Idolatry beyond the Second Commandment: Conflicting Figurations and Sensations of the Unseen

Abstract

Th e production and use of images in the Abrahamic traditions is usually debated against a backdrop of aniconism and the interdiction of representational images of the divine as the normative default. Although these monotheistic traditions grapple with the legitimacy of images in manifold ways, it is problematic to take this as the backdrop for scholarly research. Focusing on fi gurations and sensations of the unseen, this volume aims to broaden the scope of scholarly inquiry towards a wider set of practices through which humans mediate the unseen. While many contributions explore negotiations of the making, value, use and legitimacy of images within Judaism, Christianity or Islam, this chapter calls attention to the margins of Christianity, where ‘idolatry’ charges arise with regard to the cult objects and images in indigenous religious traditions. Charges of idolatry, of course, do not necessarily indicate a clash between aniconism and the worship of things framed as ‘idols’. Rather, such charges involve confl icting ways to fi gure and sense the unseen. Th roughout the history of Christianity, non-Christian cult objects have been – and still are – dismissed and renamed as idols, and their worship as false. Across the world, Catholic and Protestant missionaries legitimized the iconoclastic acts with regard to indigenous religious traditions by referring to the biblical interdiction to make and worship idols (most prominent being Exod. 20.4-6; Deut. 5.8-10). As a compound the Th e scandal which the dismissive and and not Th e whether and how images can a role in the tradition has been hotly debated and has yielded a distinction between and