What is meant by Graven Image?
Posted by Carol_Noble at 10:21, 01 Aug 2009I ask such a question because I recently looked up the meaning of the above words.
Graven is the past particple of the verb to Grave.
Grave has more than one meaning, including "To fix firmly in one's mind".
Image comes from the world imagine, but is also related to a visual image that people see, as well as a mental image a person creates in their own mind.
When we consider the bible story about Moses, who came down from the mountain, and was angry with the people we are told it was because they had built a golden calf/idol and were worshipping it.
Firstly, how long was Moses on the mountain? It takes time to get enough gold together to then smelt and create an idol such as a calf.
Secondly, was the graven image a solid object or actually something that was a mental image which people were talking/praying to? A bit like when Christians pray to an invisible God, or Jesus.
We can have different images of ourselves, and we all seem to believe that physical personal image that we present to others is the most important thing rather than just a part of what we are as individuals, or even as a group. What has to be added is the sort of characters we are, and what we believe, as well as how we act.
At present I see far too many people who are worshipped superficially, and then given a depth of character that doesn't exist. Michael Jackson whilst an excellent performer was not a particularly well understood person, and his private lifestyle is not one we should be encouraging our own children to emulate.
What is truly meant by a graven image? How much is the mental view to be considered?
Your views would be appreciated.
Bookmark/Search this post with
- Carol_Noble's blog
- Login or register to post comments
Comments
22 November 2004
2 weeks 13 hours
Some other terms for the concept of prayer to graven images are idolatry and fetishism. Both Christianity (through the old testament as you mention) and later again Islam are against this.
There is a tendency in humans to transfer the abstract concept of a god, or of whatever is worshiped, to a physical object.
Basically it's the concept of sympathetic magic. For example, a painting of the Virgin Mary is supposed to serve as a reminder to focus the mind when praying. Instead the painting itself becomes holy and must be defended. If someone has been on the Hajj and prayed in the presence of the Kaaba, they should make sure they were not praying to the black box itself.
Voodoo and burning flags are the same thing in reverse, for those who believe deeply enough. For others they are just a form of speech.
So, Moses was saying two things: (a) God says the other gods are not real, and (b) don't try sympathetic magic.
----
No amount of cursing at the round earth will make it flat.
1 May 2004
17 hours 11 min
To answer the first question, as I recall Moses was on the Mount for 40 days. Also, remember that the Israelites had received lovely parting gifts from extremely scared Egyptians, who were really hoping the Israelites would leave before everyone else died. So there should have been a large quantity of previously refined gold on hand.
The molten calf would have been a physical object. Part of the purpose of creating it was not simply to represent the deity, but to actually define and limit the entity and its characteristics. This act of definition is meant to control the entity (rain god, for example) or manufacture it to their tastes (try one of these recently made-up "religions" claimed by prison inmates for privileges). They were "fixing" the god they wanted.
The Judeo-Christian God on the other hand is represented as an infinite being that dominates His adherents as well as the universe, rather than a deity that conforms to the wishes of some group or subgroup of men. You literally can't reduce Him. The lack of an image reinforces His infinite nature.
Moses was understandably angry. Remember the people were slaves who were freed as a result of 10 supernatural plagues, including 3 full days of absolute darkness and burning hail falling from the sky. They were led by a prescence manifesting as cloud by day and fire by night. The sea itself was parted for their escape. They were being fed with food that appeared from nowhere. They were also camped within hundreds of feet of a mountain burning with fire. Even so, they attempted to define and limit a God who was revealing Himself directly in front of them.
12 April 2007
5 min 16 sec
As a Spanish-speaking person, the meaning of graven image relates to "engraved images", which can be translated as "grabado".
In sculpture there are many disciplines, one of the most common in antiquity was of the bas relief. It is a very shallow image, less than an inch or so, which is worked so that it gives the optical illusion of depth.
I would suspect that the golden calf the Israelites molded was a bas relief made using a thin sheet of gold, banged and forged with a hammer. It makes more sense, considering they don't seem to have had enough time to make a proper mold for a truly tridimensional effigy. There's also the issue of the quantity of gold needed.
And continuing with the allegory, all the pop stars venerated today are very shallow individuals. Thy don't have enough depth.
-----
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
3 June 2008
8 weeks 6 days
But.. good as these posts are, they don't seem to go far enough away from the idea presented to us by the clergy whatever their religious persuasion.
I have found so often that there are other ways of looking at things, and I believe we need to look at simple words such as graven image in a different way.
RPJ I like the idea of celebrity worship being superficial like a thin bas relief of a god worked in gold.
When the time period of 40 days is used in the bible it is more a generalisation of a long time period rather than a set period. Moses may have been gone a long time but if it truly was a long time then he was a fool. Like it or not the religion that the israelites followed was nothing like the religion formed later. It had to be similar to the Egyptian monotheistic god, Aten.
As for the sympathetic magic, I agree that was the basis of their creating something that was similar to the god they wished to conjure. However, if they truly were followers of one overall god as we are told in the bible they would not have created this image. Unless of course their single god was based on a bull or calf.
I also wonder who the priest or priestess of this ancient religion was? There had to be one in the group otherwise there would have been no need to create this image, physical or mental.
I believe we need to think very carefully about what we create mentally, especially, on a religious/magical level.
We also need to consider what celebrety status actually means and the effect it has on the individual. How many people have been given celebrety status and fame and then died young because they found fame difficult to handle and this caused them to kill themselves, either by overdosing on drugs, or dying in "accidents".
Just a couple of thoughts.
Carol A Noble
10 August 2004
5 hours 59 min
Carol - this doesn't help with your question about graven images, but may explain the golden calf incident.
I think the whole point of this particular story is the defining of the Precessional transition of the sun from the zodiacal age of Taurus to that of Aries.
Moses had told his followers that this was the case, and his trip up the mountain was simply for confirmation that the sun was, in fact, rising in Aries and the Age of Taurus was over. He was understandably a bit pissed off when he returned to camp to find he had not been believed and the Israelites in his absence had continued to place their gold (the sun) in a calf (Taurus), which is why he lost his temper and destroyed it.
Perhaps from this incident stemmed the idea that the worship of graven images was something to be discouraged.
Love, Kathrinn.
P.S. Pleased my Venusian torch notion made you laugh!
3 June 2008
8 weeks 6 days
Kathrinn
I haven't looked at this idea before, at least not as far as the bible was concerned.
Yes, there is the astrological transition of that time period to consider, but it has never been put into the aspect of this particular bible story before, at least not to my earlier understanding so thank you very mnuch for the possibility.
Perhaps it is because orthodox religion doesn't like the idea of astrology having any credence today. But in the past astrology would have been a great part of life, especially at that time, so perhaps this concept has some merit.
Eveb so, the idea of graven images being ideas firmly fixed in the mind is one I had not considered until recently, hence the blog.
Crol A Noble