Avodah Zarah: Foreign Worship

In Talmudic discourse, the term avodah zarah “foreign worship” is used to describe idolatry. Although the name reflects the situation much of the diasporic Jewish community found itself in, struggling to ward off assimilation, it reflects older sentiments and fears concerning idolatry. In the Torah, what would come to be called avodah zarah is condemned frankly in the ten commandments:

...you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God... (New Revised Standard Version, Exodus 20:3–5)

Here, the condemnation of idols is preceded by the condemnation of worshipping other gods. This proscription culturally manifested as a paranoia of foreign gods and a religious literary theme of the folly of the Israelites failing to maintain dedication to strictly monolatristic worship of their national deity. These themes are illustrated by numerous anecdotes such as the Israelites’ creation and worship of a golden calf after

Gods such as Baʿal became so comfortably situated with Israelite worship as they were not wholly foreign to the Israelites. Israelites committing what prophets and polemicists condemned as idolatry may have seen Yahweh as a single, albeit central, figure in the Canaanite pantheon, along with Baʿal and even a wife, Asherah. The Hebrew Bible references cultic objects and images (usually statues, poles or trees) related to the worship of or, in the least, bearing the appellation of Asherah situated intimately within the Jewish religious setting, and offerings and celebrations were made on behalf of a “Queen of heaven.” Even the golden calf may have been implied to have been an idol of