Further Thoughts on the Stone Statue of Slytherin and Idols

From James L. Kugel The Bible as it Was pp 138-139

This relates to comments I have made before on how the stone statue of Slytherin in the COS resembles the idol Molech (Ginny between the feet of the statue as children were sacrificed in the arms of Molech) and Voldemort's Horcruxes as idolatrous in a way that even further shows what I think is at the heart of idolatry and connects it to things that are current instantiations of the same thing, only under new guises, but also the same thing in a new and more indluted form (gods of wood and stone have become L Ron Hubbard's and Scientology religion of personal dynamism ... at least the old pagan gods had some idea of something outside of humanity, however polluted it became).

Kugle cites Apocalypse of Abraham chs 1,3: a story of Abrahamhaving found an idol fallen over in his father, Terah's, idol shop (this is an extrpolation of the concept found in the Book of Jubilees that Abraham's being singled out from his father, Terah, and brother, Nahor, by God to be removed from Chaldea and promised a new land and inheritence was the result of Abraham being the only one who would not worhsip the gods of the Chaldeans [and that the material means by which this happened is that the Chaldeans kicked him out for not worshipping the idols]. The support for this is found in Joshua 24:2-3, where it says that the ancestors served other gods in Chaldea, but in Is 51:2 it states that Abraham alone was called, thus the later thinking is that he must not have served the other gods ... In both Jubilees and The Apocalypse Terah is made into an idol manufacturer and idol-worship priest, making his living by offering sacrifices before the idols for others) ... Abraham and Terah try to put the idol back up and the head breaks off in Abraham's hands and Terah simply makes another idol body for it.

Upon this event abraham says to himself (speaking of his father) "Is he not rather a god to his gods?" This connects with my thought that what underlies idolatry (eidos-latria) is worship of the self (what I would term idios-latria ... which I see in Voldemorts making Horcruxes, agreeing with those who see the Horcruxes as referents of the title for the upcoming final Harry Potter book, "The Deathly Hallows" - at least I agree with them on the symbolic level). This citation does not entirely make the case for the connection as I have laid it out but it does show that, at least by the time the Apocalypse was written, some connections had been conceptualized between idol worship and self worshop (a man being a "god to his gods")

The Astonomy Tower

In this same set of pages Kugels embarks on the discussion of Chaldea as the home of Astronomy and Astology. The connection of idol-worship with these practices in Chaldean culture underscores what I have thought about the "sketchy" character of divination seen by Dumbledore and the astronomy tower as the location of his demise in Half Blood Prince. I'm not sure but I think somewhere Hermione or Harry refer to divination as a "wooly discipline" and, I think in Chamber of Secrets, Percy recommends it to Harry (Percy, whom we have seen in Order of the Phoenix and HBP to be politically savvy and adept, but decidedly not what we would call "wise").

Of course, just as Dumbledore is tolerant of divination and it does seem to be a licit and occasionally valid discipline (if a bit "wooly") at Hogwarts, Kugel goes on to describe a further tradition by which it was actually through his unusual skill at doing Astronomy in a legitimate way that led him to the conclusions of montheism.