As I read through Samuel I and II (why is the second one called Samuel? he only makes a brief, posthumous cameo…) and Kings, I got to thinking about all of the Idol worship that was going on. Clearly, we are not getting the entire story. I would think that people would only worship whatever benefitted them. There are several references to the foreign women corrupting the Israelite men, but I don’t think that their worship patterns can be chalked up to something as simple as getting laid. I wonder what worshipping Baal did for them? Any religion that calls for sacrificing your own son or daughter must have some sort of pull if it is to continue. It would be interesting to see what miracles people ascribed to Baal and the other gods that they worshipped.
So far, there hasn’t been any reference to heaven or hell. I think that this is probably a big reason why there was so much idol worship. If all you have is this life, you will do whatever takes to make it a good one. If there is no afterlife, there isn’t much downside to worshipping idols. You’re going to die either way, you might as well worship whoever promises, and delivers the goods. I’m not sure when the concept of an afterlife comes into play. The cynic might ask if the afterlife was always there or if it was created by God (or His priests?) to keep people in line. I, as always, would never ask such a question… Incentives matter, and it is always profitable to look at how people react to given incentives. In Kings, worshipping God definately seemed to be on the wane, I’ll see what kind of incentives are created to bring people back. That’s the trouble of reading a book when you already know when it ends:-)