The Israelite God was different from all the other gods, thus, the worship of Yahweh differed from that of all other gods.
What do you do with an old, worn-out Bible? What about a worn and tattered American Flag? What about leftover communion wine? It seems sacrilegious or disrespectful to just throw these things in the trash, but they are no longer useful, so they must be disposed of somehow.[1] The ancients had to consider this as well because each city and town had numerous cult sites that generated significant garbage. The solution in the ancient world was to create what we today call a favissa, deriving from the Latin for “a pit.” This was the primary depository for anything used in cultic worship practices. A sacrifice would be offered, and whatever was left on the altar would be swept up and dumped into the favissa.
One such favissa was the cult deposit at the city of Byblos. This city was a major trading hub during the Middle Bronze Age and the center of much cult activity. Thousands of small fertility statues, deposited as a part of the worship rite, were found in the favissa. Intended to be disposable, the statues were mass-produced via molds with either clay or bronze.[2]
In the ancient world, a woman’s value and worth were often tied to her ability to bear children, making fertility a major issue. Both in pagan religions, where fertility statues like those mentioned above were rather common as well as in the Old Testament, where God miraculously provides a barren woman with a child, typically as part of a larger promise connected to the salvation of the world. Such examples include Sarah (Genesis 18), Manoah’s wife (Judges 13), and Hannah (1 Samuel 1) who came specifically to a cult site to pray for a son. Hannah’s story is actually quite helpful in understanding the importance of fertility in the ancient world. Her husband, Elkanah, married a second wife, Peninnah, when Hannah was unable to bear children. This was quite a common practice in Mesopotamian cultures. Men didn’t usually marry a second wife, but, if they did, it was because the first was barren.[3] Since Hannah was barren, Elkanah’s second wife, Peninnah, mocked her mercilessly. It created such difficulty for her that she stopped eating during feast time and came to the gate of the Tabernacle praying soundless prayers.
Hannah suffered what countless other women had experienced in their lives: the grief of infertility and the shame at being replaced by her husband for a younger, more fertile wife. She was distraught. In such a situation, what would the Canaanites do? They would cast idols of fertility goddesses into a favissa as an offering to the goddesses of fertility. But Hannah does no such thing. Why not? Because her husband is a Levite, and she is a faithful Israelite. There was no room in her faith for such idolatrous worship practices. Instead, she went to the gate of the Israelite house of worship and prayed to God. If she had a son, she would dedicate him to the Lord.
Sure enough, God answered her prayer, and she gave birth to Samuel and dedicated him to the Lord at Shiloh. There he learned from Eli and his family the practices of Israelite worship: practices that are detailed in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and analyzed through recent and ongoing archaeological excavations at Shiloh. The Israelite favissa at Shiloh has been discovered, excavated, and analyzed, telling us much about the nature of Israelite worship. The favissa dates to the Late Bronze Age, around 1400-1200 BC, and contains mostly animal bones and broken ceramics, as well as eight gold and silver votive objects.[4] Each of these finds is significant to the worship practices of the Israelites.
The animal bones are primarily from clean animals – mostly sheep, goats, and cows. There is a higher percentage of these bones from the right half of the animal than the left half. The bones bear marks of burning, and significant deposits of ash have also been found in the favissa.[5] This is all consistent with an Israelite cult site. The animals were burnt following the sacrificial laws of the Torah, and what survived the fire was considered holy and deposited in the favissa. In addition, there is a larger percentage of the right half of the animal because, in Leviticus 7:32-35, the priest was to receive that half of the animal as his portion. It was from this half that the priest ate and fed his family. This practice is abused by Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli, who insisted on choosing their portion instead of following the ritual law of the Torah.
The excavated ceramics are useful because they help date the finds in the favissa. Fired clay vessels are incredibly durable, as fired clay does not decompose. A clay pot or bowl may break, but the potsherds do not decompose like cloth and cannot be melted down for other purposes like metal. Since the styles of pottery change over time, clay objects are one of the key tools in the archaeologist’s tool kit to date other finds in the archaeological site. The clay objects found in the favissa are primarily chalices and other objects typically used in cult practices and not in everyday life. In fact, normal, everyday pots and bowls are quite absent from the favissa.[6]
Eight gold and silver objects were found in the favissa at Shiloh as well. These are considered “votive offerings” meant to appease a god or goddess by being thrown into the pit. These eight objects are all quite small and bear remarkable similarities to gold objects found in other excavation sites. In addition, one fertility idol was also found in the pit. Aside from these, nothing else has been found to fit the worship practices of Canaanites. So, what are gold objects and a fertility idol doing in an Israelite favissa? In Numbers 31:54, Joshua collects gold objects from the Israelites and disposes of them. It makes much more sense economically to melt down gold objects and reuse the gold for another purpose. By throwing it in the favissa, the Israelites are getting rid of it entirely. These idols and gold objects are not a votive offering to a pagan god; instead, they are being destroyed so no one else can ever use them again.[7]
The things that the Israelites deposited into this favissa were holy and therefore had to be discarded with the care and respect a holy object deserved. The animal bones were not just trash from last night’s dinner, they were the remnants of the offerings made to God by the people. They were holy and deserved to be disposed of in a holy way. Even the gold objects were most likely disposed of out of reverence for Yahweh and not as an offering of the Canaanite variety.
The Israelites were called to be a nation of priests representing Yahweh God to the nations around them (Exod. 19:5-6). This doesn’t mean they were completely and totally different. They still lived in the same cultural milieu that the Canaanites, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians lived. There is much that they did that looks similar to these other cultures. But there were some key differences, and the favissa at Shiloh indicates this. The Israelite God was different from all the other gods, thus, the worship of Yahweh differed from that of all other gods. In the way that the Israelites lived, prayed, and worshiped, they were a witness of the God of all creation to the cultures that surrounded them. In the same way, Peter calls us a “royal priesthood” because it is through us that God chooses to represent Christ to the world (1 Peter 2:9).
