Gates and Gods: Cults in the City Gates of Iron Age Palestine--an Investigation of the Archaeological and Biblical Sources‪.‬

Gates and Gods: Cults in the City Gates of Iron Age Palestine--An Investigation of the Archaeological and Biblical Sources, by Tina Haettner Blomquist. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1999. Pp. 246. $58.00 (paper). In 1997 I had the pleasure of supervising student volunteers at Bethsaida as they recovered from the earth a carved basalt stele bearing the likeness of a warrior bull and representing the august divinity of the Moon. I remember the initial expressions of not merely excitement but awe on the faces of those young volunteers, overshadowed by the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, perhaps in fear of having disturbed a sleeping god. For someone familiar with the Bible who considers that this stele once stood atop a stepped structure with an elevated basin and that this assemblage was located adjacent to the Iron Age II city gate, the bamot hasse'arim, or "high places of the gates," mentioned in connection with the reform campaign of King Josiah (2 Kgs 23:8), immediately come to mind. But what exactly were the nature and function of a high place in relation to the public area of the city gate--if indeed such a thing actually existed? And how might bama and sa'ar, high place and gate, be affected by their proximity to each other? These are questions that Swedish biblical scholar Tina Haettner Blomquist pursues in her informative study of this elusive phenomenon.