Idols | James Henley

Jun200810

Reflection & Contemplation

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Idols

Clearly, if “no other god” has any real power and, therefore, any
real, substantive existence, it is grossly inappropriate that Israel
should invest such an object with ultimacy. The [Hebrew]
word…however, need not be rendered “idol.” It is more properly
rendered “image,” a visible representation of Yahweh. The temptation,
then, is not the creation of a rival that detracts from Yahweh, but an
attempt to locate and thereby domesticate Yahweh in a visible,
controlled object. This latter reading, which is the more probably, is
also more subtle. It does not fear a rival but a distortion of Yahweh’s
free character by an attempt to locate Yahweh and so diminish something
of Yahweh’s terrible freedom.

- Walter Brueggemann
“The Book of Exodus,” The New Interpreter’s Bible Volume I

(HT: God’s Politics voice of the day)

Simple question: in trying to build a theological picture of God which is too detailed, do we begin to create idols of Him?

Jesus is my best friend (or my homeboy ;-).

God is a loving father.

At what point do these images become too limiting? Is it when we attempt to limit God to the boundaries of the images themselves?

God, I love Brueggemann.

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