What examples are there for worship of the golden calf?

Answer 1

The Bible has several references to the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, such as during the Exodus and in the northern kingdom of Israel shortly after Jeroboam began his reign. However the Hebrew people were not the only people to worship this deity. During the third dynasty of Ur (c 2060 - 1950), the moon god, Sin, was represented in the the form of a golden calf with crescent-shaped horns and a long flowing beard of lapis lazuli. C L Woolley (Ur Excavations: The Royal Cemetery) shows several images found in his excavations of the royal graves at Ur. That these images are of the god Sin can be seen by the following description found in a Sumero-Akkadian hymn to that god: "Ferocious bull, whose horn is thick, whose legs are perfected, who is bearded in lapsis, and filled with luxury and abundance."

The bull was a symbol of fertility in the ancient Near East, and the evolution from calf to bull represented the waxing and waning of the moon. The moon in turn is associated with a woman's menstrual cycle. Since the moon god was the son of El, the father of the gods, it is rational that El was also at times seen as a bull, and this is reflected in Ugaritic myths that sometimes refer to El as "Bull El".