syl@cs.brown.edu (Shin Y. Lee) (09/27/90)
In reading the ten commandments we find the second commandment is "YOU MUST NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A CARVED IMAGE...YOU MUST NOT BOW DOWN TO THEM NOR BE INDUCED TO SERVE THEM.' Would anyone care to explain why, then, so many so-called Christian churches/ places of worship are swamped with images of saints,icons, idols and other such graven images that clearly offend the (TRUE) God who gave these commandments. . .or was it Suggestions? The prophet Isaiah in chapter 44 verses 15-20 clearly shows the foolishness of believing such things could actually please God. Didn't Paul tell the Christians in Corinth to "Flee from idolatry"?(1 Cor. 10:14) Does the commandment become the suggestion because it is 1990 instead of 55 CE? If the early Christians were alive today, would they worship God in a church filled with carved images? Could this be another factor in determining truth from false worship? Shin Y. Lee ----------------------------- **** ------------------------------ [Isaiah was clearly talking about worshipping idols, i.e. thinking that the idol itself had some power. The commandment (Ex 20:4-5) could be taken as somewhat broader, since it starts out by saying not to make an image at all. However given the next sentence, many people read it as talking about the same thing Isaiah is, i.e. not simply doing sculpture, but making images that you are going to worship. In fact the commandment has been taken by various as people prohibiting at least the following: - any sculpture of any living thing, whether for use in church or anywhere else. This is based on a literal reading of 20:4, without taking it in the context of 20:5 - making any image at all of God, even if the intent is to worship God himself and not the image - making any image of something other than God and worshipping the image (what Isaiah seems to have had in mind) - making any image of something other than God for use in worshipping that thing The first is unusual among Christians. Jewish and Christian interpretation normally accepts the other three prohibitions. However Christians normally make an exception for pictures of Jesus. Of course we do not worship the picture. But the Incarnation seems to have change the situation somewhat. Before the Incarnation, God was somewhat of a mathematical point. The prophets gave us comamnds from him, but it was hard to know much about God himself. Thus no image could possibly do him justice, and they run the risk of making us think of God as less than he actually is. However with Christ the situation seems to have changed. Here we have something visible that is an accurate revelation of God. Of course we don't have any actual pictures of Jesus, but it seems that most Christians consider "artists conceptions" to be allowable. There are few churches that don't have pictures of him hanging on a wall in the Sunday School, in a stained glass window, etc. As I'm sure you know, there are often issues of what such pictures can be used for. Clearly the basic idea is that we don't want to worship the picture -- or more subtly, the image of Jesus created by the picture (e.g. Jesus as a white, American-looking fellow). The exact implications of that are a matter for judgement, and different traditions make slightly different judgements on where it is appropriate to put pictures or other images of Jesus, and of what kind. As for pictures, statues, etc., of other people, unless you follow the concept of banning all representations of people, then the basic rule seems to be that they must be used in a way that does not encourage us to worship either the picture or the people pictured. Agaio, there are differing judgements as to what that means. Protestants normally don't use statues, but most think nothing of pictures in stained glass windows. The point would seem to be to make sure that whatever we do, we make sure people think of the pictures or statues as like the ones you see in the village square: heros that we honor and who inspire us to do likewise, but not things that we worship. What is appropriate may depend upon the situation. E.g. in a place when superstition has been allowed to build up, images may be dangerous to people and should be eliminated, whereas in a place where the gospel is preached correctly, and people understand how pictures are intended to be used, they may play an edifying role. I'd like to caution people that this is an area that has historically cause much ill feeling among Christians. I believe there have been many circumstances where getting rid of images was necessary, or at least helpful. But stepping inside somebody else's church, and condemning it immediately without bothering to see how people really think about what they are doing, strikes me as a rather un-Christian practice. --clh]
jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com (10/01/90)
In reading the ten commandments we find the second commandment is "YOU
MUST NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A CARVED IMAGE...YOU MUST NOT BOW DOWN TO
THEM NOR BE INDUCED TO SERVE THEM.'
Would anyone care to explain why, then, so many so-called Christian churches/
places of worship are swamped with images of saints,icons, idols and other
such graven images that clearly offend the (TRUE) God who gave these
commandments. . .or was it Suggestions?
The prohibition of images is not the same sort of thing as the
prohibition of murder. It is not absolutely immoral to have statues,
pictures, etc., but it is absolutely immoral to murder.
You will find this borne out in the Old Testament itself. The ark of
the covenant had representations of winged angels above it. I think
there was also something about carved animals on one of the kings'
thrones, and (correct me if I am wrong) bronze bulls under the basin
made for the temple services. Moses made a bronze serpent, also.
It is only immoral to have statues around if you find that they tempt
you to idolatry.
Joe Buehlerscott@clmqt.marquette.Mi.US (Scott Reynolds) (10/07/90)
jhpb@granjon.garage.att.com writes: >>In reading the ten commandments we find the second commandment is "YOU >>MUST NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A CARVED IMAGE...YOU MUST NOT BOW DOWN TO >>THEM NOR BE INDUCED TO SERVE THEM.' >The prohibition of images is not the same sort of thing as the >prohibition of murder. It is not absolutely immoral to have statues, >pictures, etc., but it is absolutely immoral to murder. This escapes me, too, for some reason. I was once a member of a denomination whose churches had images of various persons; I note with some sadness that people actually bowed in front of them. This is one of the major reasons I left that denomination, because it's written quite plainly that "you must not bown down to them". So, yes, you're right in saying that there's nothing wrong with _having_ them, but in a certain rather major denomination the leaders and members do bow to them. While they may not be worshiping the images themselves, why do they even consider having an image in the place of worship in light of this commandment? I find it harder and harder to believe that the 10 Commandments should be viewed as the 6 Commandments and 4 Suggestions, or the 9 Commandments and 1 Suggestion for that matter. I'm going to ask this question quite seriously: why is the prohibition of images any different than the prohibition of murder? I can follow the explanation of having statues vs. worshiping them, but it doesn't satisfy the basic issue of why one commandment is any more or less important than another. For another example consider "you shall remember the Sabbath... to keep it holy" -- the actual day has been shown quite convincingly to be Saturday. I can't say that I am not quilty of doing this myself, since I do not keep the Sabbath. I don't believe that is going to be an answer I can use on Judgement Day, however. In Jesus' divine love, -- Scott Reynolds = scott@clmqt.marquette.Mi.US Enterprise Information System = ..rutgers!mailrus!sharkey!clmqt!scott "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand." -- YHWH (Job 38:4) [On your question about Saturday, this is more controversial than you might think. There are several views about the relationship between Christians and the Law. They range from those who believe that it's binding on Christians in all details, to those who take Paul's arguments as implying that the Law does not apply at all. (In that case, Christians would be guided by the law of love.) A sort of typical Christian middle ground is to divide the Law into two parts, a ceremonial Law, which is part of the specific covenant with the Jews, and a moral Law, which is application to everyone. Generally such people take most of the 10 Commandments as the moral law, but exempt the specific date of the Sabbath (although not the general requirement to worship regularly) as ceremonial. THere is some NT evidence for each of these positions. The NT records a debate over whether to require Gentiles who want to become Christaisn to be circumcized. A similar range of views was present in NT times. From Acts and Paul's letters it seems clear that there was a concensus not to apply the entire Law to Gentile Christians. However there seems still to have been slight variances in approach, with the discussion reported in Acts being based on the Jewish concept of the Noachide covenant (a minimal set of laws that apply even to Gentiles), and Paul's approach taking a rather more radical stand against the Law. The remnants of these discussions who in differing general approaches to ethics, and issues such as the Sabbath. There are some Christians who say that Christians do not observe the Sabbath at all -- Christian worship is "free", not legal, and is based on the Lord's Day, a celebration of Christ's resurrection. Others call Sunday the Christian Sabbath, thus maintaining at least some of the authority of the Law in this respect. We've had long discussions on this in the past. --clh]
credmond@watmath.waterloo.edu (Chris Redmond) (10/19/90)
In article <Oct.6.21.28.40.1990.948@athos.rutgers.edu> scott@clmqt.marquette.Mi.US (Scott Reynolds) writes: > >I find it harder and harder to believe that the 10 >Commandments should be viewed as the 6 Commandments and 4 Suggestions, >or the 9 Commandments and 1 Suggestion for that matter. > >I'm going to ask this question quite seriously: why is the prohibition >of images any different than the prohibition of murder? I can follow >the explanation of having statues vs. worshiping them, but it doesn't >satisfy the basic issue of why one commandment is any more or less >important than another. For another example consider "you shall remember >the Sabbath... to keep it holy" -- the actual day has been shown quite >convincingly to be Saturday. > And why is either prohibition any different from, or more important than, the prohibition against wearing garments made of wool and linen mixed? I may just have a defective Bible, but as far as I can tell Chapter 20 of Exodus does not say "the following are the Ten Commandments, and they are more important than any other rules set out by God". In fact I don't believe the expression "ten commandments" appears in the Bible at all. So what justification do we have for taking the prohibition against murder, to pick one which most of us think is important, more seriously than the prohibition against eating hoopoes? When we look at the 613 (isn't that the canonical number?) commandments given to the ancient Jews, how do we decide which ones we must obey, and what form our obedience will take? The only possible answer is: we use the brains God gave us. Which is not to say that bowing down to statues is a good idea. On the other hand, I'm not sure that eating hoopoes is a good idea either ;-). CAR credmond@watmath