We don't need idols, God already made those things.
They're called people!
You get a little of this with my Faith Life Study Bible article in the image of God,
you should all have the faith life Study Bible. It's a one or two page thing.
But I actually want to refer to this; this is a book called
«Cult Image and Divine Representation in the Ancient Near East.»
And I want to just read, you can read it yourself, but I'll read a part of it.
A little bit from a chapter on Ancient Egypt
and then a little bit on a chapter on Mesopotamia.
Again, just so that you know, I'm not grasping for straws here.
Mike's not making it up. This is standard, you know, this is the way
pagan cultures, Ancient Near Eastern cultures thought about idols:
«In general, statues in ancient Egypt were places where a non-physical entity
—a deity, the royal ka-spirit, or the ka-spirits of the dead
[we're not going to do Egyptian Anthropology here.
Basically, immaterial parts of humans] —could manifest in this world.
Statues provided physical bodies for these beings
and allowed them to be the recipients of ritual actions.
In order for a statue to function in this way, it had to undergo
the Opening of the Mouth ritual, which vitalized it [made it alive]
and enabled it to house the being it represented.»
So, you've probably heard me on, if you listen on podcast, I'll talk about idols.
Idols and gods were inseparable things.
Okay, you can't get away Scripturally with just saying, like Psalm 82 refers to idols
when it talks about multiple Elohim.
No, you can't do that. It shows you misunderstand idolatry.
Because what they believed was, the idol was an object that they made
so that the entity that was real, would reside in it or attach itself to it.
Because then it could receive sacrifice, you could barter with it,
you could worship it, it would protect you. I mean, this was their religion.
You had to localize the spirit, localize the deity. This is the logic of idolatry.
Now, down here, another author, about Mesopotamia, he actually draws an analogy
to an element of Christianity, at least in some sectors.
«How did the Mesopotamians regard the relationship between the cult image and the deity?
The answer is not simple and probably differed, as I warned at the beginning,
on both diachronic and synchronic axes [through time and within periods],
that is, it changed through time and in different regions.
Contemporary scholars are not of one mind about the relationship
between deity and image.» Then he quotes another source.
And then this this last quote here, «Friedman sees the role of the cult statue as only
"to remind" the worshiper of the deity's presence, much as does
an icon in a Christian church.»
If you go down here, he starts talking about a different view.
«As stated earlier, in Babylon offerings are brought before Marduk himself in the Esagila
[which was a ziggurat] and not before the statue of Marduk.»
That tells you right away that, though they have both; statues, and then Marduk,
they're not the same. They're different, but related.
«The Erra Epic makes it clear that if a statue's appearance corrupts,
then the deity can abandon his image.»
And he goes on and talks about; "well, what if one is destroyed and battle?
Do the Babylonians think that Marduk was killed or died?" No.
He just needs a new house.
So, you'd make a new object, you do a different ritual,
and Marduk would come to the object. This is the logic of idolatry.
So why do I even bring it up?
Why do I even bring it up?
Because Israelites were not supposed to make idols.
They were not supposed to make graven images.
Do you see why?
Because humans are like that.
Humans are God's representation on the earth.
And God wants to reside with humans, with his people.
You know, and even in the Old Testament, but especially in the New,
you have this idea of God taking residence, not just among his people, but actually inside.
Okay, there was this link between a human being and the presence of God
in biblical thought. We don't need idols. God already made those things.
They're called people! Okay.
It's an entirely different way of looking at it, and think about it.
If it's everybody, if it's people, you're not summoning the deity to localize it
and bind it to a place. It's everywhere, okay?
God will not be tamed. Okay?
So that you can localize him and bring him to you.
And now you, essentially, order the relationship. That is not the way it works.
Biblical thought was quite different, which is why idolatry was so offensive.
Because you're trading... look at the trade:
You're trading the presence of God with you for some object that you made,
and some other god.
It was a fundamental violation of what God wanted in terms of relationship.
It was awful.