Endnote 10 – Did King Solomon Violate the Second Commandment?

See ANEP 129–130. Interestingly, although Amos (3:15 and 6:4) rails against the “houses of ivory” in Bethel, and those who recline on couches of ivory (apparently in Samaria), he does not criticize the sculpture that adorned the ivory. Ivory is condemned as a sign of conspicuous consumption, but the engravings that decorated it were not an object of Amos’s contempt. A sample of the types of art found in the land of Israel from the biblical period is provided by Treasures of the Holy Land: Ancient Art from the Israel Museum (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986), pps. 136–190. Hershel Shanks’s review of this book (“Ancient Israelite Art Sparse in Impressive Show at Met,” BAR 12:06, pps. 64–68, esp. p. 66) calls attention to the relative scarcity of art in ancient Israel. Is this related to the religious opposition to human forms?