while researching [[2022-01-12a Idolatry, divinity & the debasement of dead kings]], I asked: > Does anybody have a really good primer on like, idolatry in the ancient world and what scholars really mean when they use the word "idols" in the context of ancient religion (and not, like, pop culture icons)? > > Google is too muddy and JSTOR is too technical and I'm out of ideas. ## Twitter - [i] Posted [2021-12-13](https://twitter.com/EleanorKonik/status/1470574808052215809) [[A. G. Wilsonn]] - there’s an interesting lack of distinction between gods and their statues in ancient Greco-Roman religion. The statue is the god but the god is not confined to the statue. is that the kind if thing you are asking about? - References to this idea here: Peppard, Michael. “Was the Presence of Christ in Statues? The Challenge of Divine Media for a Jewish Roman God.” THE ART OF EMPIRE, n.d., 47. - [[Michael Peppard]] > [[peppardWasPresenceChrist]] > [[peppardWasPresenceChrist.pdf]] [[Andrew Roddick]] - It is really going to mean what you mean by ancient world -- different disciplines have different ways of thinking about this. For instance, idolatry in christian traditions refers to what was seen as the cult of deities present to their worshippers in material objects. - For instance, the Spaniards used this term as a pejorative as a way of discussing South American objects that from a different point of view (ontology) would see as animate and in some cases, embodying personhood. - MacCormack's great "Gods, Demons, and Idols in the Andes" which explores the site of Pachacamac and folks like Bartolome de las Casas arguing that perhaps "animated statues" did in fact exist. This piece should map out how complex it can get ;) * [[maccormackGodsDemonsIdols2006.pdf]] > [[maccormackGodsDemonsIdols2006]] - It is really going to mean what you mean by ancient world -- different disciplines have different ways of thinking about this. For instance, idolatry in christian traditions refers to what was seen as the cult of deities present to their worshippers in material objects. - Animacy is a good word for this; objects imbued with mana, sami, etc. It's similar to totemism, in the Andes there were similar objects called huacas. - "Idols" is a euro-Christian term that got mapped onto a great many of diverse things. - Wrote [[Monoliths Connect Us to the Ancient Past by Andrew Roddick and Anna Guengerich]] - There are great debates over huacas in his corner of academia. Thee are some great old pieces by folks like Hollowell on animate objects in indigenous North America - see [[lauAnimatingIdolatryMaking2021.pdf]] [[lauAnimatingIdolatryMaking2021]] - see Pauketet on bundles in Mississippian contexts (these were understood as "idols" ![[Pasted image 20211214160306.png]] - These most certainly would have been called idols by settlers encountering them ![[Pasted image 20211214160328.png]] [[Dave Haskell]] - I got a lot out of Alfred Gell's distinction between iconic and an-iconic idols. Used it to write a weird chapter on the obsidian chunk used to represent a Mexican deity, and like [[Andrew Roddick]] said the whole thing is shot through with ontological issues. ## Mastodon - [i] Posted [2021-12-13](https://scholar.social/@eleanorkonik/107442823654548087) Edward Morbius > One of my go-to sources for all things philosophical these days (at least through the early Reformation at this writing) is Peter Adamson's "History of Philosophy WIthout Any Gaps". It's a podcast, though he's using that to publish a set of books as well. > > He covered religious icons and iconography in a few episodes. The site is featuring a 2018 episode on iconoclasm. > > There's not just the presentation, but his scholarly references, which are excellent. Ahmed Fasih (`@[email protected]`) > Along the same Biblical lines, I really appreciated Bart Ehrman's description of ancient polytheism in the context of our perspectives on the early Christian period, so much so I typed up the whole segment of the audio lecture. It's alas not long but your request for further reading inspired me to look and yes! In the course notes [[ehrmanHistoricalJesus.pdf]] page 7 (end of lecture 2) he provides some references that I'm curious about now! See also: [[Historical Jesus by Bart Ehrman]]