The Tolerance of Idolatry (Part 1)

The current culture seems to do all it can to replace God with things that are not God. The trend toward artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality in business and entertainment stems from man’s sinful assertion that we do not need God and that we can become gods ourselves. The aspiration to live forever, even if it means downloading our consciousness into an artificial form, pervades our world. Many people also long to live in the metaverse, a virtual realm where they believe their needs will be met without the reality of the world God created and our Lord Jesus entered to give the promise of eternal life.

All such encroaching on Christian faith and life is idolatry because it is the world’s worship of gods of its own making. Unfortunately, many Christians, especially those in traditional mainline churches, long have tolerated idolatry in their societies and sometimes even in their churches.

However, this trend is just a new form of an old error. Archaeologists have recently uncovered evidence that Israel tolerated the presence of cultic worship centers in its society, despite God’s command to “have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3). These centers were present in two outstanding cities: Lachish, which God judged in 701 BC via the Assyrians, and Jerusalem, which He judged in 586 BC via the Babylonians.

Lachish was the second most important city in Iron Age Judah, after Jerusalem. The site is located on the bank of the Lachish Stream in the Judean Shephelah and dominates the road leading from the coastal plain to the mountainous region around Hebron and Jerusalem. It provides key information for understanding the Canaanite cultures of the Middle and Late Bronze Ages and the Kingdom of Judah in the Iron Age. It has been intensively excavated since 1932 by six different expeditions.

In 2017, Israeli archaeologists Saar Ganor and Igor Kreimerman discovered a gate shrine in the eastern chamber of a six-chambered gate at the site. It was divided into a larger northern room and a smaller southern room, which served as the holy of holies, containing a double altar in a niche in its southern wall.¹

A shrine in a city gate was common enough. As Israeli archaeologist Yoseph Garfinkel, who directed excavations at the temple at Lachish, explained:

The gate of a city is . . . the point of transition between the protected and civilised urban environment within the city walls and the open, wild and primitive territory surrounding the city. A cultic installation in the gate is a place of prayer and supplication for those leaving the city for regions that may be hostile. Upon the traveller’s return, this is the place of thanksgiving for safe arrival. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is considerable evidence for cultic activity at city gates. Magical powers are often represented in such locations, sometimes in the form of large statues of lions.²

Since the city gate also was a place of greeting and commerce, Israel’s religion would have been witnessed and enforced daily there. The presence of a Canaanite cultic shrine at such a place of prominence through the period when the site was under the rule of godly kings in Judah is incongruous at best. But, more troubling is the presence of a similar Canaanite-era cultic sanctuary in Jerusalem itself, which we will analyze in our next issue of Israel My Glory.

ENDNOTES

1. 1. Saar Ganor and Igor Kreimerman, “An Eighth-Century B.C.E. Gate Shrine at Tel Lachish, Israel,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Vol. 381 (May 2019), 211–36.
   2. Yoseph Garfinkel, “The Cultic Reform in the Gate Shrine of Lachish,” Strata: Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society, Vol. 38 (2020), 40.