page_title: Idolatry
section_title: Judaism
hierarchical_section_title: Idolatry / Abrahamic religions / Judaism
caption_attribution_description: English: In this 1768 parchment, Jekuthiel Sofer emulated decalogue at the Esnoga Size: 612 x 502 mm Source: [1] at Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam HS.ROS.PL.a-33 Español: Decálogo de Jekuthiel Sofer, 1768, que imita la distribución en dos tablas. Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam فارسی: نسخه خطی ده فرمان بر روی کاغذ پوستی مربوط به سال ۱۷۶۸ میلادی
context_page_description: Idolatry is the worship of an idol or cult image, being a physical image, such as a statue, or a person in place of God. In Abrahamic religions, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam, idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than God as if it were God. In these monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden by the values such as the Ten Commandments. Other monotheistic religions may apply similar rules. In many Indian religions, such as theistic and non-theistic forms of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, idols are considered as symbolism for the absolute but not The Absolute, or icons of spiritual ideas, or the embodiment of the divine. It is a means to focus one's religious pursuits and worship. In the traditional religions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Africa, Asia, the Americas and elsewhere, the reverence of an image or statue has been a common practice, and cult images have carried different meanings and significance.
  The opposition to the use of any icon or image to represent ideas of reverence or worship is called aniconism.
context_section_description: Judaism prohibits any form of idolatry. According to its commandments, neither is worship of foreign gods in any form or through icons allowed, nor is idolatrous worship of the God of Israel permitted.
  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. According to the Maimonidean interpretation, idolatry in itself is not a fundamental sin, but the grave sin is 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.
  The commandments in the Hebrew Bible against idolatry forbade the practices and gods of ancient Akkad, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The 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.
  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. This biblical polemics, 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. 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.
  The history of Jewish religious practice has included cult images and figurines made of ivory, terracotta, faience and seals. 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. 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. 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.
caption: A 1768 synagogue parchment with the Ten Commandments by Jekuthiel Sofer. Among other things, it prohibits idolatry[45]
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