Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

IDOL, IDOLATRY

Some sort of physical representation of a deity. “Idol” is used to translate a number of words in the OT, most commonly Heb. ʾĕlîlîm, gillûlîm, ʿăṣabbîm (and its one-time variant ʿōṣeḇ), pesel and the related pĕsîlîm. It also can be used to translate Heb. semel (otherwise rendered as “image” or “figure”), massēḵâ and the less common neseḵ (otherwise rendered as “molten” or “cast image”), tĕrāpîm (otherwise transliterated as “teraphim” or translated as “household gods”), šiqqūṣ (otherwise translated as “detestable thing” or “abomination”), ʾāwen (otherwise a more abstract noun meaning “idolatry” or more generally “wickedness”), and heḇel (also a more abstract noun meaning that which is evanescent or unsubstantial). In the NT “idol” translates Gk. eídōlon. These terms differ somewhat in their specifics: e.g., semel refers generally to some sort of statue or free-standing image (2 Chr. 33:7, 15; Deut. 4:16); pesel/pĕsîlîm also refer to a free-standing statue carved from wood or stone (Deut. 7:5; Isa. 44:15, 17; 45:20) or cast of metal (Judg. 17:3, 4; Hab. 2:18; 2 Chr. 34:7); gillûlîm likewise can refer to a wood, stone, or metal statue (e.g., Deut. 29:17), but when the material used to make ʿăṣabbîm is identified, it is always metal (Hos. 8:4; 13:2; Ps. 115:4). Some terms for “idol” have implicit within them a value judgment: to speak of ʾĕlîlîm, a term which comes from a root meaning “weak” or “insignificant,” is to offer a negative opinion about the worthlessness of idols; the more general meanings of “wickedness” for ʾāwen and “unsubstantial” for heḇel also indicate that a pejorative judgment is being made when these terms mean “idol.” Gk. eídōlon, which means both “image” and “phantom,” conveys a pejorative sense as well.

The reason idols are so negatively judged in the Bible is that they represent the religions of the nations, from which both the Israel of the OT and the nascent Christianity of the NT are commanded to separate themselves. In the OT, the book of Deuteronomy lists the making of idols as one of the abominations of the nations whom the Hebrews are to supplant in the land of Israel (Deut. 7:5, 25; 12:3; 29:17[MR 16]), and this sentiment is also expressed in the historical books stemming from the Deuteronomistic school. In 1 Sam. 31:9; 1 Kgs. 21:26; 2 Kgs. 17:15, e.g., idols are described as a despised component of the religions of, respectively, the Philistines, Amorites, and the nations in general. The prophetic books further depict idol worship as a foreign abhorrence: in Isaiah idols are associated with the religion of the Egyptians (Isa. 19:1, 3) and the Babylonians (46:1), and in Jeremiah idols are likewise associated with Babylon (Jer. 50:2, 38; 51:52) and more generally with foreigners (8:19; 14:22). The same sentiment is found in the Psalms (Ps. 96:5; 106:38; 135:15) and in the NT, particularly in Acts (17:16) and the letters of Paul (1 Cor. 8).

While elsewhere in their condemnations of their neighbors the biblical writers can be guilty of polemic and hyperbole, in the case of idol worship the Bible’s portrait seems fairly accurate. Both archaeological and textual evidence from throughout the West Semitic and eastern Mediterranean worlds indicate that the use of images to represent the deity was the norm in West Asian religious traditions. These images were most typically in the form of statues, although carved reliefs and wall paintings are attested. Statues, often life-sized, stood in temples and other sacred spaces, were the recipients of sacrifice and libations, and received votive offerings and prayers. They were also clothed and could be bathed. In certain ways, then, they were imagined as “alive,” to the degree at least that the god was perceived to be somehow present or manifest within the image and to share its fortunes or, on occasion, misfortunes (e.g., when the cult statue of the Philistine god Dagon falls and loses both head and hands before Israel’s ark of the covenant, it is as if Dagon has himself been defeated by the power of the Israelite God; 1 Sam. 5:1-5).

With respect to the biblical insistence on the lack of idols in Israel, assessing the accuracy of the biblical record, especially that of the OT, is a more complicated task. The OT’s legal tradition is emphatic that the Israelites should employ no idols in the worship of their God. The most famous text rejecting Israelite idolatry is the Second Commandment: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Exod. 20:4; cf. 34:17; Lev. 19:4; 26:1; Deut. 5:8-10). Yet the narrative traditions, especially those that describe Israel’s early history, are rife with accounts that involve the presence of idols, both idols of other gods and, it seems, of the God of Israel, and in these accounts, no negative judgment is rendered. Indeed, a positive judgment is often implied. Rachel’s theft of her father Laban’s household gods or teraphim is viewed as a good thing, as it helps her husband Jacob part from his father-in-law with the property that was rightfully his (Gen. 31:19-55[MT 32:1]). King Saul’s daughter Michal is also seen as doing a good thing when she places a teraphim in her bed as a replacement for her husband David, thus helping David escape from the murderous rage of his father-in-law (the teraphim used here is presumably a full-sized figure rather than the more miniature statues Rachel stole). In Judges Micah has a shrine in which there are an ephod and a teraphim and over which a Levite, a member of Israel’s priestly tribe, presides; the text invokes no note of censure (Judg. 17:5, 7-13). This man Micah has previously been expiated from stealing 1100 pieces of silver from his mother by the mother’s giving of two hundred of the coins “to make an image of cast metal” (Judg. 17:1-4), and this also seems to be a laudable action from the text’s point of view. Moreover, since the mother consecrated her silver “to the Lord,” the implication is that the image she had cast is of the Israelite God.

Even the text that is often considered to describe the most heinous episode of idol worship in the OT, Aaron’s making of the golden calf (Exod. 32), is ultimately ambivalent in its sense of what constitutes the proper and improper use of images in Israel. Note that after casting the calf Aaron declares that the next day will be a cult holiday for the Lord (Exod. 32:5), suggesting that he sees the calf as an icon appropriate to Israel’s worship of its God. Since Aaron is never punished for making the calf, and, indeed, since he is elsewhere lauded as the ancestor of the priesthood of the Jerusalem temple, the impression is that many others in biblical tradition shared Aaron’s judgment that the calf was an acceptable icon in the cult. Certainly Jeroboam, the first king of Israel’s northern kingdom, seems to have seen the icon as appropriate, as he installed two images of bulls in the cult centers at Bethel and Dan to represent the presence of God there (1 Kgs. 12:25-33).

Archaeologists have posited that a small bronze statue of a bull found at a 12th-century site in the northern Samaritan hills represents an early Israelite icon of God as a bull or, possibly, represents an icon of a bull throne on which the Israelite God is to be imagined as sitting invisibly. This latter interpretation thus understands the bull as an object parallel to the ark of the covenant, which is often described as the footstool of a throne on which God invisibly sits (cf. 1 Chr. 28:2). But while understanding the Samaritan bull as the throne of God rather than an actual image of the divine mitigates somewhat its “idolatrous” nature, there still must be explained a small bronze of a seated figure that comes from 11th-century Hazor. Although this statue bears a striking resemblance to Canaanite representations of the god El, by the 11th century Hazor was a major city of the Israelite north, and so the figurine is most plausibly understood as a representation of Israel’s God. Certainly, it is clear from other evidence that in Israelite religion God takes over many of El’s attributes. If, moreover, the Israelite God takes over El’s consort, the goddess Asherah, as many scholars now suggest, then the many images the Bible describes as being erected in honor of this goddess might also be seen as a legitimate part of Israelite religion, despite once more the legal traditions that condemn Israel’s use of idols.

Whatever ambivalences we find regarding idols in these earlier Israelite materials, by the end of the Babylonian Exile ca. 539 those who worship idols suffer wholesale condemnation. The 6th-century part of Isaiah, e.g., contains several noteworthy texts presenting the worship of idols as futile and even absurd (Isa. 41:21-29; 44:9-20; 45:20-25; 46:1-13). This sentiment carries through into the NT period, where idolatry has so disappeared that it goes completely unmentioned in the Gospels. The issue of the worship of idols only surfaces as early Christians move into the gentile world and confront the use of images in Greek and Roman tradition. The most significant text in this regard is 1 Cor. 8, , where Paul discusses whether Christians can eat meat sacrificed to the idols of Greek and Roman gods. At one level, Paul’s answer is yes, as he has inherited from his Jewish past an understanding that idols are meaningless images and thus an understanding that the meat sacrificed to them is no different than any other. Yet because Paul wishes to give his followers a clear impression of the distinctiveness of their faith, he advises against eating the meat since some who witnessed Christians doing so might conclude that Christianity was, in fact, just like the gentile religions it sought to replace.

Bibliography. S. Ackerman, Under Every Green Tree: Popular Religion in Sixth-Century Judah. HSM 46 (Atlanta, 1992); W. G. Dever, “Archaeology Reconstructs the Lost Background of the Israelite Cult,” in Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research (Seattle, 1990), 119-66; “The Contribution of Archaeology to the Study of Canaanite and Early Israelite Religion,” in Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. P. D. Miller, P. D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride (Philadelphia, 1987), 209-47; J. Faur, “The Biblical Idea of Idolatry,” JQR 69 (1978): 1-15; J. Gutmann, “The ‘Second Commandment’ and the Image in Judaism,” HUCA 32 (1961): 161-74; J. S. Holladay, “Religion in Israel and Judah Under the Monarchy,” in Ancient Israelite Religion, 249-99; S. M. Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel. SBLMS 34 (Atlanta, 1988); W. L. Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth. SBLDS 68 (Chico, 1985).

Susan Ackerman

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

IDOL, IDOLATRY

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)