Aniconic propaganda in the Hebrew Bible, or: the possible birth of religious seriousness

The Hebrew Bible promotes aniconistic worship: images of the god Yahweh were prohibited. In the Ten Commandments, aniconism follows immediately after the monolatrous rule not to ‘have’ other gods than Yahweh. The reason for the prohibition against ‘idols’ is Yahweh’s singularity, but not his inheren...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jensen, Hans Jørgen Lundager 1953- (Author)
Format: Electronic/Print Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group [2017]
In: Religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 47, Issue: 3, Pages: 399-407
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Old Testament / Image prohibition / Axial Age
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
HB Old Testament
TB Antiquity
Further subjects:B Hebrew Bible
B Aniconism
B ascetic religion
B Axial Age
Online Access: Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:The Hebrew Bible promotes aniconistic worship: images of the god Yahweh were prohibited. In the Ten Commandments, aniconism follows immediately after the monolatrous rule not to ‘have’ other gods than Yahweh. The reason for the prohibition against ‘idols’ is Yahweh’s singularity, but not his inherent indescribability; in the Bible, there is no lack of literary images of Yahweh who is described as or compared with humans and animals as well as with meteorological phenomena. Among biblical scholars, aniconism as a religions program has often been regarded as a local, ‘Israelite’, phenomenon. My proposal is to see it in the context of the religious revolutions of the so-called axial age in the middle of the first millennium BCE and regard it as an example of a transformation from a ‘pre-axial’ type of religion, based on cult, ritual and material culture, to an ascetic, and cognitively more sophisticated, form of religion.
ISSN:0048-721X
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2017.1295827