The reference to the second commandment is misleading. Reading the whole paragraph of the commandment shows that it's not the creation of images that is forbidden, but bowing down to and worshipping images, and making images for that purpose . It's a ban on idolatry. Indeed, God commanded people to carve many items, including Tabernacle & Temple accoutrements such as the Menorah, the altar, the pool (sea), swords, etc.
Here's the first two commandments, in Exodus 20 (ESV):
1 And God spoke all these words, saying,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Grok adds:
Tabernacle:
Cherubim (heavenly beings): Two golden cherubim on the mercy seat/Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18-22); additional cherubim embroidered/woven into the inner veil and curtains (Exodus 26:1, 31).
Menorah (lampstand): Hammered gold with almond blossoms, buds, flowers, and branches (Exodus 25:31-40; 37:17-24)—highly detailed botanical imagery.
Other elements: Embroidered designs on curtains; the High Priest’s garments included pomegranates (blue, purple, scarlet) alternating with golden bells around the hem (Exodus 28:33-34).
Cherubim: Large olive-wood cherubim in the inner sanctuary; carved figures of cherubim on walls throughout the inner and outer sanctuaries, alongside palm trees and open flowers (1 Kings 6:23-29).
Walls and panels: Carved with cherubim, palm trees, open flowers, lions, and wreaths (1 Kings 6:29, 35; 7:36).
Bronze Sea and stands: Twelve oxen supporting the large basin (“sea”); cherubim, lions, palm trees, and wreaths engraved on the movable stands and panels (1 Kings 7:23-29, 36).
Pomegranates: Hundreds of ornamental pomegranates on the capitals of the two bronze pillars (Jachin and Boaz)—specifically 400 in total (1 Kings 7:18-20, 42; 2 Chronicles 4:13). Also on the High Priest’s robe.
Golden vine with grape clusters: A large, prominent golden vine (or vines) with massive grape clusters (some described as tall as a man) hung as a major decoration, notably over/above the entrance to the sanctuary or on the façade. People added golden leaves, berries, or clusters as offerings, and it was a striking visual feature.
These were all commanded or approved by God as part of proper worship and temple decoration—symbolic, beautiful, and instructional, but never bowed to or served as deities. Other biblical art includes the bronze serpent (Numbers 21:8-9, later destroyed when it became an idol—2 Kings 18:4)
It's irrelevant. We know the ancient hebrews did worship idols of their gods (plural) but at some point in the iron age they stopped. It happened too late for it to be a mosaic commandment.
More likely it was a response to living as a hated minority in foreign lands and/or dealing with invaders destroying their temples.
I read this straight after re-reading your piece on Kojima and 5th generation warfare and I can't but feel dissappointed by the lack of continuity. These two pieces are clearly siblings, but this one is a musing on how symbols and their corresponsing narrative frames lead action, while the older piece was a vivid dissesction of how symbols and narratives are manipulated in modern warfare.
This one just points at statues and argue that symbolon drive acts of worship.
The older piece points at symbolic manipulation as an aspect of modern warfare.
But the piece that should have been written is a piece about either how to liberate oneself from the symbolic manipulations of others (post modernism) or how to relate to the politicial realities through willfully manipulated symbols and narratives in order to gain power and drive action (memetic warfare and the 3rd sophistic).
Many parts of the world still believe that a spirit can possess someone (demon possession). In Bali, the famous traditional dances are not just for tourists. They are religious ceremonies, in which, prior to the performance, dancers invite the spirit that matches the mask they wear to possess them. Then they perform the dance as that spirit.
Even today, when a human sacrifice is required to achieve the safe construction of a bridge, the construction company will have someone put on a mask of a murderous spirit and invite that spirit to inhabit them and then go secretly murder someone who won't be missed. The person is offered to the gods at the job site in secret.
Incidentally the early Hebrews were idolators. There's surviving statues of Yahweh, El and Asherah (among others). I suspect they gave it up because they realised their own iconoclastic impulses could be turned on them too, so they decided that denying their enemy a target was better than having an idol destroyed, and eventually it was retconned as a moral principle.
Ernst Schertel would be fucking proud of this analysis! I had also been trying to work through what an organized right might actually look like, and one of the things I ran into is that without a core principle, or a core spirit flowing through all of it, then it's easy for all the necessary activity, preparation, and support action, to feel like so much busywork. Thank you for reminding me how such a spirit is spread!
As always you leave me awed and frustrated at the same time. But then again if I agreed with everything how boring would that be?
Regarding using idols: would you think of this as technology (eg application of technique, re:Jacques Ellul). And that is why it can be appropriated by other groups? I’m thinking of the communist hammer and sickle, the moralizing black squares, etc. While not identical to your examples, I can’t help but think other groups of people would leverage symbols, icons, idols etc to rally and motivate people to their own ends.
I mean, even the nation that theoretically commands not to have idols has a national flag.
Once a technology is let lose everyone starts to use it or they get left behind. And I’m wondering if this concept of idolatry could be the same.
Of course that’s why literally everyone since the invention of art has been doing idolatry. How do you get 100k farmers to give you all their grain? Idolatry. How do you get 100k farmers to get off their ass and build you the greatest flex of a tomb ever? Idolatry. How do you convince 100k farmers to grab a spear and go stab the guys with a different king? Idolatry. Oldest tool in the social manipulation toolbox.
The reference to the second commandment is misleading. Reading the whole paragraph of the commandment shows that it's not the creation of images that is forbidden, but bowing down to and worshipping images, and making images for that purpose . It's a ban on idolatry. Indeed, God commanded people to carve many items, including Tabernacle & Temple accoutrements such as the Menorah, the altar, the pool (sea), swords, etc.
Here's the first two commandments, in Exodus 20 (ESV):
1 And God spoke all these words, saying,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Grok adds:
Tabernacle:
Cherubim (heavenly beings): Two golden cherubim on the mercy seat/Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18-22); additional cherubim embroidered/woven into the inner veil and curtains (Exodus 26:1, 31).
Menorah (lampstand): Hammered gold with almond blossoms, buds, flowers, and branches (Exodus 25:31-40; 37:17-24)—highly detailed botanical imagery.
Other elements: Embroidered designs on curtains; the High Priest’s garments included pomegranates (blue, purple, scarlet) alternating with golden bells around the hem (Exodus 28:33-34).
Key Examples from Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6–7; 2 Chronicles 3–4)
Cherubim: Large olive-wood cherubim in the inner sanctuary; carved figures of cherubim on walls throughout the inner and outer sanctuaries, alongside palm trees and open flowers (1 Kings 6:23-29).
Walls and panels: Carved with cherubim, palm trees, open flowers, lions, and wreaths (1 Kings 6:29, 35; 7:36).
Bronze Sea and stands: Twelve oxen supporting the large basin (“sea”); cherubim, lions, palm trees, and wreaths engraved on the movable stands and panels (1 Kings 7:23-29, 36).
Pomegranates: Hundreds of ornamental pomegranates on the capitals of the two bronze pillars (Jachin and Boaz)—specifically 400 in total (1 Kings 7:18-20, 42; 2 Chronicles 4:13). Also on the High Priest’s robe.
Golden vine with grape clusters: A large, prominent golden vine (or vines) with massive grape clusters (some described as tall as a man) hung as a major decoration, notably over/above the entrance to the sanctuary or on the façade. People added golden leaves, berries, or clusters as offerings, and it was a striking visual feature.
These were all commanded or approved by God as part of proper worship and temple decoration—symbolic, beautiful, and instructional, but never bowed to or served as deities. Other biblical art includes the bronze serpent (Numbers 21:8-9, later destroyed when it became an idol—2 Kings 18:4)
It's irrelevant. We know the ancient hebrews did worship idols of their gods (plural) but at some point in the iron age they stopped. It happened too late for it to be a mosaic commandment.
More likely it was a response to living as a hated minority in foreign lands and/or dealing with invaders destroying their temples.
I’m glad this is back up. I was halfway through when it disappeared last time!
Yes had the website bug out while I was getting it out.
LOL the suspense!
I'm a subscriber so I read it in my inbox
I’m also a subscriber, but I read in the app. My inbox is already swamped!
I read this straight after re-reading your piece on Kojima and 5th generation warfare and I can't but feel dissappointed by the lack of continuity. These two pieces are clearly siblings, but this one is a musing on how symbols and their corresponsing narrative frames lead action, while the older piece was a vivid dissesction of how symbols and narratives are manipulated in modern warfare.
This one just points at statues and argue that symbolon drive acts of worship.
The older piece points at symbolic manipulation as an aspect of modern warfare.
But the piece that should have been written is a piece about either how to liberate oneself from the symbolic manipulations of others (post modernism) or how to relate to the politicial realities through willfully manipulated symbols and narratives in order to gain power and drive action (memetic warfare and the 3rd sophistic).
Many parts of the world still believe that a spirit can possess someone (demon possession). In Bali, the famous traditional dances are not just for tourists. They are religious ceremonies, in which, prior to the performance, dancers invite the spirit that matches the mask they wear to possess them. Then they perform the dance as that spirit.
Even today, when a human sacrifice is required to achieve the safe construction of a bridge, the construction company will have someone put on a mask of a murderous spirit and invite that spirit to inhabit them and then go secretly murder someone who won't be missed. The person is offered to the gods at the job site in secret.
Great article, it's worth the wait.
Incidentally the early Hebrews were idolators. There's surviving statues of Yahweh, El and Asherah (among others). I suspect they gave it up because they realised their own iconoclastic impulses could be turned on them too, so they decided that denying their enemy a target was better than having an idol destroyed, and eventually it was retconned as a moral principle.
Good point. For Whites, 'the thing apparent' and 'the thing behind the apparent' cannot be separated without doing violence to the meaning of either.
Ernst Schertel would be fucking proud of this analysis! I had also been trying to work through what an organized right might actually look like, and one of the things I ran into is that without a core principle, or a core spirit flowing through all of it, then it's easy for all the necessary activity, preparation, and support action, to feel like so much busywork. Thank you for reminding me how such a spirit is spread!
As always you leave me awed and frustrated at the same time. But then again if I agreed with everything how boring would that be?
Regarding using idols: would you think of this as technology (eg application of technique, re:Jacques Ellul). And that is why it can be appropriated by other groups? I’m thinking of the communist hammer and sickle, the moralizing black squares, etc. While not identical to your examples, I can’t help but think other groups of people would leverage symbols, icons, idols etc to rally and motivate people to their own ends.
I mean, even the nation that theoretically commands not to have idols has a national flag.
Once a technology is let lose everyone starts to use it or they get left behind. And I’m wondering if this concept of idolatry could be the same.
Of course that’s why literally everyone since the invention of art has been doing idolatry. How do you get 100k farmers to give you all their grain? Idolatry. How do you get 100k farmers to get off their ass and build you the greatest flex of a tomb ever? Idolatry. How do you convince 100k farmers to grab a spear and go stab the guys with a different king? Idolatry. Oldest tool in the social manipulation toolbox.
I didn’t criticize Christianity for being weak.
I never implied as much once in the piece.