I know this is an older post, however I just wanted to add in that images of both male and female were also mentioned In Duet 4:16.
Baal was considered the supreme male divinity of the Phoenicians and the bowing of the knee before his image is made mention of in Rom 11:4 also. There were females such as Ashtoreth and the goddess Diana who is mentioned in Acts 19:35 And we know of others such as Zeus and the rest of those gods (which all have appearances of mankind (two footed male and female types)
But it starts there
Duet 4:16 Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, (and this followed up by what is reflected in Romans 1:23 beast, fowl, or creepy thing) see the next couple of verses there.
Whereas here it also starts
Romans 1:23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
That would include the two footed male and females given the fourfooted is mentioned after, along with other things (those with wings or creepy things).
Even as Romans mentions bowing to an image of Baal also.
Romans 11:4... I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal.
I just wanted to add that in.
Just wanted to add to that, even if Catholics aren't guilty of "worshipping" the Mary/Saint statues they have (it's a grey area), they
do still pray to Mary and their saints, and absolutely nowhere in the Bible does it say that we should pray to anyone but God the Father.
Even Jesus Himself never once told us to pray to Him specifically, and He never instructed us to pray to the Holy Spirit... and the few sermons He did on prayer, He made it clear that we pray to the Father only, and gave us a model of a prayer we call the "Lord's Prayer", wherein He made it a point that all prayer should exalt and hallow the name of our Father, and that all prayer should be that His will be done in all things.
I really, really cannot see where praying to anybody but the Father is supported by Scripture. Now, I do believe that one can talk to Jesus in a prayer-like way (and very well that one should, for He is always with us), but it is of my personal belief that formal prayers and requests are reserved for the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Praying to Jesus is somewhat of a grey area, some say you can, some say you shouldn't...
But nowhere outside of Catholicism have I
ever heard that one should pray to a normal human who had normal human parents. Outside of a simple blessing, Jesus not once ever placed any specific reverence on Mary or any of his apostles, in fact Paul makes it clear in his epistles that he's just a man himself, a man who struggles with sin just the same as we do, and nowhere in Acts do you see any apostle praying to Mary, or asking people to pray to them, and in their Epistles, they exhort that all power, everything comes from God.
If all power, and all of Creation came from God, is it not He alone that we should pray to?
