Pagan Religion Quotes

“20:4. statue. Pagan religion in the ancient Near East, as in Greece, was not idol worship. The statues of the gods and goddesses were icons, symbols that represented the deities' presence. They provided a direction for prayer, a feeling of awe, a sense of one's god's closeness. But pagans did not believe that the statue was the god.”
― Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah