Leon's Message Board

When Moses was still atop Mt. Sinai, receiving the Ten Commandments, the nation of Israel grew impatient and said to Aaron, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (Ex. 32:1). Accordingly, Aaron fashioned a golden molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt” (Ex. 32:4). In the New Testament, Stephen would explain that in their hearts Israel turned back to Egypt (Acts 7:39).

Egyptian mythology presents the Apis bull as the incarnation of the Egyptian creator god Ptah, or the son of Hathor, the primeval goddess. Cattle represented other significant Egyptian gods.

Here is an informative article by M. Froelich, from the Lexham Bible Dictionary:

APIS (חַף, chaph; Ἄπις, Apis). Egyptian bull god of agriculture and fertility. Apis came to be associated with Ptah, chief god of Memphis, and was embodied as a live, sacred bull in the temple there.

Biblical Relevance
Although Apis does not appear in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, the Septuagint text of Jeremiah includes him in a prophecy against Egypt. The text reflects the common understanding that cities and peoples were protected by patron gods, whose withdrawal or weakness could spell doom (e.g., Ezek 8–11; Matt 23:38–39; Homer, Iliad, 22.350–59). In this case, the king of Babylon is able to defeat Egypt because “Apis, your chosen calf,” has fled after being weakened by the Lord (Jer 26:13–15 LES). The Septuagint text does not offer specifics about the Apis cult, but it indicates that he was considered a patron or protector of Memphis, which is named in Jer 26:14 (LXX). The corresponding text in the Hebrew Bible (and in English translations) is Jer 46:13–15. Although this version mentions Memphis (Jer 46:14), it generally refers to “bulls” instead of naming Apis.
Bull worship was common in the ancient world and appears in the Old Testament. Gods such as Baal, Zeus, El, and others appear with bull imagery in mythology and in worship. The incident of the golden calf in Exod 32 is an example of Semitic bull worship. Calf worship also is mentioned in 1 Kgs 12:25–33, in which Jeroboam returns from Egypt and sets up calf statues in the northern kingdom.

Mythology and History
Apis is the bull god of the Egyptian pantheon. According to religious belief, Apis was the son of Ptah, who impregnated the mother cow via lightning bolts or moonbeams. In some myths, Apis was the son of Hathor, a heifer goddess often depicted with the sun disk between her horns; the same symbol often appears in visual representations of Apis (see Malaise, “Histoire et signification”).
Apis’ most important temple was in Memphis and dates at least as far back as Egypt’s New Kingdom (16th–11th centuries BC), though the god himself goes back to the earliest periods of Egyptian history. Apis was broadly popular, and his worship lasted at least into the late Ptolemaic period; the latest bull found buried in his temple in Memphis dates to the late second or early first century BC. In Memphis and possibly elsewhere, the worship of Serapis seems to have taken over by the Graeco-Roman era.
Like many important ancient deities, Apis was associated with the king and his powers. Because the most important of these powers was the fertility of the land, worship of Apis inspired festival traditions such as the trampling of a farm plot (Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 137). Plutarch states that the Egyptians revered the Apis bull “being the image of the soul of Osiris” (Plutarch, De Iside et Osire, 20). This association between Apis and Osiris was part of the process that eventually led to their assimilation in Serapis.

Cult and Worship
One of the main features of the Apis cult was the worship of the bull at the Memphis temple. The bull was believed to be the god himself. He would be selected as a calf, whose distinctive markings had to include a white triangle on the forehead and a wing pattern across the back. During his journey to Memphis, young women would gather to lift their skirts before him in order to guarantee their fertility. The animal (and often its mother) lived in luxury at the temple. Some ancient sources claim that he had a harem of cows; others emphasize that Apis had no offspring and “that a cow was selected and presented to Apis once a year, and then put to death so that no offspring would come of the match” (Meeks and Favard-Meeks, Daily Life, 137).
The bull’s death would bring elaborate funeral rites and preparation, including the mummification and burial of the animal in a nearby cemetery. Then the search for a new Apis would begin. A stele, possibly of the late Ptolemaic or early Roman period, depicts the Apis bull on a funeral vessel, being mourned by Isis and Nephthys. Although the piece was not found in situ, it most likely is from the nearby Saqqara Serapeum and represents the funeral procession for the Apis bull (Farag, “Two Serapeum Stelae,” 165–66).

Froelich, M. (2016). Apis. In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, L. Wentz, E. Ritzema, & W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary. Lexham Press.

It would seem reasonable then, that when Israel worshipped the golden calf at Sinai, they rejected the true God in favor of the idols they knew. Later, when the kingdom divided, Jeroboam, first king of the northern kingdom of Israel, installed golden calves at Dan and Bethel, and called on Israel to worship. He said, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem; behold your god, O Israel, that brought you up from the land of Egypt” (1 Kings 12:28).