Idolatry

Idolatry is the worship of images, objects, or beings treated as divine. Religious traditions define it differently, often distinguishing forbidden worship from permitted images or symbols.

Aniconism: The rejection or avoidance of images in religious practice. Aniconism limits sacred representation, while idolatry names worship directed toward images or objects.
Ten Commandments: A set of biblical religious and ethical commandments, including prohibitions on other gods and graven images. Their image prohibition became a foundational scriptural basis for condemning idolatry.
Icon veneration: The honor shown to sacred images without treating the images themselves as divine. Its defenders distinguish reverence for an image from worship of the image itself.
Second Council of Nicaea: The 787 ecumenical council that defended the veneration of icons in the Byzantine church. The council distinguished permissible veneration from the worship reserved for God.
Icon: A sacred image used in religious devotion or ritual. Debates over whether an icon mediates worship or receives it shape accusations of idolatry.
Golden calf: A calf-shaped image made by the Israelites in the biblical account of Exodus. The episode is a canonical biblical example of condemned image worship.
Iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire: Periods of imperial opposition to religious images in the Byzantine Empire, especially in the eighth and ninth centuries. The controversy turned on whether venerating icons violated the prohibition of idolatry.
Protestant Reformation: A sixteenth-century movement that challenged Roman Catholic authority and practices, including some forms of image devotion. Reformers renewed disputes over whether religious images encouraged idolatry.
Iconoclasm: The rejection or destruction of religious images, often for theological or political reasons. Iconoclasts have attacked images they considered objects of idolatrous devotion.
Book of Exodus: The biblical book recounting Israel's departure from Egypt and covenant at Sinai. Its accounts of the golden calf and commandments frame early biblical opposition to idolatry.

Linked from 16 pages