Peter on Exodus: Part IV

Last updated on: July 11, 2014 at 11:35 am by Peter Bishop

Peter on Exodus: Part IV 2014-07-11T11:35:32-04:00 Peter Bishop

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Part I: A Very Differen Book From Genesis
Part II: God Becoming God
Part III: Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live
Part IV: A Graven Image Is Worth A Thousand Words

A Graven Image Is Worth A Thousand Words

What is a “graven image?” Why are they forbidden, not just in the arcane dictates of the Mosaic Code but front-and center in the Ten Commandments themselves? And, given that, why do so many Christians today and throughout history flat out ignore the commandment?

What it says is:

You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I the LORD your God am an impassioned God, visiting the guilt of the parents upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generations of those who reject Me, but showing kindness to the thousandth generation of those who love Me and keep My commandments. (JPS, Exodus 20:4-6)

Murder, adultery, and stealing He let go with a simple statement. For graven images, He goes out of His way to promise punishment down to the great-grandchildren. And it’s not just idols, not just images of God(s), it’s images of anything. What’s up with that? And, given its prominence in the Law, what’s up with all those crucifixes in churches?

Marshall Massey, in a comment on an earlier post, says:

Well, if you know your religious history, you know that there have always been some Christians who understood this as being more and deeper than a “tribal taboo”, and honored it accordingly. Thus the first generations of Christians made no images, which is why we don’t know what Christ looked like. In Byzantium, a few centuries later, there were pitched battles between the iconoclasts, who wanted to destroy all graven images of holy things, and the iconodules, who liked having them as objects of veneration. The iconodules won, but it was a near thing.

In Puritan England, at the time that the Quaker movement was beginning, there was a widespread feeling that the victory of the iconodules had been just one more instance of the general apostasy of the church; a new wave of iconoclasts arose and invaded the churches and cathedrals of England and Scotland and destroyed countless works of art, some of them great. Early Friends joined with the Puritans in rejecting crucifixes and stained glass portraits, not just on the grounds that these were forbidden in the Bible, but because their own hearts affirmed that an image is a vanity, i.e. something empty, and as such a distraction from the true God.

Even today, many Protestants uphold the ban on images; I’ve heard of one Scottish preacher, invited to preach in a church of a different denomination at Christmastide, who began his appearance by taking off his frock and throwing it over the crèche on the stage, so as to cover the blasphemy of that image, and its power to distract from the true God, for at least as long as he was there.

The Jewish temple was of course devoid of graven images; the Holy of Holies had no image in it. Islam makes no graven images, because it recognizes the truth of that commandment; all its art is abstract.

And the thought is hardly restricted to the so-called Abrahamic religions. The Taoists make no images of God, you know; they see God as beyond all such. The early Buddhists made no images either; all the images you’ve seen of the Buddha date from after the incursion of Alexander the Great. Some of the greatest Zen teachers were notoriously scornful of images, one of them even to the point of burning one.

Tribal taboo, then? Or separate discoveries of the same truth, which is that the Infinite and Uncreate cannot be contained in a form?

As always, Marshall is very thought provoking and has a depth of historical and scriptural knowledge that makes him impossible to simply dismiss. But, as is often the case too, Marshall’s comment leaves me feeling that there is something wrong in what he said that I just haven’t been able to put my finger on yet.

Yes, there have been iconoclastic sects within Christianity, including the forebears and early roots of our own Quaker tradition. And I’ll take Marshall’s word for it that the early Christians made no images. But even at their most extreme. Christian iconoclasts have only objected to religious iconography. Islam is the only Abrahamic religion I know of that avoids all representational art of any kind. I don’t draw any great conclusions from this. It just puzzles me. This one has always puzzled me, ever since I was a child turning the pages of the big black King James we had from the Reader’s Digest Press.

For that matter, what about the golden cherubim that ornament the Ark of the Covenant? *shrug*

Where I sharply disagree with Marshall’s comment is when he compares the Hebrew injunction against images to the attitudes of the Taoists and Buddhists. He’s very right in describing the Taoist conception of “God as beyond all such.” But that’s not what the Hebrews were saying.

Lao Tsu tells us:

Even the finest teaching is not the Tao itself.
Even the finest name is insufficient to define it.
Without words, the Tao can be experienced,
and without a name, it can be known.

(Tao Te Ching, chapter 1, Stan Rosenthal trans.)

This stands in direct opposition to:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.

(RSV, Gospel of John 1:1)

The Hebrews forbade sculpted images, and Hebrew culture never did much with the visual arts generally, but with their words they painted pictures that could make your hair stand on end or your spirit soar.

I looked, and lo, a stormy wind came sweeping out of the north—a huge cloud and flashing fire, surrounded by a radiance; and in the center of it, in the center of the fire, a gleam of amber. In the center of it were also the figures of four creatures. And this was their appearance:

They had the figures of human beings. However, each had four faces, and each of them had four wings; the legs of each were [fused into] a single rigid leg, and the feet of each were like a single calf’s hoof; and their sparkle was like the luster of burnished bronze. They had human hands below their wings. The four of them had their faces and their wings on their four sides. Each one’s wings touched those of the other. Their did not turn when they moved; each could move in the direction of any of its faces; they went wherever the spirit impelled them to go, without turning when they moved.

(JPS, Ezekiel 1:4-12)

The description goes on for another two pages, and it is some of the most visually intense writing I’ve ever read. They did make pictures of their God. It’s not sculpted, but there’s no way you’re going to tell me those words don’t make an image.

So I’m still just really puzzled by what the second commandment means. To us. To them. To anybody.

Peter's posts

Bible

Quaker Pagan

Previous Post

February 19, 2009

Why Bother With the Bible?

Next Post

March 1, 2009 Back From Woolman Hill

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Cat's posts Peter's posts Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2017 February 2017 November 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 July 2013 June 2013 March 2013 February 2013 December 2012 November 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 July 2000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz