It’s one of the Ten Commandments that one shouldn’t make “graven images”; this is popularly interpreted to mean that depictions of God are phohibited. Among trinitarian Christians, I have heard that this ban does not apply to depictions of Jesus, since he was fully human in adition to being fully divine, and also to depictions of the Holy Spirit in its physical manifestations, such as the dove. Thus, pictures of Jesus and doves are simply copying physical incarnations of God on earth, not the original God himself in heaven.
Why, then, is Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam not considered to be a graven image? It purportedly depicts God the Father in Heaven as an old bearded man.
I have asked some Christians about this, and some of them claim that it is not God who is depicted in this fresco, but rather an angel working as God’s intermediary. Is there any basis for this interpretation?
Actually, there is some debate over what is considered to be a “graven image.” One school of thought says that, yes, Michelangelo’s depiction of God is a graven image.
Others hold that a graven image is an idol, ie an object of worship, and that a simple work of art doesn’t violate the commandment.
Then again, even if Michelangelo’s work does count as graven, pretty much everyone agrees that the depiction of God as a wise old man is one of the more innocuous images that might be chosen. It would be more problematic if he’d depicted God as an animal of some sort, like Hinduism tends to do with their gods.
The standard response is that Christians and Jews are only prohibited from making a graven image for worship. Nothing more. Remember that the Ark of the Covenant itself had graven images of cherubim on it. And of course eveyrbody’s favourite Christian Jack Chick is forever drawing pictures of God, so clearly the fundumentalists don’t see any problem with depictions of God.
So long as nobody is worshipping the image I can’t see any problem whether it’s of God or of angels. And if people are worshipping it it’s probably less of a sin to worship an image of God than to worship any other image.
Heh. From the Orthodox perspective, it is exactly that. The only depictions of the Father permissible are ones that have been specifically given in scripture as symbolic of the Father; this usually takes the form of either a nebulous cloud of light, as in icons of the baptism of Christ, or as the “Ancient of Days” from the vision of Daniel. This last one is highly disputed, however, and some see it as a western influence, with the Ancient of Days properly being interpreted as symbolic of the divine nature of Christ.
That doesn’t make any sense, though (the bit about the Ancient of Days.) Yes, it’s from Daniel, but it’s from the part of Daniel that is about the Maccabees and Antiochus. That places it firmly before any possible interpretation “as symbolic of the divine nature of Christ” at about 164 BC.
It obviously would not have been interpreted as that when Daniel was written, as Christ (according to the Orthodox understanding) had only been revealed in hidden or symbolic form before the Theophany. Christ (in this view) is found all through the Old Testament, e.g. as God walking through the garden after Adam and Eve had eaten from the tree, as one of the angels that visited Abraham, and as the pillar of fire and the cloud that guided the Israelites in the desert. It’s only by later commentators (inspired by the Holy Spirit, according to the Orthodox) that such symbols have been seen as what they really were.
Some people interpret photographs of ordinarly folks to be graven images which should not be made. On the other end of the spectrum is the interpretation that the prohibited graven images are those of gods or god-substitutes used as objects of worship. And there are any number of differing viewpoints ranging between those.
I really misread the title. I thought this was going to be about God’s creation (little c) of Adam. Since man (Adam) was created in God’s image, wasn’t God doing what we are forbidden to do. This is no caffeine in the house this morning. Never mind.
One explination I’ve heard is that once God decided to take on human form as Christ, he also became human, too. Thus, depictions of God as human became kosher.
It’s a little round-a-bout, but I didn’t come up with it. Stop repressing me!
Here’s the wording of the commandment, as found in the King James version (Exodus 20:4-5):
One way to intrepret that is that it’s the worshipping, not the making, of the images that’s forbidden.
And if it is the making that’s forbidden, it’s not just images of God, but of anything. If I understand correctly, this is why much Moslem art consists of abstract geometrical patterns and doesn’t depict real people or things.