{"id":67500,"date":"2019-12-23T10:44:21","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T08:44:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=67500"},"modified":"2023-07-16T16:04:29","modified_gmt":"2023-07-16T13:04:29","slug":"the-absurd-fetishism-of-idolatry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-absurd-fetishism-of-idolatry\/","title":{"rendered":"The Absurd Fetishism of Idolatry"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-content\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[429],"acf":{"old_id":"67500","type":"event","iframe":"","writer":54356,"related_cahpter":"378","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Isaian satire - or ignorance?","content":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">44:9 \u201cFashioners of idols, they are all mere wind, and their cherished things cannot avail, and their witnesses cannot see nor know, and hence they are shamed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The lengthy polemic against the manufacturers of idols that begins with these words is a hallmark of our prophet. No other biblical writer so scathingly reduces paganism to mere absurd fetishism. In the mid-twentieth century, the Israeli biblical scholar Yehezkel Kaufman used such prophecies to argue that the Israelites were so far removed from paganism that they failed to understand that idols were conceived merely as symbols of the gods they represented. One may question that view because polemic or satire is a literary vehicle that thrives on exaggeration: the prophet, in order to show vividly that idolaters worship imagined entities, not real gods, represents them absurdly carving gods out of wood, using the leftover wood for fuel, and bowing down to their wooden carvings as to gods.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From: Robert Alter, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Hebrew Bible<\/span><\/em><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">vol. 2: Prophets, W. W. Norton &amp; Co., 2019, ad loc. By permission of the author.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":{"ID":54890,"id":54890,"title":"Alter-Cover","filename":"Alter-Cover.jpg","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover.jpg","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/welcome-to-the-book-of-judges-unbridled-lust-implacable-hostility-mutual-mayhem\/alter-cover\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"alter-cover","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":54889,"date":"2019-05-05 07:18:18","modified":"2022-01-31 16:15:48","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1200,"height":693,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover-300x173.jpg","medium-width":300,"medium-height":173,"medium_large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover-768x444.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":444,"large":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover-1024x591.jpg","large-width":1024,"large-height":591,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover.jpg","1536x1536-width":1200,"1536x1536-height":693,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover.jpg","2048x2048-width":1200,"2048x2048-height":693,"post_full_size":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover-1200x693.jpg","post_full_size-width":1200,"post_full_size-height":693,"home_baner":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Alter-Cover-727x420.jpg","home_baner-width":727,"home_baner-height":420}},"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"From Robert Alter's Bible Translation and Commentary","main_caption":"The Absurd Fetishism of Idolatry","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Isaian satire - 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