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Massebot at the Arad Temple. Photo: W. G. Dever. (Dever 174, 2005)
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Sacred space is what the religion scholar Mircea
Eliade called the places where we go to experience the divine. Sacred space is where we are separated from the
ordinary world and daily life; they become distant while the extraordinary and
the supernatural can be experienced and one can touch heavenly presence. In such places, we connect with the holy. Here, people experience what Rudolf Otto
described as “wholly other”, a feeling of mysterium
tremendum et fascinosum. Throughout history,
these sacred spaces have been designated by a variety of structures and components,
but they continue to be important places in our religious framework. These places take the form of churches, personal
altars at home, wooded groves, holy mountains, and other cult sites.
In the ancient
Near East, temples and open-air sanctuaries were often the sacred spaces of the
religious cults. Sometimes these cult
sites housed what is called “sacred emptiness”, a term E.D. Stockton used to
describe the absence of physical representations of a deity in cult sites. Although a few sacred emptiness traditions
have been found throughout the ancient Near East, it was rare to have express
prohibition of divine iconography, called aniconism. The ancient Israelites were the exception, as
the second of the Ten Commandments prohibits the use of idols and the creation
of images for worship. This intriguing commandment
along with the archaeological remains of empty throne representations (discussed
later as a form of sacred emptiness) has spurred fascinating studies of
aniconism among scholars. This article will take a brief look at two very
different types of Israelite sacred spaces – Solomon’s Temple and standing
stones called massebot (massebah in the singular). Despite their great differences, in both
cases the significance of the site was extraordinary for the people whose
spirits glowed in awe of the divine presence professed to be enshrined
there.
Solomon’s Temple
The Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem was a
fascinating use of sacred space and sacred emptiness. The Lord’s throne in the Holy of Holies was
empty and into this void the Lord could descend and abide, a perfect presentation
of sacred emptiness. This throne was
called the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark
had two cherubim on the covering, between which the Lord was said to have met
with Moses to deliver “commands for the Israelites” (Exodus 25:22). First Samuel describes the Lord “enthroned on
the cherubim” (1 Samuel 4:4). Here the Deity
is not represented in effigy but in the emptiness above His throne. Other ancient Near Eastern parallels have
been found which represent the deity through an empty cherub throne. Two examples are the Late Bronze Age Ahiram
sarcophagus and an ivory plaque and model from Megiddo. From the Late Bronze Age to the Hellenistic
period, Syrian cylinder seals showed an empty sphinx throne representing a sky
god. (It is interesting to note that
cherubim representations were common throughout the ancient Near East, but they
were not the chubby, flying baby angels often depicted in later Christian art. They were awe-inspiring beasts with the human
heads, great wings, and the body of either a lion or a bull. They were the protectors of sacred space,
including the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve were expelled. See Genesis 3:24.)
In the Iron Age, the Israelites worshiped YHWH (the
ancient Hebrew name for God) at various temples and shrines throughout the
kingdom, but the Ark of the Covenant was mobile and resided in a tent until
Solomon’s Temple was built. According to
2 Samuel chapter 7, King David wished to build a temple for the Ark but God commanded
that one of David’s heirs was to build the temple. King Solomon, David’s son who reigned from approximately
968-928 BCE, built the magnificent temple for the Ark, the throne of the Lord. The Ark was so holy that 2 Samuel describes
how God killed a man named Uzzah for touching it, even though he had only reached
out to keep it from falling over in a procession (2 Samuel 6:6-8). Such an important object needed a proper
home.
First Kings describes the glorious Temple with
intricately carved wooden panels and completely gilded in gold. The panels were engraved with scenes of palm
trees, cherubim, and flowers. The Temple
had three rooms, the front vestibule (the
ʾûlam), the middle room (the hêkāl),
and the innermost sanctum called the Holy of Holies (the débîr). The débîr was so sacred that only the high
priest was allowed to enter. Throughout
the temple, gold not only covered the walls, but also the altar and the two
massive cherubim sculptures that dominated the Holy of Holies, where the Ark resided. These cherubim spread their wings across the
chamber, from wall to wall, protecting the glorious throne for the Almighty to
sit upon.
It was not long ago that researchers thought the
Bible’s description of the Temple was too fantastical to be real, but in recent
times they have found Canaanite-Phoenician counterparts from the 15th
– 9th centuries for nearly every feature of the Temple as described
in the Bible. The tripartite room
structure, the wooden paneled walls, the dressed stone, and the twin columns at
the entrance - all have been found elsewhere in the Levant from the same time
period and earlier. Alters with four
horns, similar to the one in the Temple, have been found in Tel-Miqne-Ekron.
The Bible describes the structures
in the Temple courtyard as being extraordinary in size, beyond human scale. This is not surprising when taking into
consideration that this is a holy place for God, not for humans. In Isaiah, God is so enormous that “the
skirts of His robe filled the temple” (Isaiah 6:1). The idea of deities having supernatural size
was common in the Near East. For
example, we can see this in Baal’s gigantic throne at the ʿAin Dara Temple
which showed a similar divine scale.
Also at ʿAin Dara, divine footprints of enormous size were carved into
the stones, footprints big enough for a deity at least 20 meters tall.
Massebot
An fascinating contrast to the large and
eloquent Temple is another form of cult site in the ancient Near East – the massebot. Massebot are standing stones of different
shapes but are often semi-elliptical and none of them have anthropomorphic details. They are reminiscent of the standing stones
of northern Europe. Unlike the Temple,
which was reserved for ritually pure priests, the massebot usually stood out in
the open for all to behold. They have
been found in open air sanctuaries, in temples, and in temple courtyards all
over the Levant, including: Arad, Lachish, the Bull Site in Manassah, Dan, Tirzah,
and Hazor along with hundreds of sites throughout the Negeb and Sinai. Their use spanned millennia, starting in the Mesolithic
Period and going through the 8th century CE. Massebot were stood up as single stones or in
groups, often of two, three, five, and seven – common numbers for deity
groupings in the ancient Near East. It
is believed that the standing stones, despite the lack of features, may have
been representations of gods. They may have
expressed some form of aniconism because they did not present a physical
likeness of a deity. Perhaps they mirrored
the sacred emptiness, much like that enthroned upon the Ark, only instead of
emptiness they used the blank solidness of stone (without any human or animal
effigy) to evoke the deity. In Genesis
28, Jacob erects a stone as a pillar in a place he called Bethel. In the passage, he said that the stone will
be “God’s house”. The 8th
century Syrian Sefire Inscription also called standing stones the “house of god”.
There also Assyrian and later Arabic references to the stones being the
dwelling places of the gods. Perhaps the
ancient Near Eastern civilizations believed the gods could occupy these stones.
The majority of the earliest massebot
were found in the Negeb and Sinai arid regions and there the majority of the standing
stones were placed facing east, as were the later ones at Israelite cult sites. Two-thirds of the 14th- 11th
millennium BCE standing stones were hewn, but most after this time were uncut. (Note the possible link to the command in
Exodus 20:22 stating that altars were to be of rough stone and not
chiseled.) Roughly three dozen massebot
sites have been discovered dating to the Iron Age and of those several are
believed to be Israelite.
While some massebot were used for mundane
purposes such as tombstones and boundary makers, some had religious
significance. We do not know much about
the rituals involved with the cult massebot, but the literary references in the
Bible clearly indicate that many of the massebot involved pagan worship. Many have been found with benches, alters,
basins, and tombs. Massebot are
mentioned frequently in the Bible. Some
of these massebot in the Bible were viewed in a positive light, while some were
seen quite negatively. Positive Biblical references include brief descriptions
of ritual behaviors such as the naming of the stones and alters associated with
them, taking vows, and blood rites. One
example of a positive reference is in Joshua 24, when Joshua set up a large
stone under the oak in the sanctuary at Shechem as a “witness” to the
Israelites’ pledge of loyalty to YHWH. Another
example is in Exodus 24, when Moses set up twelve pillars and used it as a
sacrificial site. In Isaiah 19, Isaiah
prophesized that when the Lord conquers Egypt a massebah will be set up in His
honor at Egypt’s borders.
Negative references to massebot are also found throughout
the Hebrew Bible. For instance, despite
Joshua’s standing stone mentioned above, later-on the placing of cult stones
under trees would be condemned, such as in 2 Kings 17:9-10. Deuteronomy 7:5, 2 Kings 10:27, and 2
Chronicles 14:3 are just a few of the many verses in which tearing down these
pillars were an important part in the Israelites’ religious cleansing of the land
and their attempt to banish pagan worship.
One very important example of Iron Age Israelite
massebot was found in Arad. Here there
was an Israelite temple from 8th century and there was also massebot,
along with the altars and central cult room, which were at some point
disassembled and covered with plaster flooring.
This archaeological evidence possibly corroborates with what the Bible
has to say about King Hezekiah’s religious reforms in the 8th
century BCE and his destruction of pagan sacred objects and places. Despite the widespread attack on the stone
pillars throughout the Bible, massebot were used at other Iron Age Israelite
temples in addition to Arad. In Megiddo,
Dan, and Beersheba two stone pillars framed the entrances of Israelite temples. Interestingly, and perhaps importantly, Solomon’s
Temple also had two pillars at the entrance. (Although these were made of metal.)
In Tel Dan, the renewal of massebot use after the
Assyrian destruction shows a continued reverence for them, not broken by
foreign conquest. Archaeological
excavations found massebot under and above the destruction layer of Tiglath
Pileser III’s conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 733/2 BCE. Within the destruction layer, five massebot
were found between the outer and main gates.
In the layer above the destruction, a set of three massebot were found (roughly
four feet, two and a half feet, and one and half foot tall) with a basalt bowl
in front of the largest. Ashes were
found at the bases of these massebot as well as indications of fire in the bowl.
The massebot seem to have had a wide range of
uses and qualities as can be seen from both Biblical references and archaeological
discoveries. They were both revered and
condemned by the Israelites and were built in a wide range of sites over a vast
period of time.
Closing Thoughts
Massabot are simple, unadorned (and often unhewn)
stones which were up-righted to serve as a place for the deity’s presence, such
as the one Abraham set up in Bethel in the Late Bronze Age as described in
Genesis 28. Several hundred years later
in the Iron Age, Solomon built the grand Temple in Jerusalem to house the
throne of the Lord. Here, the Divine habitation
was carefully defined by intricate architecture and was extensively
decorated. This stark contrast in sacred
spaces is just one example which shows just how diverse spiritual observance can
be, even within the development of a single religion. YHWH was pleased with both Abraham and with
Solomon. However, the Temple started as,
and remained, the most holy of Israelites’ cult sites until its destruction 400
years later while many of the massebot often seemed to have had only temporary
importance and had changing views attached to them. Both Solomon’s Temple and the Israelite
massebot had architectural and symbolic parallels in sites from neighboring
religions, but the religious reforms of King Hezekiah attempted to centralized
worship to the Temple in Jerusalem. This seemed to give the Temple stability in
its religious meaning, but it is important not to forget the religious
influence of the simple monoliths, whether standing in a temple courtyard, under
a tree, or amidst the desert sands. The
two dichotomies work together to present a rich and complex view of ancient
Israelite religion and their view of sacred space.
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