Note.—With reference to Mainzer’s absurd contention, Prof. Kennedy writes me as follows: “Naturally the working of the large drag net required considerable elbow-room, and it was understood, as Krauss points out (Talm. Archäol., ii. 145), that a fisherman would not encroach on his neighbour’s ground. If we assume, for the sake of argument, that the ancient drag was as long as those used by the Galilean fishermen of to-day—i.e. about 400 metres (437 yards) according to Masterman (op. cit., 40)—a boat’s crew, working from the beach and spreading their drag in a semi-circle, would not monopolise more than 250-280 yards of sea-front, a very different ‘proposition’ from the Talmud’s or Mainzer’s parasang.”
CHAPTER XL
ICHTHYOLATRY IMPROBABLE—FISH NOT IN SACRIFICES OR AUGURIES
Although nothing is said of sacrificial fish, it is possible that Ichthyolatry did prevail in Israel to some extent. In Deut. iv. 18,[1046] we find an express commandment or law laid down by Moses against the making of a graven image of “the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth”: in Exodus xx. 4, we read, “Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”
If Ichthyolatry existed, it could hardly have sprung up among a nomad people living in the Desert, as did the Jews for years before they entered the Promised Land. Such a cult with other customs was probably adopted from the Canaanites by their conquerors. Psalm cvi. 35 ff., expressly tells us, “but they mingled themselves with the nations and learned their works; and they served their idols which became a snare unto them.” Any argument in favour of the existence of Ichthyolatry which rests mainly on Deut. iv. 18, and Ex. xx. 4, can to my mind carry little or no weight. They simply embody a comprehensive command against making a graven image of any kind whatever, celestial, terrestrial, or aquatic.
As to the observance of the commandment, Petrie writes:—[1047] “It is often assumed that the prohibition to make a graven image was as rigidly carried out in Israel as in Islam—the second monotheistic revival of the Semites. The holy of holies in Solomon’s Temple contained, however, two enormous cherubim, about 17 feet high, side by side, right across the back of the shrine.... Not only were these figures in the holiest place, but in the court stood the brazen sea on twelve oxen, and figures of lions, oxen, and cherubim covered the tanks. In earlier times Micah had a graven image, and a molten image of silver, weighing about six pounds, in his private chapel of Yahweh, served by a Levite, and they, with the ephod and teraphim, were adopted for tribal worship by part of the tribe of Dan until the captivity.”
The author adds “there was neither officially nor privately any objection to the use of images.” He also shows that even “in the holiest of all things, the Ark of Yahweh, there were cherubs, one on each side of the mercy seat, with their wings covering the mercy seat,” in which design and other religious matters he discerns clear instances of Egyptian influence.
However this may be, it is plain from Ezekiel (viii. 10-11) that the Israelites worshipped graven representations of “every form of creeping things and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the House of Israel, pourtrayed up on the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the elders of Israel ... with every man his censer in his hand: and the odour of the cloud of incense went up.” Some scholars go indeed as far as the assertion that until the prophetic reformation in the seventh and sixth centuries b.c., the popular religion of Israel was about on a level with unreformed Hinduism.
We stand on surer ground in the statement that Ashtoreth, a goddess of the Zidonians and Canaanites, was worshipped by Israel, for in 1 Kings xi. 5 and 33, we read “Solomon went after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians,” and, “because they have forsaken me and have worshipped Ashtoreth.”[1048] From this acknowledged worship of Ashtoreth, sometimes identified with Astarte and with Atargatis[1049] —undoubtedly a fish goddess—Ichthyolatry has been claimed for Israel.