A New Form of Worship

Our word image is straight from Latin imago, meaning copy, imitation, phantom, appearance, idea. This concept of image as likeliness, in particular, has certain roots in Christianity, if we recall the Bible words “To þe ymage of god he made hym”–¹ the interpretation of the creation of man in Genesis. Man is made in the image of his creator, while woman is created only from the former’s rib. Not only has the Christian creation myth gave foundation to a binary logic of identity, but also sought to maintain a monopoly over the visible and invisible: “In fact, the Christian revolution is the first and only monotheist doctrine to have made of the image the symbol of its power and the instrument of all its conquest. It convinced all the powers from East to West that the one who is the master of the visible is the master of the world and organises the control of the gaze”.² Henceforth, people learnt, informed, tamed, and were educated through images...Read the full article in the printed issue. Get OVER Journal 3