The Second Commandment

You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth--Part of the first or the second commandment of the Old Testament, depending on the version. Some Protestant groups feel the Catholic version  specifically buries this admonition within the First Commandment because of Catholicism's preference for statues.

 

There is an old book about how a culture defines itself and symbolism's part in it. The thesis is specifically about television but the general discussion is interesting. How does the method of communication influence the content? Would there be an Iliad or a Beowulf, for example, if their creators had writing?

How are things transmitted, one person to another? We evolved as a speaking people. In the beginning was The Word. How is that spoken language elaborated upon? Can it be done safely? Accurately? Incorporating modern technology, David Bowie became a persona that merged with the very music that persona was presenting.

Plato wrote--wrote--of Socrates' speech on writing: I cannot help feeling, Phaedrus, that writing is unfortunately like painting; for the creations of the painter have the attitude of life, and yet if you ask them a question they preserve a solemn silence. And the same may be said of speeches. You would imagine that they had intelligence, but if you want to know anything and put a question to one of them, the speaker always gives one unvarying answer. And when they have been once written down they are tumbled about anywhere among those who may or may not understand them, and know not to whom they should reply, to whom not: and, if they are maltreated or abused, they have no parent to protect them; and they cannot protect or defend themselves.

Indeed, the Egyptian god Thoth, who is alleged to have brought writing to the Egyptian King Thamus, was also the god of magic. Magic.

As the Koran was the dictated word of God through the angel Gabriel, Islam outlawed translation of the Koran for years, fearing adulteration of The Word.

Which brings us the the remarkable Second Commandment. In essence, the Second Commandment defines symbolism in the Old Testament culture. Its author assumed a connection between forms of human communication and the quality of a culture. The God of the Jews was to exist in the Word and through the Word. There was to be no symbol.
The Second Commandment was an unprecedented demand for abstract thinking.