Saturday 1 September 2001

Pic of the day: Bear with me ... I don't have these things in real life.

Graven images

I am a sinner, and not worthy to teach the word of God. Few are the sins that my heart have not found me guilty in, even when sometimes my body was pure. So it would be most unfitting for me to preach the Word to those who are more worthy than I am. Therefore, please take not the following as a sermon, but as a man reflecting of the weakness of man and our inability to understand the simplest things about the divine or even of our own mind.

As such, I would think this could be of interest even for those who do not share my faith, weak as it may be. For human nature is much the same everywhere and at all times.

***

I was casually reading in 2nd Chronicles, about how king Solomon built the Temple for the Lord. And suddenly I noticed something. The place was decorated with various images and sculptures, from pomegranades to oxes and even cherubs. But surely God had said to Moses: Thou shalt not make any graven image ...?

So I went and looked up, Exodus 20. "Thou shalt not make unto thee 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. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them"...

To the casual reader, it seems to say two things: 1) You shan't make sculptures etc of things, and 2) you shan't worship things. (Some faiths evidently extend "likeness" to include photographs, drawings etc.)

Obviously the casual reader is wrong, for Solomon decorated the temple with lots of images, and God loved it. When God came to his temple, his glory (or radiance, or aura) filled the house so strongly that the priests could not go into it for a while. So either God changed his mind, or he just plain Didn't Mean It That Way.

(But God is still very much against thing-worship, which is probably a lot more relevant to all of us in a less literal sense. Somehow I had almost forgotten that. Again.)

I notice that in newer christian translations, the "graven image" is replaced with "idol", and the whole thing is rephrased. I suppose this is to help avoid confusion among the readers, many of whom have only one translation. I am not sure which translation is more to the letter, but I am pretty sure of 2nd Corintians 2: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."

***

Somehow, I'm sure the same thing applies to other facets of life too. Look at politics for instance. It's not as simple as "conservatives are good and socialists are evil". (They are not evil, only misguided!) Rather, everyone wants to help people, usually including themselves admittedly. But they read the facts differently. They understand words differently. One man's freedom is another man's lawlessness. One man's law and order is another's slavery.

You see the same in workplaces, among friends, in families. Even good people understand thing differently. "But I heard him say that! With my own ears!" Perhaps he didn't mean it like that. Perhaps we should ask him.

(I really feel bad about writing Bible stuff, but this is all I could think of for today. Sorry. It looked kind of nice when I wrote it. Now I feel like a hypocrite, again.)