The Hebrew Bible: Textual Analysis

There a number texts in the Hebrew Bible that prohibit cult images and are indicative that the ancient Israelite religion was largely aniconic. I think first it is wise to define what aniconism is before asking whether if it is fair to attribute the term to ancient Israelite religion and the Hebrew Bible. I understand aniconism to pertain to the texts that prohibit the visual expression of deities and their iconography, most explicit among these of course being the Second Commandment. I will contend in this essay that the prohibition of cult images constituted part of Israel’s fundamental theological development and so paralleled its transition between pre-exilic and post-exilic periods. I will argue that there are a many great number of likely reasons for such prohibition, such as the context of polytheism and the implications this had to ancient Israel’s emerging monotheism. I will consider the textual evidence in the Hebrew Bible which may or may not offer a valid explanation for prohibition.
There are those who assert
J. Lewis contends that “the primary hazard [to Aniconic scholarship] continues to be textual scholars who do not take iconography seriously”, asserting that by “suffering from textual fixation, we ignore some deities owing to their absence in written sources” despite knowing “of their presence [in] material culture”. I believe this remark is significant as it illustrates the dilemma that exists between textual and archaeological evidence, and the uncertainty regarding the subjectivity of scholarship and the likelihood of ancient redaction. Lewis remarks that “the misuse of material culture is legendary”, seen in the tendency to characterise “every item coming out of the ground [as] cultic rather than domestic in nature”. This remark aptly points out the risks associated with presumption in this particular field of interest. Likewise, it is important, like Lewis to recognise that “Aniconic traditions are not uniquely