The Invention of Idolatry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4742876 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel Barbu (0000-0003-2137-4186, Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique et Technique (CNRST), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 389-418 |
| Publication date | 2022-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2710 • E-ISSN: 1545-6935 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/718968 |
| OpenAlex | W3115421493 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 26 |
This essay examines the origins of the concept of idolatry in the ancient world. The discourse on idols and idolatry played a central role in the history of Western ideas about religion and religious diversity, framing much of the Christian debates on non-Christian religions, and eventually, on the origins of religion as such (e.g., Hume). It is here argued that idolatry is in fact, from the start, a word for religion, albeit “false religions.” Following a comparative discussion on the respective semantics of idolatry in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, this essay shows how the category emerged at the intersection of ancient Jewish and Greek debates on religion and images, before being appropriated and put to use by early Christian authors. The essay then compares the Jewish and Christian discourse of idolatry in late antiquity. It is here argued that the different narratives developed in this context played a central role in the emergence of an anthropocentric versus a theocentric history of religions in the early modern period
Idolatry · Gender, Feminism, and Media · History · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies
The Christianization of Rome and the Edomization of Christianity
Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity
The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam
The Idols of Isis
Border Lines
John Seldens De Diis Syris
Narrative and Community in Islamic Late Antiquity
Moses the Egyptian
Animating Statues
Theology, Ethnography, and the Historicization of Idolatry
The Rabbinic View of Idolatry and the Roman Political Conception of Divinity
Idolum and Idololatria in Tertullian
The Targumim and Early Exegesis of "Sons of God" in Genesis 6
John Spencer and the Roots of Idolatry
The Invention of World Religions
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |