Beer-Sheva, Israeli archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni found three large carved stones that appeared to be the three corners of a massive four-horned altar. The excavators reconstructed this sacrificial altar and theorized that it was dismantled during the religious reforms of King Hezekiah in the late eighth century B.C.E. (2 Kings 18). This reconstructed altar now sits at the entrance to the archaeology wing of the Israel Museum. However, the carved stones were found inside a later wall, which obscures their original place, function and date.

Aharoni’s team also excavated the most well known Iron Age temple in Judah outside of Jerusalem itself: the Arad temple. In the Negev south of Jerusalem, Arad contained a very different sacrificial altar than what archaeologists have reconstructed at Dan and Beer-Sheva. The central sacrificial altar at Arad was made of uncut field stones and packed earth. This is the other type of altar described in the Bible: “the earthen altar” (Exodus 20:24–26 and Deuteronomy 27:1–8). The Bible states that this kind of sacrificial altar should be made of uncut fieldstones and dirt. The laws in Deuteronomy specifically bar any contact between the altar and iron implements. When compared to the four-horned altar, these altars are a simple construction. The Arad temple also contained two carved-stone incense altars without horns. Most smaller-sized altars are probably incense altars.

Recently, archaeologists have found another Iron Age earthen altar in a sacred area at Tel Motza just outside of Jerusalem. This further illustrates the fact that ancient Judahites sacrificed at sites other than the First Temple itself—even near Jerusalem.

From the period after the Assyrian conquest and destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C.E., stone four-horned altars were found mostly in Philistia. Ekron, Ashkelon, Timnah and Yavneh all reveal carved-stone altars, most dated around the seventh century B.C.E. Former Director of the Albright Institute Seymour Gitin proposes that the four-horned altar was brought to Philistia by northern Israelites who were forced to resettle there after the Assyrian conquest. Regardless of the artistic origins of the Iron Age four-horned altar or the simple earthen altar, their descriptions in the Bible do match the archaeological remains. The altars uncovered in this archaeological context reveal religious differences between the northern and southern kingdoms in Israel (and Philistia). They also show us a point of tension between the sources of the Bible and their respective visions for 078 ancient Israelite religious practices.

Neither Iron Age archaeology nor the texts of the Bible show an evolution from a crude earthen altar to a more ornate four-horned altar. Both forms existed at the same time by the deliberate choice of whatever priesthood controlled a temple or “High Place.” The Deuteronomistic History (the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings) that modern critical scholars see as coming from the southern kingdom of Judah takes issue with the religious practices of the northern kingdom of Israel as well as some practices within Judah. The earthen altars may have been one of many points of friction between the views of the Deuteronomistic Historians and, on the other hand, Israelite religious practices. According to the Bible (i.e., Deuteronomistic Historians), worship centers in the north were controlled by non-Levite priests appointed by the northern king (1 Kings 12:31). Which altar is the “correct” one for ancient Israelites: the four-horned altar or the earthen altar? When it comes to the dynamic period of the Iron Age before the Babylonian exile, the answer might be both.

Many modern readers tend to skim or outright skip the Torah’s long sections of law concerning ritual sacrifice. Their apathy is understandable. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., the focal point of ancient Judaism shifted from ritual sacrifice to the study of the Torah, and the era of the Talmud allowed Judaism to adapt and survive without the centerpiece of worship and sacrifice in Jerusalem. But with the rise of modern critical Biblical study and the excavation of religious centers, such as Tel Dan in northern Israel, a renewed interest in the sacrificial laws and […]