The Aniconic God and Chinese Iconolatry

Abstract

The Old Testament's conception of an aniconic God which forbids all creation and worship of any image and concrete form of Yahweh characterizes the central idea of Hebrew religion. There has been in the biblical tradition a persistent effort to uphold this prohibition of images, especially in the Deuteronomistic theological reflections on the Sinai experience of hearing God's word without seeing any image of the divine. The purpose of this paper is twofold: 1. To investigate into the historical and religious significance of the prohibition of images in Yahwism in the context of the religious world of the ancient West Asia and 2. To better understand the Hebrew Aniconism in cross-textual reading with Chinese religious tradition of iconolatry. In the
process of investigation, some significant issues in complexity of the understanding of the divine, human and nature in both traditions will be raised. The biblical conception of an aniconic God does not entail any attempt to implement iconoclasm against other religion and this religious liberty should inspire an open attitude to other religions and constitute the basis for creative inter-religious dialogues.