images

44:4.52. Con­cept re­cord­ers. This sec­ond group of re­cord­ers are con­cerned with the preser­va­tion of con­cept pic­tures, idea pat­terns. This is a form of per­ma­nent record­ing un­known on the ma­te­rial realms, and by this method I could gain more knowl­edge in one hour of your time than you could gain in one hun­dred years of pe­rus­ing or­di­nary writ­ten lan­guage.

44:4.63. Ideo­graph re­cord­ers. We have the equiv­a­lent of both your writ­ten and spo­ken word, but in pre­serv­ing thought, we usu­ally em­ploy con­cept pic­tur­iza­tion and ideo­graph tech­niques. Those who pre­serve ideographs are able to im­prove one thou­sand­fold upon the work of the con­cept re­cord­ers.

88:2.4The ear­li­est im­ages were made to pre­serve the ap­pear­ance and mem­ory of the il­lus­tri­ous dead; they were re­ally mon­u­ments. Idols were a re­fine­ment of fet­ish­ism. The prim­i­tives be­lieved that a cer­e­mony of con­se­cra­tion caused the spirit to en­ter the im­age; like­wise, when cer­tain ob­jects were blessed, they be­came charms.

124:1.4But trou­ble was again stirred up at school when one of the more back­ward pupils dis­cov­ered Je­sus draw­ing a char­coal pic­ture of the teacher on the floor of the school­room. There it was, plain as day, and many of the el­ders had viewed it be­fore the com­mit­tee went to call on Joseph to de­mand that some­thing be done to sup­press the law­less­ness of his el­dest son. And though this was not the first time com­plaints had come to Joseph and Mary about the do­ings of their ver­sa­tile and ag­gres­sive child, this was the most se­ri­ous of all the ac­cu­sa­tions which had thus far been lodged against him. Je­sus lis­tened to the in­dict­ment of his artis­tic ef­forts for some time, be­ing seated on a large stone just out­side the back door. He re­sented their blam­ing his fa­ther for his al­leged mis­deeds; so in he marched, fear­lessly con­fronting his ac­cusers. The el­ders were thrown into con­fu­sion. Some were in­clined to view the episode hu­mor­ously, while one or two seemed to think the boy was sac­ri­le­gious if not blas­phe­mous. Joseph was non­plused, Mary in­dig­nant, but Je­sus in­sisted on be­ing heard. He had his say, coura­geously de­fended his view­point, and with con­sum­mate self-con­trol an­nounced that he would abide by the de­ci­sion of his fa­ther in this as in all other mat­ters con­tro­ver­sial. And the com­mit­tee of el­ders de­parted in si­lence.

124:1.5Mary en­deav­ored to in­flu­ence Joseph to per­mit Je­sus to model in clay at home, pro­vided he prom­ised not to carry on any of these ques­tion­able ac­tiv­i­ties at school, but Joseph felt im­pelled to rule that the rab­bini­cal in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the sec­ond com­mand­ment should pre­vail. And so Je­sus no more drew or mod­eled the like­ness of any­thing from that day as long as he lived in his fa­ther’s house. But he was un­con­vinced of the wrong of what he had done, and to give up such a fa­vorite pas­time con­sti­tuted one of the great tri­als of his young life.

120:3.7“6. To the end that you may not un­nec­es­sar­ily con­tribute to the cre­ation of sub­se­quent stereo­typed sys­tems of Uran­tia re­li­gious be­liefs or other types of non­pro­gres­sive re­li­gious loy­al­ties, we ad­vise you still fur­ther: Leave no writ­ings be­hind you on the planet. Re­frain from all writ­ing upon per­ma­nent ma­te­ri­als; en­join your as­so­ciates to make no im­ages or other like­nesses of your­self in the flesh. See that noth­ing po­ten­tially idol­a­trous is left on the planet at the time of your de­par­ture.

185:1.3Pi­late’s dis­fa­vor with the Jews came about as a re­sult of a num­ber of un­for­tu­nate en­coun­ters. First, he failed to take se­ri­ously their deep-seated prej­u­dice against all im­ages as sym­bols of idol wor­ship. There­fore he per­mit­ted his sol­diers to en­ter Je­ru­sa­lem with­out re­mov­ing the im­ages of Cae­sar from their ban­ners, as had been the prac­tice of the Ro­man sol­diers un­der his pre­de­ces­sor. A large dep­u­ta­tion of Jews waited upon Pi­late for five days, im­plor­ing him to have these im­ages re­moved from the mil­i­tary stan­dards. He flatly re­fused to grant their pe­ti­tion and threat­ened them with in­stant death. Pi­late, him­self be­ing a skep­tic, did not un­der­stand that men of strong re­li­gious feel­ings will not hes­i­tate to die for their re­li­gious con­vic­tions; and there­fore was he dis­mayed when these Jews drew them­selves up de­fi­antly be­fore his palace, bowed their faces to the ground, and sent word that they were ready to die. Pi­late then re­al­ized that he had made a threat which he was un­will­ing to carry out. He sur­ren­dered, or­dered the im­ages re­moved from the stan­dards of his sol­diers in Je­ru­sa­lem, and found him­self from that day on to a large ex­tent sub­ject to the whims of the Jew­ish lead­ers, who had in this way dis­cov­ered his weak­ness in mak­ing threats which he feared to ex­e­cute.

88:2.5Moses, in the ad­di­tion of the sec­ond com­mand­ment to the an­cient Dala­ma­tian moral code, made an ef­fort to con­trol fe­tish wor­ship among the He­brews. He care­fully di­rected that they should make no sort of im­age that might be­come con­se­crated as a fe­tish. He made it plain, “You shall not make a graven im­age or any like­ness of any­thing that is in heaven above, or on the earth be­neath, or in the wa­ters of the earth.” While this com­mand­ment did much to re­tard art among the Jews, it did lessen fe­tish wor­ship. But Moses was too wise to at­tempt sud­denly to dis­place the olden fe­tishes, and he there­fore con­sented to the putting of cer­tain relics along­side the law in the com­bined war al­tar and re­li­gious shrine which was the ark.

96:5.5But it was truly piti­ful to watch this great mind of Moses try­ing to adapt his sub­lime con­cept of El Elyon, the Most High, to the com­pre­hen­sion of the ig­no­rant and il­lit­er­ate He­brews. To his as­sem­bled lead­ers he thun­dered, “The Lord your God is one God; there is none be­side him”; while to the mixed mul­ti­tude he de­clared, “Who is like your God among all the gods?” Moses made a brave and partly suc­cess­ful stand against fe­tishes and idol­a­try, declar­ing, “You saw no simil­i­tude on the day that your God spoke to you at Ho­reb out of the midst of the fire.” He also for­bade the mak­ing of im­ages of any sort.

141:3.6The pic­tures of Je­sus have been most un­for­tu­nate. These paint­ings of the Christ have ex­erted a dele­te­ri­ous in­flu­ence on youth; the tem­ple mer­chants would hardly have fled be­fore Je­sus if he had been such a man as your artists usu­ally have de­picted. His was a dig­ni­fied man­hood; he was good, but nat­u­ral. Je­sus did not pose as a mild, sweet, gen­tle, and kindly mys­tic. His teach­ing was thrillingly dy­namic. He not only meant well, but he went about ac­tu­ally do­ing good.

88:5.3Im­ages were sup­posed to be ef­fec­tive in magic. Ef­fi­gies were made, and when treated ill or well, the same ef­fects were be­lieved to rest upon the real per­son. When mak­ing pur­chases, su­per­sti­tious per­sons would chew a bit of hard wood in or­der to soften the heart of the seller.