Volume 41, Number 8 · April 21, 1994
Unspeakable Sins
By Wendy Doniger
Idolatry
by Moshe Halbertal, by Avishai Margalit, translated by Naomi Goldblum
Harvard University Press, 299 pp., $39.95
If hatred were affected by logic, I dolatry would put an end to holy wars. (But then, if hatred were amenable to logic, perhaps there never would have been any holy wars.) The concept of idolatry has been used as a weapon in these wars by the Western monotheistic religions discussed in this book, primarily Judaism, but also Christianity and Islam. It has been used in two ways: first, to refer to the worship of gods other than the true God, violating the first of Ten Commandments: 'You shall have no other gods beside Me'; and, second, to refer to the representation of a god (it might even be the true God) in unacceptable ways, violating the second Commandment: 'You shall not make for yourself a sculptured image of any likeness.'
Review, 4695 words
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