4 Ernest I. Jacob opposite opinion:“we have been consumed by sword and famine, since we ceased to burn incense to the‘Queen of Heaven’(Jer. 44:18). Egyptian Jews continued to worship Anath as shown by traces in the Elephantine papyri of the fifth century. In one of them the name of God is combined with those of the Canaanite goddesses.’

Sexual overtones have been claimed for the Cherubim, the winged human figures of the Tabernacle on the lid of the holy Ark where Moses also received divine revelations(Ex. 25:17-18). Cherubim were also woven into the curtains of the Tabernacle(Ex. 26:1), used in Solomon’s Temple(1 Kgs. 6:29-35) and in the Temple erected after the return of the exiles from Babylonia. One of these figures may have been female, although there is only slight evidence for such an interpretation through an obscure talmudic passage that stated that the cherubim were shown in embrace“like male and female” and that this divine sexual act was shown to pilgrims(Yoma 54a). The great medieval biblical commentator, Rashi, explained this passage as“similar to a man who is joined to and embracing his wife in his arms.” The talmudic passage continued:“Once when Gentiles entered the sanctuary and saw the Cherubim interlaced with each other, they carried them to the market place saying- these Israelites occupy themselves with such things and they despised them”(Yoma 54a). Such an incident might have occurred during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes (170 B.C.E.), who tried to hellenize the population. These Cherubim in embrace, if they existed, would certainly have embarrassed the apologists of Judaism , who stressed its imageless character and contrasted it to the heathen religions. This may have led Philo , Josephus , and the Letter of Aristeas to avoid, whenever possible, any mention of the Cherubim in their description of the Temple.*

The two tall brass pillars set up“on the porch of the Temple” (1 Kgs. 7:21), yahin and boaz, may have been another sexual feature of the Solomonic Temple since in modern times,they have been interpreted as phallic symbols.