Maimonides thought idols weren't the real sin of idolatry
Idolatry sounds simple: worshipping a statue as if it were a god. Yet the medieval philosopher Maimonides argued that the true offence lay elsewhere, in imagining that God could have a body at all. And archaeology suggests ancient Judaism itself used images and figurines far more than its scriptures would lead anyone to expect.
The word descends from Greek eidololatria, joining eidolon, image, with latreia, worship. It passed through Latin and 12th-century Old French before reaching English in the mid-13th century. The Greek may translate a Hebrew phrase found in rabbinic literature, and later Jewish writers used avodah zarah, 'foreign worship'. Older texts also call the practice iconolatry or idolodulia.
In Judaism, Christianity and Islam, idolatry means worshipping anything other than the one God, and the Ten Commandments forbid it; Judaism bans images even when meant for the true God, as in the story of the golden calf. Maimonides, among many Jewish thinkers who wrote on the subject, held that the grave error was denying God's presence everywhere by picturing him as physical. Since God has no visible shape, the argument runs, making images of him is absurd.
Practice was messier than doctrine. Religious-studies professor Naomi Janowitz argues that biblical polemic distorted the picture of Israelite religion. Archaeology has turned up figurines of ivory, terracotta and faience, and evidence of images and cult statues from the First and Second Temple periods onward. Rather than swinging between idol-use and image-breaking, the dating suggests both approaches existed side by side, though such finds may reflect fringe circles rather than mainstream biblical religion.
The label has always been partly a weapon. Many Muslims and most Protestants have condemned Catholic and Orthodox veneration of the Virgin Mary as idolatrous. Monotheists call other peoples' deities 'false gods', while polytheists and animists can return the charge. In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, images called murti serve as symbols of the Absolute or focuses for devotion. Each tradition tends to see its own holy objects as meaningful symbols and everyone else's as empty statues.
Source: Idolatry
