Aaron and the Golden Calf in the Rhetoric of the Pentateuch

In the Pentateuch, the contrast between legal or instructional material, on the one hand, and stories, on the other, is nowhere more stark than in the relationship between the story of the golden calf (Exodus 32–34) and the instructions and narratives (Exodus 25–31; 35–40) that surround it. The story tells of ritual failure with disastrous consequences, while the ritual instructions and narratives around it recount fulfilling those divine instructions to the letter. The contrast becomes most excruciating in each section’s characterization of the high priest: the golden calf story seems to vilify Aaron by placing him at the center of the idolatrous event, while the ritual texts celebrate Aaron and his sons as divinely consecrated priests. Though source and redaction criticism have long since distinguished the authors of these accounts, the critics explain the intentions behind a literary juxtaposition that is too stark to be anything but intentional. Why did the Aaronide dynasties who controlled both the Second Temple and its Torah allow this negative depiction of Aaron to stand? Over the last decade, increasing numbers of scholars have dated part or all of Exodus 32 to the postexilic period, which makes the problem of an anti-Aaronide polemic in an otherwise pro-Aaronide Pentateuch even harder to explain. Thus, both synchronic and diachronic approaches have trouble explaining the depiction of Aaron in this story. Rhetorical analysis of the possible function of Exodus 32 in the Pentateuch of the Second Temple period provides new answers to these questions.

I. Exodus 32 in Historical Criticism

By “rhetorical analysis,” I mean the study of persuasion.¹ Who is trying to persuade whom of what by recounting this story in this context? Because of the negative depiction of Aaron, historical criticism has traditionally identified the “who” as anti-priestly/anti-Aaronide but pro-Levite groups in various historical time periods. This claim finds its basis in the contrast between Aaron creating the calf (32:3) and the Levites killing its worshipers, for which they are rewarded with ordination (32:26–29). Critics also consider Exodus 32 to be a projection of Judean polemics against the northern kingdom of Israel, because the calf is greeted with the call “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt” (32:4), which echoes the story of Jeroboam’s golden calf in 1 Kgs 12:28.² The appearance of both polemics together in this story has generated speculation about the Aaronides’ priestly roles in the temples of the northern kingdom, especially at Bethel.³ Thus, the story is often used as a mine where interpreters dig for information about the historical development of Israel’s priesthood as well as the politics of the two preexilic kingdoms.

The Aaronides’ prominence in postexilic politics draws my attention in this essay to the priesthood. Some have argued that the original story valued Aaron’s bull/calf as a positive representation of YHWH. Only later editing turned it into a story of idolatry.⁴ Others argue that the references to Aaron, the Levites, or both were added to the original story in response to later conflicts between priesthoods.⁵ (Modern preachers have even picked up this theme to juxtapose Aaron to Moses as representing the “church of the world” versus the “church of the Word.”⁶)

Much of the discussion that takes Exodus 32 as evidence for the history of the priesthood focuses on preexilic times. It ignores the literary context of the golden calf story within P’s tabernacle traditions (Exodus 25–40).⁷ It is, however, this context and its likely historical origins in the Persian period that pose the greatest difficulties for understanding Exodus 32 as an anti-Aaronide polemic. How did the story survive Priestly editing in a period when avowedly Aaronide priests controlled not only the Jerusalem temple and its Torah, but increasingly also wielded political power as representatives of the Jewish people?

The issue of Priestly editing, or rather the lack of it, in Exodus 32 has been made even more pressing by recent redactional...