Are images of Jesus allowed?

[GenemZ]

Is the point of posts like this to say that we should live as close to how first century Palestinian Jews lived as possible, or else we've somehow strayed away from our faith or something? Nobody thinks that the Eucharist was instituted with pumpernickel bread or whatever nonsense, but I bet the Jews who wandered in the desert with Moses would have appreciated our air conditioning and portable fans and such. Just because I don't like the sun doesn't mean I don't love Christ.

No... its simple. The appearance we see depicted of Christ today is a fabrication.

 

[GenemZ]

Is the point of posts like this to say that we should live as close to how first century Palestinian Jews lived as possible, or else we've somehow strayed away from our faith or something? Nobody thinks that the Eucharist was instituted with pumpernickel bread or whatever nonsense, but I bet the Jews who wandered in the desert with Moses would have appreciated our air conditioning and portable fans and such. Just because I don't like the sun doesn't mean I don't love Christ.

You are being slow in getting the point I was making?

I have patience. (or, I wouldn't be here)

 

[dzheremi]

Forgive me for my slowness, but you seem to be all over the place. First you have a problem with some painting from 1940, now you have a problem with people supposedly making a Eucharistic bread out of pumpernickel...all the while you remind people of the thread topic, as convenient. It's just a bit much. But thank you for being patient. I would like to engage, and a consistent thesis statement would do wonders on that front.

 

[GenemZ]

Forgive me for my slowness, but you seem to be all over the place. First you have a problem with some painting from 1940, now you have a problem with people supposedly making a Eucharistic bread out of pumpernickel...all the while you remind people of the thread topic, as convenient. It's just a bit much. But thank you for being patient. I would like to engage, and a consistent thesis statement would do wonders on that front.

You just confirmed it. You are not getting what I have been saying.....

And, it looks like its not going to stop being that way.

So? Enuf said.

 

[jamiec]

Paul also said that our Lord Jesus is "the visible image of the invisible God". The question of images became a huge issue around the 8th century AD. Muslim armies had, in the 7th century, conquered the Persian Empire and had conquered the Levant, Egypt, and spread throughout North Africa. The Eastern Roman Empire (aka the Byzantine Empire) had lost a lot of land to the Muslims. It came as a shock to the Christians living there, as for centuries the Roman Empire (East and West) had been predominately Christian. Also, at the time, many Christians were unsure of what to make of Islam, it wasn't viewed so much as a completely different religion at the time, but was seen as a heretical sect. Whereas in the West, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the Germanic "barbarians", those same "barbarians" converted to Christianity.

So some in the Eastern Church wondered why, it seemed, God had "sided" with the Muslims against Christians (a very earthly and wrong way of looking at things, obviously, thinking that God is on the side of the victors in a conflict).

But a way of looking at things that has ample - if at times ambiguous - Biblical warrant. Or do we argue that the loser in a conflict is in the right ? That would have some odd effects.

God's "attitude" is impossible to guess from historical events. Such events are far too ambiguous to serve as a reliable guide to God's purpose. But if one says that, one is declaring a lot of the Bible meaningless - but one is going to do that, whether (say) one believes God is or is not on the side of the victor. The Bible is useless as a guide in this matter, because it is ambiguous.