Moksha wrote: ↑Sun Dec 13, 2020 6:03 pmI doubt a nomadic people could have created such a statue or even a golden calf. I suspect these are references taken from the culture when they were in later Babylonian captivity.Shulem wrote: ↑Sun Dec 13, 2020 3:28 pmI would like to point out though, that your expression of "awe" and "reverence" is exactly what I believe Moses was trying to avoid when he tendered the Second Commandment in forbidding the children of Israel in making graven images to represent deity -- any deity, whether Jehovah or some other god in which the Israelites were forbidden to worship.
I don't really buy into that graven image thing either. Great art can inspire great feelings and great feelings can be part of our religious and spiritual experience.
They were not nomadic at first. They were fully established residents in the land of Egypt, settled in the Delta and having access to all of the technologies of the day under their overlords -- such as being craftsman and artists, even as the Egyptians. Moses understood better than anyone the value and sensibilities that graven images could inspire into the thoughts and emotions of a religious mind. He was totally against that. He established a new religion having a code and punishments affixed to those who violated them. Graven images were not permitted.
The Second Commandment was original to Moses' religion after he left Egypt. Moses and his followers were skilled experts possessing the same kind of abilities as the Egyptians. Moses was absolutely set in the idea that his followers would not make graven images of gods and that reverence and awe to Jehovah was a spiritual matter completely void of images to that effect. The religious experience under Moses did not include that form of worship. Period.
I wish David Bokovoy were here to comment.