Idolatry Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Judaism=== {{Main|Idolatry in Judaism|Aniconism in Judaism}} [[File:Decalogue parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer 1768.jpg|thumb|alt=This is an image of a copy of the 1675 Ten Commandments, at the Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue, produced on parchment in 1768 by [[Jekuthiel Sofer]], a prolific Jewish scribe in Amsterdam. It has Hebrew language writing in two columns separated between, and surrounded by, ornate flowery patterns.|A 1768 synagogue [[parchment]] with the Ten Commandments by [[Jekuthiel Sofer]]. Among other things, it prohibits idolatry.<ref>{{cite web|title=UBA: Rosenthaliana 1768|url=http://cf.uba.uva.nl/nl/publicaties/treasures/page/p34.html|access-date=26 April 2012|trans-title={{lang-en|1768: The Ten Commandments, copied in Amsterdam Jekuthiel Sofer}}|language=nl}}</ref>]] [[Judaism]] prohibits any form of idolatry<ref name="Kogan1992p169">{{cite book|author=Barry Kogan|title=Proceedings of the Academy for Jewish Philosophy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W3FTAAAAYAAJ |year=1992|publisher=University Press of America|isbn=978-0-8191-7925-8|pages=169–170}}</ref> even if they are used to worship the one [[God in Judaism|God of Judaism]] as occurred during the sin of the [[golden calf]]. According to the second word of the [[Ten Commandments|decalogue]], [[Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image]]. The worship of foreign gods in any form or through icons is not allowed.<ref name="Kogan1992p169"/><ref name=novak73>{{cite book|author=David Novak|title=Leo Strauss and Judaism: Jerusalem and Athens Critically Revisited|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s5Gs-jYQ3AEC |year=1996|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8476-8147-1|pages=72–73}}</ref> Many Jewish scholars such as Rabbi [[Saadia Gaon]], Rabbi [[Bahya ibn Paquda]], and Rabbi [[Yehuda Halevi]] have elaborated on the issues of idolatry. One of the oft-cited discussions is the commentary of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon ([[Maimonides]]) on idolatry.<ref name=novak73/> According to the Maimonidean interpretation, idolatry in itself is not a fundamental sin, but the grave sin is the denial of God's [[omnipresence]] that occurs with the belief that God can be corporeal. In the Jewish belief, the only image of God is man, one who lives and thinks; God has no visible shape, and it is absurd to make or worship images; instead man must worship the invisible God alone.<ref name=novak73/><ref>{{cite book|author1=Hava Tirosh-Samuelson|author2=Aaron W. Hughes|title=Arthur Green: Hasidism for Tomorrow |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oShzCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA231 |year=2015|publisher=BRILL Academic|isbn=978-90-04-30842-8|page=231}}</ref> The commandments in the Hebrew Bible against idolatry forbade the practices and gods of ancient [[Akkadian Empire|Akkad]], [[Mesopotamia]], and [[history of Egypt|Egypt]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Shalom Goldman|title=Wiles of Women/The Wiles of Men, The: Joseph and Potiphar's Wife in Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZeHZeY7isJkC |year=2012|publisher=State University of New York Press|isbn=978-1-4384-0431-8|pages=64–68}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Abraham Joshua Heschel|title=Heavenly Torah: As Refracted Through the Generations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WAGK8GiNrQgC&pg=PA74 |year=2005|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-0-8264-0802-0|pages=73–75}}</ref> The [[Tanakh|Hebrew Bible]] states that God has no shape or form, is utterly incomparable, is everywhere and cannot be represented in a physical form of an idol.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Frank L. Kidner|author2=Maria Bucur|author3=Ralph Mathisen|display-authors=etal|title=Making Europe: People, Politics, and Culture, Volume I: To 1790|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sroFl-rIRhYC&pg=PA40|year=2007|publisher=Cengage|isbn=978-0-618-00480-5|page=40}}</ref> Biblical scholars have historically focused on the textual evidence to construct the history of idolatry in Judaism, a scholarship that post-modern scholars have increasingly begun deconstructing.<ref name=janowitz239/> This biblical [[polemic]]s, states Naomi Janowitz, a professor of Religious Studies, has distorted the reality of Israelite religious practices and the historic use of images in Judaism. The direct material evidence is more reliable, such as that from the archaeological sites, and this suggests that the Jewish religious practices have been far more complex than what biblical polemics suggest. Judaism included images and cultic statues in the First Temple period, the Second Temple period, Late Antiquity (2nd to 8th century CE), and thereafter.<ref name=janowitz239/><ref>{{cite book|author=Timothy Insoll|title=Archaeology and World Religion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FTqCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA112 |year=2002|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-59798-7|pages=112–113}}</ref> Nonetheless, these sorts of evidence may be simply descriptive of Ancient Israelite practices in some—possibly deviant—circles, but cannot tell us anything about the mainstream religion of the Bible which proscribes idolatry.<ref>{{cite book|author=Reuven Chaim Klein|title=God versus Gods: Judaism in the Age of Idolatry|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1946351466|year=2018|publisher=Mosaica Press|isbn=978-1946351463}}</ref> The history of Jewish religious practice has included cult images and figurines made of ivory, [[terracotta]], [[faience]] and seals.<ref name=janowitz239/><ref>Allen Shapiro (2011), [http://hdl.handle.net/11603/1923 Judean pillar figurines: a study], MA Thesis, Advisor: Barry Gittlen, Towson University, United States</ref> As more material evidence emerged, one proposal has been that Judaism oscillated between idolatry and iconoclasm. However, the dating of the objects and texts suggest that the two theologies and liturgical practices existed simultaneously. The claimed rejection of idolatry because of monotheism found in Jewish literature and therefrom in biblical Christian literature, states Janowitz, has been unreal abstraction and flawed construction of the actual history.<ref name=janowitz239/> The material evidence of images, statues and figurines taken together with the textual description of [[cherub]] and "wine standing for blood", for example, suggests that symbolism, making religious images, icon and index has been integral part of Judaism.<ref name=janowitz239/><ref>{{cite book|author=Rachel Neis|title=The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UjAWBQAAQBAJ |date=29 August 2013|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-03251-4|pages=99–100 with footnotes}}</ref><ref name="Fine2001">{{cite book|author=Kalman Bland|editor=Lawrence Fine|title=Judaism in Practice: From the Middle Ages Through the Early Modern Period |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ohYOD34VlXEC&pg=PA290|year=2001|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-05787-3|pages=290–291}}</ref> Every religion has some objects that represent the divine and stand for something in the mind of the faithful, and Judaism too has had its holy objects and symbols such as the [[Menorah (Temple)|Menorah]].<ref name=janowitz239>{{cite journal | last=Janowitz | first=Naomi | title=Good Jews Don't: Historical and Philosophical Constructions of Idolatry | journal=History of Religions | volume=47 | issue=2/3 | year=2007 | pages=239–252 | url=http://escholarship.org/uc/item/9wn4p4b5 | doi=10.1086/524212| s2cid=170216039 }}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. 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