72 myths · Page 2 of 3
The Mekhilta turns Baal Tzefon, the one idol God left standing, into the trap that lured Pharaoh's army to the sea and its end.
On the fortieth day Satana stirred the camp, the gold leapt into a calf, and the Accuser leaped and danced through the frenzy below Sinai.
Before a single ounce of gold is melted there is a killing, and it is the blood of the man who said no that bends Aaron toward the calf.
Every Egyptian idol fell during the plagues, but Baal-zephon still stood. God left it standing so Pharaoh would pray there, trust the sign, and charge.
Israel tied Egypt's sacred ram in public, waited four days, then turned its blood into the first sign that slavery had lost its grip.
Aaron walked through Egypt calling his people back from the idols. Most refused. Gad heard him, and one man carried two names to prove it.
The seduction at Shittim began with a feast and consecrated wine. Phinehas traced it to its source and placed a ban that still stands.
Before his court was awake, Pharaoh went to the Nile alone. Gods do not need bathrooms. He was protecting a lie he had built his entire reign on.
Israel camps before the sea at a place whose very name records an idol's failure, and the geography of slavery becomes the first witness to freedom.
Four words of Torah forbid passing a child through fire, and the sages parse the rite clause by clause until the burning calf stands plain.
The nations gave their gods armies, taxes, and the fat of sacrifices. Rabbi Yehudah said a reckoning was coming and the gods would have nothing to show for it.
The silver that betrayed Samson is melted into a household god, and the priest hired to serve it traces his blood straight back to Moses.
An idol, a furnace, and seven men who would not bow, until heaven sent the lord over fire to turn the tyrant's flames back on his own servants.
Sky-blue wool covered the Temple showbread table -- the color of the divine presence. The rabbis read it as the covenant with David, written in cloth and color.
Three hundred years before Josiah was born, a prophet called him by name. The king who arrived had been expected all along.
Shiloh stood between tent and Temple, open to the sky. Just outside Jerusalem, Molekh's seven enclosures took children the priests could not stop.
Solomon bound a prince of demons and made him confess his secrets. Then he put the entire court of the underworld to work cutting marble for God's house.
Solomon could command birds, letters, and kingdoms, but a request to crush five locusts stripped him of divine spirit and wisdom.
Israel marched into battle with two arks: one holding the whole Torah, one holding the broken tablets Moses smashed when he saw the golden calf.
Josiah's inspectors toured every home in Judah and found no idols. The people had sawed each idol in half and mounted one half on each side of the front door.
Jezebel did not merely tempt Ahab. She instructed him. A king who takes lessons in idolatry from his wife becomes a nation's teacher in ruin.
Solomon declared no virtuous woman existed in all the world, ran experiments to prove it, and a Jebusite woman used his own logic to lead him into idolatry.
Torah law forbids altars outside Jerusalem. Elijah built one on Mount Carmel anyway. Vayikra Rabbah explains the one exception that made it legal.
Jeroboam builds two golden calves to stop pilgrimages to Jerusalem. A prophet addresses his altar, survives the king's hand, then dies for accepting dinner.
A hidden scroll in Jerusalem held one line no one would say aloud, that King Manasseh dragged the prophet Isaiah to trial and had him sawn apart.
God handed over Egypt, Ethiopia, and Seba as ransom for Israel out of love. Then a sharper voice asks whether the beloved ever called back.
Israel wanted to repent but could not lift its eyes. The mountains where they had burned offerings to idols still stood on the horizon every morning.
Ezekiel was lifted to Jerusalem in vision and found twenty-five men in the Temple courtyard with their backs to the altar, facing east, bowing to the sun.
Most people think the Red Sea left Egypt behind. A second-century rabbi says Israel carried something through the water Moses had to strip away.
The boy was hidden in the Holy of Holies and lived. Years later his princes called that proof he was a god, and Joash believed them.
