Origin of Images

[patrick457]

It is with the post-exilic period that we begin to see a stricter interpretation of the ban amongst the returning Jews. Direct portrayals of living things were now frowned upon by the devout: abstract designs were often preferred. To this end, most locally-minted Jewish currency at the time did not feature images of gods, men or animals as was common, but images of plants or suchlike as a concession. (The exceptions tn this rule were Roman coins and, rather curiously, the Tyrian shekel in use at the Temple.) The houses of aristocratic families in Jerusalem themselves, while built and decorated in the Greco-Roman style, restrained themselves from portraying human or animal figures.

 

[patrick457]

To this end, most locally-minted Jewish currency at the time did not feature images of gods, men or animals as was common, but images of plants or suchlike as a concession. (The exceptions tn this rule were Roman coins and, rather curiously, the Tyrian shekel in use at the Temple.)

Take for example these coins of Herod the Great, Herod Antipas, and Pilate, respectively:

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6153/herod3736.jpg

http://www.holylandnumismatics.com/...f78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/0/0/00448a.jpg

http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5279/fontanille2.jpg

Compare it with a Roman denarius or a Tyrian shekel:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

http://www.welcometohosanna.com/LIFE_OF_JESUS/JESUS_LIFE_PIX/tyrianSheck.gif

The Herods followed the Law when it suited them; they apparently were wise enough to not offend their Jewish subjects too much. Antipas did have his palace decorated with figures of animals, which would have been regarded as a transgression of the commandment, but he minted coins which bore only abstract symbols for his Jewish subjects and did not try to force Greco-Roman culture on them. (Contrast this with Philip, who ruled in gentile cities and thus was could be quite conventional in his choice of imagery.)

Now, why did the Temple priests use the Tyrian shekel? They used the Tyrian shekel or tetradrachma in the Temple for religious duties because it alone had enough silver content which was deemed acceptable by priests: 94% and above compared to the mere 80% of regular Roman currency. Now these coins with ‘graven images’ were actually minted in Israel, as the Romans had since shut down the original mint in Tyre. According to one story, the coins were required to continue bearing the Tyrian images to prevent people from thinking that Jews had enough autonomy to mint their own currency. (This would have been an exception to the norm, since as mentioned, the prefects and tetrarchs were usually mostly keen in respecting Jewish sensibilities in matters of imagery on coinage.)

 

[patrick457]

It is with the post-exilic period that we begin to see a stricter interpretation of the ban amongst the returning Jews. Direct portrayals of living things were now frowned upon by the devout: abstract designs were often preferred.

The issue was such a hugely important one for Jews of the Second Temple period that it often led to potential (and at one point, actual) bloodshed.

There was one Judas, the son of Saripheus, and Matthias, the son of Margalothus, two of the most eloquent men among the Jews, and the most celebrated interpreters of the Jewish laws, and men well beloved by the people, because of their education of their youth; for all those that were studious of virtue frequented their lectures every day. These men, when they found that the king’s distemper was incurable, excited the young men that they would pull down all those works which the king [Herod the Great] had erected contrary to the law of their fathers, and thereby obtain the rewards which the law will confer on them for such actions of piety; for that it was truly on account of Herod’s rashness in making such things as the law had forbidden, that his other misfortunes, and this distemper also, which was so unusual among mankind, and with which he was now afflicted, came upon him; for Herod had caused such things to be made which were contrary to the law, of which he was accused by Judas and Matthias; for the king had erected over the great gate of the temple a large golden eagle, of great value, and had dedicated it to the temple. Now the law forbids those that propose to live according to it, to erect images or representations of any living creature.

So these wise men persuaded [their scholars] to pull down the golden eagle …] and a report being come to them that the king was dead, this was an addition to the wise men’s persuasions; so, in the very middle of the day, they got upon the place, they pulled down the eagle, and cut it into pieces with axes, while a great number of the people were in the temple. And now the king’s captain, upon hearing what the undertaking was, and supposing it was a thing of a higher nature than it proved to be, came up thither, having a great band of soldiers with him, such as was sufficient to put a stop to the multitude of those who pulled down what was dedicated to God; so he fell upon them unexpectedly, and as they were upon this bold attempt, in a foolish presumption rather than a cautious circumspection, as is usual with the multitude, and while they were in disorder, and incautious of what was for their advantage; so he caught no fewer than forty of the young men, who had the courage to stay behind when the rest ran away, together with the authors of this bold attempt, Judas and Matthias, who thought it an ignominious thing to retire upon his approach, and led them to the king. …]

But the people, on account of Herod’s barbarous temper, and for fear he should be so cruel and to inflict punishment on them, said what was done was done without their approbation, and that it seemed to them that the actors might well be punished for what they had done. …] Herod …] burnt the other Matthias, who had raised the sedition, with his companions, alive. And that very night there was an eclipse of the moon.

===

But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar’s effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments.

Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the night time; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment-seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them routed, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home.

But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.

In fact, while Solomon’s Temple was replete with imagery derived from common Levantine religious iconography, Herod’s Temple was by contrast apparently mostly devoid of such representations, although Josephus does say that the Temple curtain portrayed “a panorama of the heavens except the signs of the Zodiac,” and that vines wrought of gold hung over the doors of the sanctuary (War 5.5.4 (210); Antiquities 15.9.2 (394); cf. m. Middoth 3.8; Tacitus, History 5.5).

 

[patrick457]

The houses of aristocratic families in Jerusalem themselves, while built and decorated in the Greco-Roman style, restrained themselves from portraying human or animal figures.

The walls of these houses were mainly decorated with geometric patterns, imitations of architectural elements, or floral motifs.



http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/ntintro/lifej/Images/HerodianHouse.jpg



Martin Goodman (Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations) writes:

Jewish culture was more oral than visual: when Jews referred to themselves in Hebrew as understanding a truth or a command, they would say that they had heard it; by contrast, in Latin, as in Greek and in English, the metaphor for comprehension is to “see” the truth. The aural metaphor, however, cannot have been overwhelming in the Jewish mentality, for Philo, writing in Greek, refers repeatedly to a false etymology of the name “Israel” as derived from the Hebrew ish-ra’ah-el, taken to mean “he who sees God.” At any rate, Jews in Jerusalem certainly demonstrated an appreciation of visual aesthetics both in the Temple and in the interior decoration of their houses. Excavated houses from the time of the war against Rome in 66-70 are decorated with patterned mosaic floors and wall plaster painted in the Pompeian Second Style. These provincials imitated Italy as others did elsewhere in the empire, even if they were behind the times in the fashions they followed. The major difference, clearly deliberate, was that the paintings in Jerusalem were wholly devoid of images of humans and only rarely included images of animals. The architectural frames of the pictures painted direct onto the plaster, and the deep reds and blacks, are all in the Italian style, but the central interest in each picture in Roman as in Hellenistic art, the depiction of the interplay of living bodies, is wholly lacking. The taboo which precluded such depictions was by no means static or universal among Jews, since later in antiquity Jews in the land of Israel were to commission fine synagogue mosaics with detailed images of humans and animals, and in the mid-third century CE the Jews of Dura-Europus depicted in detail on the walls of their synagogue a series of biblical scenes. Even in the first century, when Herod completed his rebuilding of the Temple by erecting an image of an eagle over its entrance, he must have believed this to be permitted in Jewish law, since he had just spent years, and huge amounts of money, in ensuring that the building be seen by his subjects as both magnificent and kosher. However, the riots that greeted the eagle image suggest that other first-century Jews disagreed with Herod’s interpretation. The “two sophists,” as Josephus describes the ringleaders of the crowd who tried to tear the eagle down, evidently saw the image as an affront, presumably in light of the commandment in Exodus, “You shall not make for yourself any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:,” although the symbolism of the eagle as an image of Rome may also have aggravated their anger. Later Jews were to interpret the commandment in Exodus in the light of the following verse (“You shall not bow down yourself to them [the images], nor serve them”), thus permitting images of all kinds providing that they are not worshipped, but most first-century Jews seem to have taken a hard line: the iconography on Jewish coins minted during the revolt against Rome reveals a willingness to depict objects such as palm branches, pomegranates and a chalice, but neither people not animals. Jewish homes thus lacked the riot of statues, reliefs and other images that enlivened the houses of their Roman contemporaries, and the public spaces of Jerusalem had no commemorative statues to link the citizens to the historic figures of the past.

 

[bradleesargent]

Here is God breaking his own commandment…
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

 

[jcrichton]

Here is God breaking his own commandment…
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

…actually… not! The images are not made into idol–the root concern of Yahweh God is that none be set above or along with Him, the Only True God!

…which is the error that most make when ascribing to Catholic idols-worship–conversely, idolatry is not merely placing an image/statute as an idol/god since everything that is placed above God is in itself idolatry!

Maran atha!

Angel