This is very much a work in progress… I’d love to hear what you think…
I see two types of idolatry:
1. Treat something else like God.
- Faith – place our confidence or trust in something else to do what only God can do or has promised to do.
- Love – offer our service or devotion (time, energy, work, sacrifice) to some group, principle, practice, or ideal.
2. Treat God like something else.
- Narcissism – turn God into a bigger version of us: looks like us, inhabits our territory, stands for our ideas or ideals, etc.
- Magic – turn God into a means to get us what we want: power, security, food, pleasure, comfort, wealth, image, success, wisdom, etc.
to tell the truth 
Michael DeFazio said:
A great example of the second would be the quintessential idolatry event in Scripture – the Israelites forming and bowing to the golden calf in Exodus 32-34. Note that they said of the calf, “This is Yahweh (the covenant name God had revealed to them) and they said this was the god (or gods) that brought them out of Egypt. So they weren’t abandoning Yahweh outright, but merely adjusting him to fit their preferences, recreating him along the lines of other ancient gods that were supposed to give people what they needed/wanted.
And a great example of the first would be the prophets’ chastising of Israel for making political alliances with Egypt and Assyria, thus placing their trust in human powers to provide the protection from disaster that only Yahweh could offer.
Dan H. said:
I really like this. It is clear, simple, and accurate. I think I’ll use this to teach on idolatry from here on out…unless you come up with something better that I can use 🙂 !
Philly Endiointmente said:
Regarding your “quintessential idolatry event,” that text is a polemic against the Aaronid priesthood. Archaeology has shown that these golden calves and things like them are not at all representations of the deities themselves but pedestals upon which the deities were believed to sit. They weren’t making an image of Yahweh. They were making a throne for Yahweh. But of course the story is made up anyway.
As for your second paragraph–your “great example of the first” type of idolatry–I don’t buy it. True, some prophets chastised Israel for making alliances with certain kingdoms. But those same prophets encouraged Israel to make alliances with certain other kingdoms. What is couched in the language of absolute faith in Yahweh is really a mask for just one more competing foreign policy among many.
As for Idolatry type 2B, you wrote, “Magic – turn God into a means to get us what we want: power, security, food, pleasure, comfort, wealth, image, success, wisdom, etc.”
Would the “et cetera” include land and victory in battle? If so, there’s a lot more idolatry in the Bible than we are prone to acknowledge.
Michael DeFazio said:
Philly, I don’t get you but I love you nonetheless.
But whatever the specific function of the calf, there was to be a festival in which they bowed before it, and the story interprets it as an affront against Yahweh. Yahweh didn’t come back down and say, “Hey, sweet, you made me a car.” And I’m not sure where you get your confidence about what did or didn’t happen. Archaeology? Dude, are you serious? I’m also not sure why you’ve become as reductionist as you have, as if (in this case) the only purpose or point of the story is against the Aaronic priesthood.
As for pt. 2, whether you’re right about the “true motive” (again, whence comes the confidence – might God not have really told them what he was going to do, how he was going to judge and/or deliver his people etc), my point still stands that they named “idolatry” the making of political alliances other than those God decreed (as best they heard them). So it’s still what I used it as – an illustration of this type of idolatry.
And yes, it very well might. But I’m already prone to acknowledge lots of idolatry in the Bible – even and perhaps especially among God’s people. I do this for two reasons: (1) Because the Bible itself is prone to acknowledge the same. (2) Because I read the Bible from a Christian perspective, that is, from the perspective that believes God most clearly revealed his character and purposes in Jesus of Nazareth, against which everything else is to be held up and evaluated. Yes, Jesus is my canon within the canon and I read everything else through the record of his life as recorded by the early church in the Gospels (and worked out in the letters).
Michael DeFazio said:
Thanks Dan! I’m sure with your help (and others) we will improve upon it as time goes on.
Philly, are there one or two sources that pull together whatever material on archaeology you depend on for many of your OT interpretations? Any books on the top ten you shared the other day?
Drew said:
Hey Michael.
Very clear. I too will be stealing this.