Icons Images and Idols - Sacred Image, Icon As Revelation, Idol And Idolatry, Islam And Shirk, To See Her Face
terms ideas world history
Placing the words images, icons, and idols together as the subject of an entry that seeks to articulate the perspective of world culture suggests their intimate relationship. Such a grouping also demands that an emphasis be placed on the particular role biblical religions have had in the development and use of the last two terms, the ideas of "icon" and "idol" that play off each other and highlight a central idea of the "image" in the three traditions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—commonly characterized as monotheistic. While all three terms have come to be used by scholars in their analysis of many cultures, the terms icon and idol have a specific and central place in the discourse on images in the cultural history and the history of ideas in the West. The notion of idol and idolatry was carried to many parts of the world with the Christian and Muslim mission movements and entered local vocabularies through this means.
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The representation of gods, saints, and heroes, of mythic events and of formative historical events, has been a widespread phenomenon in the history of religion. Conventional notions suggest that some religions, for example Islam and prophetic Judaism, are aniconic, meaning that they are against the use of idols or images. At the iconic end of the spectrum we find Mahayana Buddhism and Hinduism, t…
While the Greek word for image, eikōn, has entered the common vocabulary of the English speaking world as icon and is applied to everything from pictures identifying computer programs to symbols from archaic cultures, it is in the Orthodox Christian tradition that iconography has received its highest articulation and where it occupies a central place in the life of worship. Holy icons are ce…
The English word idol is a translation of the Greek word for "image," eidōlon. The word idolatry combines eidōlon with the Greek word for "adoration," latreia. The concept of idols and idolatry is central to the biblical narrative and to Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradition. The richest home of this concept is in the Hebrew Scriptures, where we find the …
Muslims around the world, both in the mosque and in their daily prayers, chant the creedal statement: "God is most great. There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the Prophet of God." The Koran constantly speaks of God as the One, Al-Wahid, and the Prophet Muhammad's singular passion was to root out idolatry and the indigenous forms of polytheism in the Arab communities of his d…
I had met the local Hindu priest on two occasions in the 1970s. He had walked me through his plans for a new temple to serve the eclectic community of people with roots in India who had come to live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and discussed how he planned to shape the sanctum sanctorum to accommodate the various devotions of a mixed community of Shaivites and Vaishnavites. Now we sat together in…
Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. The City of God against the Pagans. Translated and edited by R. W. Dyson. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Basil, Saint, Bishop of Caesarea. On the Holy Spirit. Translated by David Anderson. Crestwood, N.Y.: New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980. Belting, Hans. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art. T…
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