The Logic of Idolatry

When the biblical writers mention other gods, they aren’t referring merely to idols—objects made by people from wood, metal, or stone. Instead, the Old Testament refers to gods as “demons” (shedim in Hebrew)—low-ranking divine beings known from other ancient Near Eastern texts (e.g., Deut 32:17). The Old Testament also describes the “host of heaven” as an assembly of spiritual beings (1 Kings 22:19–23), and calls them the sons of God, or even “gods” (elohim in Hebrew; Psa 82:1, 6; compare Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7).

Yet when the Israelites are being disobedient, Deuteronomy 28:64 sarcastically says, “you shall serve other gods of wood and stone.” And 1 Chronicles 16:26 states, “the gods of the people are idols.” How all these ideas fit together is explained by the logic of idolatry in the ancient Near East.

People in the ancient Near East called both the spiritual entity and its corresponding religious object a god, and they fashioned the idol in the god’s likeness, but they did not necessarily consider the statue or object to be identical with the god itself. Rather, people in the ancient Near East believed the spiritual entity inhabited the idol; in other words, the deity resided in or attached itself to the physical object. The person who fashioned the idol and made offerings or sacrifices to it did so to beckon and localize the deity, so that they could be in communication with it and have a relationship with it.

Ancient Near Eastern idolaters distinguished between the statues themselves and the deities they represented. Ancient Near Eastern texts make this distinction. For example, in an Akkadian inscription, the idol of the god Shamash of Sippar was destroyed. The incident did not, however, spell the death of Shamash, who was still alive. His devotees thus could still worship him, so they simply made another statue—assuming that he would inhabit it as well. For the idol to be destroyed was tragic, but not threatening to the religion.

The parodies and denunciations of the gods and idolatry in the Old Testament function the same way: The Israelites understood that a statue of Baal being destroyed did not entail Baal being destroyed. They too believed that idols focused someone’s attention on the otherworldly deity the idolater sought to manipulate or appease. From this perspective, the biblical prohibition against making any likeness of Yahweh takes on an even more pronounced significance: Yahweh could not be forced to come to earth, cajoled, and tamed. It also brings further significance to the problem of idolatry of other divine beings—worshiping the idols meant calling these gods to Israel, rather than calling on Yahweh; it meant dependence on inferior beings that were in fact evil and enslaving in their rule.

Michael S. Heiser