Biblical View on Body Image and Idolatry

Sources

1. Easton's Bible Dictionary “Easton's Bible Dictionary: Idolatry — Image-worship or divine honour paid to any created object. Paul describes the origin of idolatry in Rom. 1:21-25: men forsook God, and sank into ignorance and moral corruption (1:28). The forms of idolatry are, (1.) Fetishism, or the worship of trees, rivers, hills, stones, etc. (2.) Nature worship, the worship of the sun, moon, and stars, as the supposed powers of nature. (3.) Hero worship, the worship of deceased ancestors, or of heroes. In Scripture, idolatry is regarded as of heathen origin, and as being imported among the Hebrews through contact with ”
2. Easton's Bible Dictionary “Easton's Bible Dictionary: Cutting — The flesh in various ways was an idolatrous practice, a part of idol-worship (Deut. 14:1; 1 Kings 18:28). The Israelites were commanded not to imitate this practice (Lev. 19:28; 21:5; Deut. 14:1). The tearing of the flesh from grief and anguish of spirit in mourning for the dead was regarded as a mark of affection (Jer. 16:6; 41:5; 48:37). Allusions are made in Revelation (13:16; 17:5; 19:20) to the practice of printing marks on the body, to indicate allegiance to a deity. We find also references to it, through in a different direction, by Paul (Gal. 6; 7) ”
3. Deuteronomy “Deuteronomy 4:16 (LEB) — so that you do not ⌞ruin yourselves⌟ and make for yourselves a divine image in a form of any image, a replica of male or female,”
4. CCEL (Reformed) “Calvin, Commentary on Isaiah, Vol. 3, section 8.30: in guarding the Jews against distrust, at the same time condemns the superstitions of the Gentiles, and declares that it is inconsistent with the nature of God to be represented by painting or by any kind of likeness. This shews clearly that Paul’s doctrine fully agrees with it; for the Prophet, after having shewn that the power of God is infinite, since he holds all things in his fist, at length concludes, “To whom then will ye liken me? for no image that is formed will have any likeness or resemblance to me.” Or, what resemblance will you a”
5. CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 27: they affect weak minds just as if they lived and breathed,” &c. And again, in another passage (in Ps. 112 ) he says, “The effect produced, and in a manner extorted, by the bodily shape, is, that the mind, being itself in a body, imagines that a body which is so like its oven must be similarly affected,” &c. A little farther on he says, “Images are more capable of giving a wrong bent to an unhappy soul, from having mouth, eyes, ears, and feet, than of correcting it, as they neither speak, nor see, nor hear, nor walk.” This undoubted”
6. CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 27: God was visibly depicted to their eyes. 9. After such a figment is formed, adoration forthwith ensues: for when once men imagined that they beheld God in images, they also worshipped him as being there. At length their eyes and minds becoming wholly engrossed by them, they began to grow more and 98 more brutish, gazing and wondering as if some divinity were actually before them. It hence appears that men do not fall away to the worship of images until they have imbibed some idea of a grosser description: not that they actually beli”
7. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 44: It would be hard to find in any heathen author such justification of image-worship as the Romish theologians put forth. What heathen ever said that the same homage was due to the image of Jupiter as to Jupiter himself? This Thomas Aquinas says of the images of Christ and of the saints. Or what heathen ever has said, as Bellarmin says, that although the homage to be paid 302 to the image is not strictly and properly the same as that due to its prototype, it is nevertheless improperly and analogically the same; the same in kind although not”
8. Job (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Job 31:25: And mine heart hath been secretly enticed,.... Drawn away by beholding the magnitude of these bodies, the swiftness of their motion, their glorious appearance, and great usefulness to mankind, to entertain a thought of their being deities; and privately to worship them, in secret acts of devotion, as by an honourable esteem of them as such, reverence and affection for them, trust and confidence in them; for, as there is a secret worshipping of the true God, so there is a secret idolatry, idolatry in the heart, and setting up of idols there, as well as worshipping them i”
9. Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “ANF Vol 3: Tertullian — CHAP. XIII.: We have, I think, faithfully carried out our plan of showing in how many different ways the sin of idolatry clings to the shows, in respect of their origins, their titles, their equipments, their places of celebration, their arts; and we may hold it as a thing beyond all doubt, that for us who have twice(4) renounced all idols, they are utterly unsuitable. "Not that an idol is anything,"(5) as the apostle says, but that the homage they render is to demons, who are the real occupants of these consecrated images, whether of dead men or (as they think) of gods”
10. Babylonian Talmud (Jewish (Rabbinic)) “Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 149a.13: The Sages taught in a baraita : With regard to writing that is under a picture or under graven images [ deyokenaot ], it is prohibited to read it on Shabbat lest one end up reading business documents. And with regard to an idolatrous image itself, even on a weekday it is prohibited to look at it, because it says: “Do not turn toward idols [ al tifnu el ha’elilim ] or make yourselves molten gods, I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:4). The Gemara asks for clarification: What is the biblical derivation? How does this verse indicate that one may not look at a”
11. CCEL (Reformed) “John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, section 27: 90 CHAPTER 11. IMPIETY OF ATTRIBUTING A VISIBLE FORM TO GOD.—THE SETTING UP OF IDOLS A DEFECTION FROM THE TRUE GOD. There are three leading divisions in this chapter. The first contains a refutation of those who ascribe a visible form to God (s. 1 and 2), with an answer to the objection of those who, because it is said that God manifested his presence by certain symbols, use it as a defence of their error (s. 3 and 4). Various arguments are afterwards adduced, disposing of the trite objection from Gregory’s expression, that images ”
12. CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 44: the time of Moses until now. The worship of the true God by images, in the eyes of the Hebrews, has ever been considered as much an act of idolatry as the worship of false gods. 3. A third argument on this subject is, that the worship of 293 Jehovah by the use of images is denounced and punished as an act of apostasy from God. When the Hebrews in the wilderness said to Aaron, “Make us gods which shall go before us,” neither they nor Aaron intended to renounce Jehovah as their God; but they desired a visible symbol of God, as the heathen h”