Arts and Humanities Commons^™

‘No Longer Will You Call Me Ba’Al’- An Analysis Of The Prevailing Interpretive Model In The Scholarship Of Hosea And Counter-Proposal, John Mathy

Scholar Week 2016 - present

The majority of scholars assume that the book of Hosea was written against the backdrop of syncretistic Ba’al worship in the Northern Kingdom during the 8th century BC. This paper takes a critical look at the lack of evidence for this interpretation and proposes an alternative reading of the text. By systematically examining each use of the word ‘ba’al’ in the text of Hosea, this paper proposes that the primary polemic of the prophet is not aimed at Ba’al worship, but rather at a distorted nationalistic version of Yahweh worship, focused around the golden calves of Jeroboam I.