The ten commandments might be the obvious place to start. As the Shema is similar to the first commandment, this time we will look at the second.
In my post what sin is not I make the point these commandments are not laws to be obeyed but a sign of friendship between humanity and God. (I believe this point was made by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, although I do not have a reference.) It is not unreasonable, where friendship is involved, to expect the friends to know each other. The point of the second commandment is to resist the temptation to muddy the water by creating images of God, which are not in fact God. We're not talking about other gods here (they're dealt with under the first commandment 'you shall have no other gods before me'). Here we are talking of images of God, not miscellaneous gods.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. (NRSV Exodus 20:4-6)
What I see here is a warning to Israel about the risks attendant upon making an image of God. The point is this image is not God. To worship it in the mistaken belief that it is God will lead to error. Images of God are effectively other gods. The problem is we will add to any image our own prejudices, hunger for security, projected fantasies. We might as well hang up a mirror and worship the reflection.
The second part might not seem particularly friendly but take a close look. Iniquity is punished only for a few generations but love is rewarded effectively forever. We have to remember these texts were written not by individualists (as most of us are today) but by a people. They are reminded that if a few go wrong, all will suffer the consequences. We see this later in the Old Testament stories of the exile, for example.
Some Christian traditions leave it here. They do not accept any image of God in their place of worship, or perhaps only the plain empty cross.
Other traditions use images in three dimensions, notably but not only Catholicism, and two dimensional icons, mainly in Orthodox churches (or stained glass windows). The argument goes that this is permissable because of the doctrine of the incarnation. God who cannot be depicted in an image became human and so we now have an image. Furthermore, I would add that if anyone can find something in the image of the crucified Christ that encourages them to further acts of egotism, they must be leading strangely confused lives. Through that image we are reminded of exactly who we are.
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