Heresy of Peor

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(Redirected from Baal Peor)

The heresy of Peor is an event related in the Torah at Numbers
25:1-15. Back references to the event occur in Numbers 25:18
and 31:16, Deuteronomy 4:3, Joshua 22:17, Hosea 9:10; Psalm
106:28. Another reference is found in the New Testament, 1
Corinthians 10:8.

Contents
1 Biblical account
2 Ba'al Pe'or
2.1 Talmudic traditions
2.2 Balaam
3 From Moab to Midian
4 See also
5 External links
Moab leads Israel into sin

Biblical account
The story proceeds from that of the prophet Balaam, in which he ascends the mountain of Peor, and
makes sacrifices to God from atop it. Having finished his sacrifices, Balaam views the Israelites on the
plain below, and although hired to curse them, pronounces a blessing over them, prophesying their
blessed nature and destruction of Moab. When the narrative focus returns to the point of view of the
Israelites, the contrast between Balaam's voiced opinion of them, and their actual behaviour, is distinctly
noticeable.
According to the Torah, the Israelites, after spending a short time in the plain of Moab, begin to involve
themselves with the Moabite women. Consequently, under the influence of Moabite culture, the
Israelites begin whoring after the Moabite gods, and join themselves to Baal Peor (Hebrew
Baal Pr), in the Septuagint Beelphegr, a baal associated with Mount Peor.
Yahweh orders Moses to gather the chiefs of the people and hang up the idolaters before Yahweh to turn
away Yahweh's anger. The scene then abruptly shifts from concerns about Moabites to those about
Midianites. A man Israelite Zimri, the son of Salu brings a Midianite woman Cozbi into the camp
in the sight of Moses, where the people are weeping. Phinehas, grandson of Aaron, thereupon rises up
with a spear, follows the man into the chamber and thrusts the spear through both the man and woman,
who were evidently in the act of copulation. The plague, from which 24,000 had died, then ceased to
take life. A war with Midian follows later.
In Revelation 2:14, a quotation by Jesus implies that after Balaam had blessed Israel, he later went back
and influenced Balak to corrupt Israel through seducing them with women into idolatry.

Ba'al Pe'or
These, and the biblical back-references, are the only ancient records referring to Baal Peor. There is no
way of knowing whether Baal Peor was identical with any other Baal, of which there were several, or
was only a local god of Mount Peor. Later commentators tend to suppose that this god might be
identical with Chemosh who is called the god of Moab in other biblical texts, and sometimes speculate
that the cult of Baal Peor was very licentious.

Talmudic traditions
If Peor is connected to the Hebrew stem pr 'open', used both of mouth and bowels, it might mean
'opening' and so Baal Peor could mean 'Lord of the Opening'. This apparent meaning is probably the
source of Talmudic traditions associating Baal Peor with exposure and excrement. The tractate
Sanhedrin 64a attributes to Rab through Rabbi Judah the story of a sick Gentile woman who vowed to
worship every idol in the world if she recovered. Upon recovery she set out to fulfill her vow, but drew
back at Peor as the rites disgusted her: eating beets, drinking strong drink, and then uncovering oneself.
A story follows about a Jew who showed his contempt for the god by wiping his behind on its nose after
defecating in the temple and who was praised for his piety by the acolytes of the god who said: no man
has ever before served this idol thus. Tractate Avodah Zarah 3 states in the Gemara that the area before
the idol Peor was used as a latrine and that the worship of the idol consisted of excrementing before it.
Rashi comments on Numbers 25.3 that Peor was so called because they would uncover before it the end
of the rectum and bring forth excrement; this is its worship.

Balaam
[The claims of this section should be deleted if they cannot be referenced.]
While Balaam is described as a son of Beor, Beor is never himself identified, and the close phonetic
similarity to Peor is noticeable. If Beor and Peor are one and the same, then son of Beor merely
identifies Balaam as being a prophet of Baal Peor.
Balaam is described as building altars at several of the high places of Moab, including at Peor, without
ever criticising any Moabite religion occurring at those locations, entirely plausible if Balaam was a
prophet of a Moabite god. Indeed, Balaam's own name is generally considered in critical scholarship to
be a compound of Baal and Am, a semitic god. Later in the Bible, within the account of the war against
the Midianites, Balaam is described as being amongst those killed for committing the heresy of Peor,
implying that Balaam was one of those who had joined themselves to Baal Peor.
An archaeological find from 1967, from Deir Alla in Jordan, produced an ancient inscription written in
red and black ink on plaster walls, telling about a hitherto unknown prophecy from a Book of Balaam,
foretelling destruction for disobedience to the gods. Balaam, though still a son of Beor, in this narrative
is a prophet of Shamash, the Semitic sun god (The word "shemesh" is still the Hebrew word for "sun,"
which in Arabic is "shams"). If this reflects the god that El refers to in the biblical text concerning
Balaam, and the connection between Balaam and Baal Peor is accurate, then Baal Peor can be identified
as Shamash.

From Moab to Midian

The abrupt change from concerns about the Moabites to the Midianites, and mention of the end of a
plague which is never described as starting, is explained by the documentary hypothesis as being down
to a change from the JE source to the Priestly source. Despite the Torah redactor usually, according to
the hypothesis, interlacing together the sources, the stories here were evidently difficult to combine, as
the redactor appears to have cut the end of the JE version, and beginning of the Priestly source version,
joining the remaining ends of each source together.
As the Priestly source is considered to be based on the JE source, albeit spun to the Aaronid priesthood's
political viewpoint, the original JE ending, and priestly source beginning, can be expected to be fairly
similar to the text that is currently present. Nevertheless, the use of plagues, by God, to punish the
people in very large numbers, is unique to the Priestly source, once the Israelites have left Egypt, and
consequently this detail is unlikely to have been present in the original.
While it is considered uncertain as to why the Priestly source would change Moab to Midian, it is
generally agreed amongst critical scholars that the account of the war against Midian, and its spoils,
originates from a writer who added these elements to the original version of the Priestly source. The
command to vex the Midianites is also considered a part of these additions, and thus the revenge on
Midian serves as a vehicle for this writer to include the list of spoils, and its distribution, which has a
larger amount of text than the narrative of the war. Thus, this later writer could easily have changed
Moab to Midian to facilitate this addition.
Other Baal Peor, of Jordanian-Moabite origin, appeared as both the sun god and moon goddess, as did
his priests. Healing was discerned from feces, often salt bathing in the dead sea, and his cult was present
in the south dead sea (i.e. Sodom and Gomorrah legends).

See also
Baal
Balaam
Balak (parsha)
Belphegor
Documentary hypothesis
Tzoah Rotachat

External links
Jewish Encyclopedia: Baal-Peor (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?
artid=12&letter=B)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heresy_of_Peor&oldid=622066645"
Categories: Moab Midian Deities in the Hebrew Bible Judaism-related controversies
Book of Numbers Hebrew Bible events
This page was last modified on 20 August 2014 at 15:03.
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