Ikonická a anikonická tradice v náboženství starověkého Izraele

The principal aim of the article is on its general level a survey of the so called iconic and aniconic traditions in the religion of ancient Israel, with its thematic range being limited to the preexilic era and to the beginning of the exile period. Attention has been paid to the analysis of the prohibition of cultic representation which is to be found in the Second Commandment of the Old Testament Decalogue in its Hebrew wording. On the basis of biblical literary sources and archaeological finds in predominantly Iron Age Palestine, the aniconic and formerly marginalized iconic traditions have been restored, whose more or less problematic coexistence can be traced up to the beginning of the Second Temple period, when the aniconic tradition took over for a certain amount of time. Until then the biblical prohibition on visual representation probably either had not been exercised, or it had not been observed strictly.