golden calf

Worshiping the golden calf, as in Exodus 32:1-35, illustration from a Bible card published in 1901 by the Providence Lithograph Company According to the Torah, the Bible, and the Quran, the golden calf (Hebrew: עֵגֶל הַזָּהָב, romanized: ʿēḡel hazzāhāḇ) or, in the Quranic account, the calf (Arabic: عِجْل, romanized: ʿijl) was a cult image made by the Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai. In Hebrew, the incident is known as "the sin of the calf" (Hebrew: חֵטְא הָעֵגֶל, romanized: ḥēṭəʾ hāʿēḡel). It is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus.

Bull worship was common in many cultures. In Egypt, whence according to the Exodus narrative, the Israelites had recently come, the bull-god Apis was a comparable object of worship, which some believe the Hebrews were reviving in the wilderness. Alternatively, some believe Yahweh, the national god of the Israelites, was associated with or pictured as a sacred bull through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism. Among the Canaanites, some of whom would become the Israelites, the bull was widely worshipped as the sacred bull and the creature of El.