Idols: Carcasses Versus Lifeless Forms

Were idols ever alive?  Literally, that is what the English Standard Version and King James Version would initially seem to say about them in Leviticus 26.  They respectively say idols have "dead bodies" and "carcases", an older version of "carcasses".  The New International Version, despite its enormously flawed rendition of Deuteronomy 22:28-29, conveys with far superior clarity the idea that idols are not alive by calling them lifeless.  Different translations of Leviticus 26:30 are collectively a great example of how translating the Bible in a word-for-word manner can obscure the meaning for readers removed from the linguistic norms of the past:

Leviticus 26:30 (ESV)—"'And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you.'"

Leviticus 26:30 (KJV)—"And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you."

Leviticus 26:30 (NIV)—"'"I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you."'"

While the phrase dead body or the word carcass in almost any other context would convey that a dead body was once alive, this is not the point God is trying to make.  Leviticus instead addresses how idols are not conscious beings, but are on their own mere inanimate matter.  This is why it is illogical to worship them, even aside from the moral dimension to worshiping something other than God.  Idols are not presented as having once been alive.  Rather, they have no life, making devotion to them a futile reaction to their real metaphysical nature.

The more literal, supposedly word-for-word translation in the ESV and KJV refers to both the genuine dead bodies of Israelite idolaters and their lifeless idols with the same terms.  However, context alone heavily suggests that the "dead bodies" of the idols are not exactly the same as the "dead bodies" of the Israelites.  Accordingly, the NIV, with its focus on preserving the intended meaning as opposed to rigidly literal words, mentions the Israelite corpses and the inanimate idols in a manner that more clearly distinguishes them linguistically.

That idols are not alive, short of some sort of hypothetical pansychism that entails all matter having consciousness and not just idols in particular, is further emphasized throughout the Old Testament in chapters like Jeremiah 10.  As follows, idols are declared devoid of outward activity because, as other parts of the Bible such as Psalm 115 directly state, they lack mental activity; they are not conscious, and so they cannot "move" without human effort to carry and position them:

Jeremiah 10:5—"'Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk.  Do not fear them; they can do not harm nor can they do any good.'"

Psalm 115:4-7—"But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.  They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.  They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannnot smell.  They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound from their throats."

I fully realize that there can be and are thoughts besides the sensory perceptions which Psalm 115 expressly says idols lack, including those involved in abstract reasoning where someone can grasp strictly logical facts about reason itself (which neither are about the sensory world, or personal experience with the senses, nor require sensory prompting to think about).  But altogether, even these passages apart from others do plainly present idols as not living in either a physical/biological sense nor in a phenomenological sense.  They are nothing more than mere matter that is arbitrarily regarded as inhabited by or connected with a divine being.

In a particularly lengthy and philosophically aggressive denouncement of idolatry, Isaiah 44 highlights the sheer stupidity not only of assuming that an idol is divine, but of fashioning an idol from the very same material the maker might use to heat their food.  Once again, idols are not said to have once been alive in the sense of a conscious divinity or animal that has since died.  The wood for a wooden idol was once alive as part of a tree (and plants could be conscious), yes, but this does not mean the idol was once inhabited by a divine or otherwise spiritual being which then died or departed, nor does the Bible say, necessitate, or imply such a thing.  And this would not be applicable to idols comprised of metal or stone.

If the intended meaning of Leviticus 26 calling the forms of idols dead bodies or carcasses is really about them lacking life and not about them having once been living beings worthy of worship, then nothing contrary to the rest of the Bible is taught, and the chapter is not treating human corpses and idols as logically equivalent in that both were once alive.  The various translations of Leviticus 26:30 exemplify how flexible language is and that words have no actual meaning apart from the intention of the user, whether in verbal or written form.  Being lifeless does not mean something was once alive!