4 “ Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee Any Graven Image ” : The Distance Dependence of Representation

The prohibition in the Bible against pictorial representations of God is as famous as it is poorly understood. After all, why is it forbidden to depict God in pictures, but it is not forbidden to depict God in words (cf. Halbertal & Margalit, 1992)? God has been richly represented in written or oral narratives in and out of the Bible. If so, why is it permitted to write about God’s hand or face, while it is strictly forbidden to provide a drawing of the hand or the face? In a similar vein, God can be heard, but not seen “for man may not see Me and live” (Exodus, 33:20). Again, it is the visual image that is banned. Portrayals in words are not only endorsed, but actively sought. One can listen to (indeed, should follow) God’s words and one is encouraged to sing/write God’s virtues. In the tradition of Islam, the prohibition against pictorial representation extends beyond God to such a major prophet as Muhammad. The ban on pictorial depiction also is common in the political realm. Kings of Persia would speak to their subjects from behind a screen and were never seen. The reverse asymmetry is also well known in modern politics: Pictures of the king/dictator are distributed everywhere, but one is discouraged to write/talk about the ruler (beyond the simplest banalities) (again, see Halbertal & Margalit, 1992, for a discussion of the biblical prohibition). Regardless of the interpretation of the biblical prohibition or some time-honored political exploits, it is clear that pictures and words have been used as different ways of representation from time immemorial. What is the essence of this difference between pictures and words? One clue comes precisely from the representation of God. In monotheistic religions, God is transcendental. God is immeasurably remote and secluded from humans and their pursuits. Is the picture-word divide associated with this in!nite distance? Can pictorial representation violate the inaccessibly great remoteness of God? Does the violation result from the concrete, contextual way that pictures construe their referents? If so, words are well suited to represent God because they convey information in a more generic, decontextualized, even categorical fashion. These observations already highlight the association between imagination and mental simulation on the one hand and the picture-word contrast in mental representation on the other hand. Imagination and mental simulation differ with pictorial and verbal representations. Although the picture-word divide is subsumed under a variety of terms and concepts (as we show throughout this chapter), common to virtually all theories is the perceptual quality and imaginability of the former. Pictures are always imaginable, whereas words sometimes are (concrete terms) and sometimes are not (abstract terms). Even when imaginable, mental simulation based on words (sequentially processed symbols that stand for referents) differs from that based on pictures (spatial icons processed