Interpretations of Idol Image
Over the centuries, scholars have proposed two alternative interpretations regarding the identification of the four kingdoms in Daniel 2. The oldest view holds that the second kingdom of silver represents the Persian Achaemenid Empire, which historically succeeded the Babylonian Empire. As the Persian empire already included the Median Empire by this time, it is sometimes referred to as the "Medo-Persian Empire". An alternate view considers Median empire as a separate one in relation to the Daniel narrative, notwithstanding the fact that the Median Empire alone never historically succeeded the Babylonian one.
Read more about this topic: Daniel 2
Famous quotes containing the words idol and/or image:
“One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“Our ego ideal is precious to us because it repairs a loss of our earlier childhood, the loss of our image of self as perfect and whole, the loss of a major portion of our infantile, limitless, ain’t-I-wonderful narcissism which we had to give up in the face of compelling reality. Modified and reshaped into ethical goals and moral standards and a vision of what at our finest we might be, our dream of perfection lives on—our lost narcissism lives on—in our ego ideal.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)