بِسۡمِ اللّٰہِ الرَّحۡمٰنِ الرَّحِیۡمِ
In the Name of Allah, the Rahman, the Merciful
The great Prophet Moses lived and the Exodus occurred sometime between the 15th and 13th centuries BCE. So it was during this time the Torah was revealed to Moses, yet the earliest available fragment of the Torah, the Ketef Hinnom silver amulets, containing a priestly blessing from Numbers 6:24-26, are dated to the 7th century BCE. The Dead Sea Scrolls are basically our earliest extensive collection of Biblical texts. It is quite reasonable to assume, therefore, that the text of the Torah as received by us today is not exactly, word for word, the text of the Torah that was revealed to Moses over three thousand years ago. That is not to say that the text of the Pentateuch is completely unreliable. As Muslims who believe in the Holy Quran, much of what the modern-day Torah says has been confirmed in the Quran. The general narrative about God creating the Heavens and the Earth in six days, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the stories of the Patriarchs Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, and finally the story of Moses and the Exodus, generally lines up with what is said in the Quran. Certainly, there are some details which the Quran either omits or is at variance with. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the Quran has omitted the scandalous stories of Noah getting drunk and having his nakedness uncovered, or Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and having sex with him to produce offspring (the Moabites and Ammonites), or Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar disguising herself as a prostitute to seduce Judah and thereafter giving birth to his twin boys, Perez and Zerah. Incidentally, Christians believe that Jesus was a descendant of Perez, the illegitimate child of Judah and Tamar (Matthew 1:3; Luke 3:33). Could it be, as per the Documentary Hypothesis, that some of these stories were inserted into the text of the Torah to disparage certain lineages? For instance, the text of the Torah as received today accuses Aaron of having constructed the idol of the Calf while Moses was at Mount Sinai, “And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the Lord” (Exodus 32:1-5). According to classical Midrash of the Rabbis, Aaron complied with the wishes of the evil people to construct a “god” for them out of fear for his life. He also felt that if he was in charge of the matter he could delay it long enough for Moses to return to then deal with the rebellion.
As per the controversial Documentary Hypothesis, the story of Aaron making the Golden Calf, fashioning it from the women’s jewellery, comes from the Elohist source (or sources), that originate in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This source, or these sources, may have been written by individuals that harbored some antagonism toward the Aaronic priesthood, which was based in Jerusalem, at the Temple, in the Southern Kingdom of Judah.
Now according to the Holy Quran, Aaron was not responsible for making the Calf, but someone else, the Samiri:
قَالَ فَإِنَّا قَدْ فَتَنَّا قَوْمَكَ مِن بَعْدِكَ وَأَضَلَّهُمُ السَّامِرِيُّ
He (Allah) said, “Indeed, We have tried your people in your absence and the Samiri has led them astray”
(20:85)
وَلَـٰكِنَّا حُمِّلْنَا أَوْزَارًا مِّن زِينَةِ الْقَوْمِ فَقَذَفْنَاهَا فَكَذَٰلِكَ أَلْقَى السَّامِرِيُّ
Rather, we were carrying a load from the ornaments of the people. So we threw them and likewise did the Samiri cast
فَأَخْرَجَ لَهُمْ عِجْلًا جَسَدًا لَّهُ خُوَارٌ فَقَالُوا هَـٰذَا إِلَـٰهُكُمْ وَإِلَـٰهُ مُوسَىٰ
He produced for them a calf, a body making a lowing sound. So they said, “This is your god and the god of Moses!”
(20:87-88)
The Quran, however, is aware of the impure allegation against Aaron that he was responsible for making the Calf. As Muslims we therefore believe that Allah has gone out of His way, so to speak, to address the controversy and exonerate Aaron:
وَلَقَدۡ قَالَ لَہُمۡ ہٰرُوۡنُ مِنۡ قَبۡلُ یٰقَوۡمِ اِنَّمَا فُتِنۡتُمۡ بِہٖ ۚ وَاِنَّ رَبَّکُمُ الرَّحۡمٰنُ فَاتَّبِعُوۡنِیۡ وَاَطِیۡعُوۡۤا اَمۡرِیۡ
And previously Aaron had said to them, “O people! You have only been tried by it. And indeed the Rahman is your Lord. So follow me and obey my command”
(20:90)
قَالَ یٰہٰرُوۡنُ مَا مَنَعَکَ اِذۡ رَاَیۡتَہُمۡ ضَلُّوۡۤا
He (Moses) said, “O Aaron! What prevented you when you saw them gone astray?”
اَلَّا تَتَّبِعَنِ ؕ اَفَعَصَیۡتَ اَمۡرِیۡ
“From following me? Have you disobeyed my command?”
قَالَ یَبۡنَؤُمَّ لَا تَاۡخُذۡ بِلِحۡیَتِیۡ وَلَا بِرَاۡسِیۡ ۚ اِنِّیۡ خَشِیۡتُ اَنۡ تَقُوۡلَ فَرَّقۡتَ بَیۡنَ بَنِیۡۤ اِسۡرَآءِیۡلَ وَلَمۡ تَرۡقُبۡ قَوۡلِیۡ
He (Aaron) said, “O son of my mother! Seize me not by my beard nor by (the hair of) my head. Verily, I feared that you would say, ‘You have have caused division among the children of Israel and did not wait for my word.’”
(20:92-94)
According to the Quran it therefore appears that Moses aggressively questioned his elder brother as to why he did not take a more active role in preventing the Israelites from worshipping the Golden Calf. While Aaron did indeed attempt to persuade the Israelites to turn away from worshipping the idol, he was merely inviting them to the truth and to obedience beautifully with words, but not actually physically preventing them. Moses’s objection is therefore that Aaron, who was delegated with the responsibility of Prophesy and being his minister, had the authority to prevent the worship of the Golden Calf and should have exercised it. Aaron’s answer is that he feared that had he taken an active role in preventing the worship of the Golden Calf it would have caused division and perhaps even a riot, and that it was best to simply wait for Moses to return and deliver instructions on how to proceed. This being the historical truth according to us Muslims, it appears then that those who authored the version of events as we read in the 32nd chapter of the Book of Exodus felt they could exploit this stern admonition Moses delivered to Aaron, preserved in the collective memory of the Israelites, and make it the basis of an anti-Aaronic motif. But the rebuke of Moses to his brother Aaron is mentioned in the same chapter in the following words, “And Moses said unto Aaron, What did this people unto thee, that thou hast brought so great a sin upon them? And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot: thou knowest the people, that they are set on mischief. For they said unto me, Make us gods, which shall go before us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. And I said unto them, Whosoever hath any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf” (Exodus 32:21-24). Here it is implied that Aaron was coerced into making the Calf, and also that he did not actually fashion and mould the graven image of the Calf rather he merely threw the gold into a fire and, incredibly, it emerged from that fire in the form of a calf, apparently belying what has been narrated at the very beginning of the chapter “And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf” (Exodus 32:4) and that he also set up an altar to the Calf after it had been made. It is incomprehensible that if Aaron was truly responsible for having made the Calf and then setting up an altar to it, that he would not have been punished in the least, rather rewarded with the office of the High Priest.
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