Following the political split, a religious division begins. Jeroboam attempts to diminish the significance of the Jerusalem cult and instead promotes alternative forms of religious expression within the people’s faith. He chooses the shrines at Bethel and Dan, which have a long-standing history and tradition. He represents the divine with the image of a bull, as the Canaanites did, and using images in worship proves more impactful than the image-free practices in Jerusalem. He appointed priests without court privileges and started a major pilgrimage festival in the fall. For the author writing during Josiah’s reform, this marks the original sin of the Northern Kingdom: Jeroboam began it, other kings repeated it, and it continued.