Peter vs. Pan

Assyria came through this five-mile passage between the Golan and Hermon mountains in the eighth century BCE, intent on conquering the Promised Land. It succeeded in taking the northern kingdom, Israel, but was stopped at the gates of Jerusalem. About 150 years later the Babylonians used the same route and conquered Judah, the southern kingdom. Persia later invaded using the route again.

According to tour guide Yoni Gerrish, the Tel Dan region was not the only way for Mesopotamian powers to invade, but with its abundant water and vegetation, it was certainly the most attractive. Further, bypassing the settlements of Dan would leave its rear and supply lines open to attack.

’I feel sorry for those guys on the border; it’s an outpost and is vulnerable in a volatile region. They’re the first to go. How many armies came down from the north and ended up in that bottleneck?’

Tel Dan was and is the first line of defense for Israel’s primary water source, and was also the border between pure worship and paganism.

Israeli’s far north remains an outpost, as bomb shelters in Kiryat Shmona and foxholes at Tel Dan testify. The area was no less an outpost in the 12th century BCE, when the tribe of Dan settled there. The tribe had failed to settle the area designated for it along the Mediterranean, finding the Philistines difficult to remove, though many stayed and tried to get along with them. The story of the Danite Samson and his foreign girlfriends show the wisdom of that strategy.

But others settled in the north, giving rise to the expression ’from Dan to Beersheba’ — the northern and southern borders of the kingdom. Judges 18 explains they elected five men ’to spy out the land and search it.’ The spies agreed on Laish in the far northern valley ’belonging to the place called Beth Rehob’ (or home of the wide place — probably a reference to the expanse between the mountains).

While their military campaign enjoyed speedy success, the Danites failed miserably in preserving worship of the Lord. Having stolen idols on the way to the conquest of Laish, they worshipped them after arrival (Judges 18).

According to Genesis 47, Dan was to be ’a viper by the path that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider falls backwards.’ This seems to relate to the strategic location, but Dan often caused other Israelite tribes to falter spiritually.

The tribe of Dan is so closely associated with idolatry in Jewish tradition that the name ’Dan’ is sometimes used in rabbinic literature to mean paganism. In the list of the tribes of Israel in Revelation 7, Dan is excluded. Although the Scriptures are not explicit, many scholars think this omission stems from its rampant idolatry.

Dan’s adoration of idols became institutionalized in the 10th century under the split kingdom. Jeroboam, the first king of Israel, the northern kingdom, declared that Jerusalem (in Judah, the southern kingdom) would no longer be a necessary pilgrimage destination.

He used Dan (and Beth El) as religious alternatives to cut ties with Judah (1 Kings 12). Archeologists verified that much of the building in Dan, the altar and the bamah (high place), are similar to the Temple in Jerusalem built by Solomon, thus indicating Jeroboam sought a subsitiute for the Holy City.

The stubbornness of Dan’s idolatry is indicated a century later, when King Jehu of Israel destroyed idols throughout most of the northern kingdom. Still, 2 Kings 10 records that Jehu ’did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit — the worship of the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.’

Assyria invaded in the eighth century, capturing the people of Dan and dispersing them throughout its empire. Dan, like the other northern tribes, was lost. Pagan worship continued to flourish, culminating in the fourth century conquest by Alexander the Great, who introduced the Greek pantheon to the area.

Although the Greeks were initially tolerant of the religious practice of the Jews (many of whom had recently arrived in the north from exile in Babylon), at the Battle of Banias in 198 BCE the area fell into the hands of Seleucid rulers who were unsympathetic. Eventually Antiochus IV outlawed Judaism and mandated Greek worship.

Rome, wishing to protect its eastern flank against Persia, assumed control of the water resources and vital passage into Israel in 68 BCE. The area was later inherited by Phillip, son of Herod the Great, who built the city and named it after Caesar, calling it Caesarea Philippi to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima.

Pagan worship moved to the cave from which streamed the Hermon spring. The area became a sanctuary to the god Pan to whom the Greeks attributed fright among their enemies during battle (hence the word panic). The area was called Panias which morphed into Banias in Arabic.

Sacrifices to Pan were thrown into the cave-spring. If the sacrifice disappeared, it was understood that the gift had been received. But if blood appeared, Pan’s devotees considered the sacrifice rejected.

It was against this backdrop of a rock mountain, cave and spring — all used in pagan worship — that Jesus arrived and asked Simon Peter a question (Matt 16).

’Who do you say that I am?’

Peter understood that Jesus was not like the gods of the area. ’You are the Christ, the son of the living God,’ he responded.

Jesus affirmed the disciple by offering a play on words. ’I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.’ The name Peter and the Aramaic word for rock are the same. Before this colossal rock mountain which gives water and soil to the upper Jordan valley, Jesus declared Peter will be the prototype believer to serve as the rock foundation of the church.

Christians are divided as to the implications of this passage, but it is reasonable to suggest that Jesus was saying that Peter and other fallible disciples like him would nurture the church as the rock mountain supplies the area with its needs.

Gerrish relates that Eusebius, the most prominent historian of the early church, passes on the Greek legend that this cave was ’a portal into Hell.’ The tour guide interprets Jesus’ words, ’the gates of Hades,’ as a direct reference to the cave in which water swelled until an earthquake in the 19th century diverted the stream.

Gerrish, a Baptist preacher’s son with an MA in the New Testament, paraphrases: ’When Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against his church, he meant, ’All this pagan stuffÉ you don’t have to worry about it. God is greater than all this!’

When the Jewish community encountered the Greco-Roman world, it tended to build its community centers, the synagogues, in the midst of pagan activity, according to Gerrish. Similarly, when Jesus announced the foundation of his church he did so at a location with centuries of idolatrous history.

Where else?