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Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Bonus Reading, Isaiah
When You Carve a Wooden God, What Happens to the Rest of the Wood?
Today's reading offers yet another criticism of idolatry. Again, God wonders how people could think that anything made by human hands could be any sort of god. However, the argument here takes an interesting direction. The makers of these statues probably do not completely use all of the raw materials for their idols, so they must use the rest of the material for other things. This is particularly true of wood -- some of it may be carved into a statue, but the rest is burned for warmth and cooking heat. If part of the wood was holy, why not the rest of it?
