Religion and Film: Part I: History and Criticism‪.‬

I. Introduction Perhaps the place to start a study of religion and film is with the Second Commandment of the Decalogue, mandating that one should not make any graven image. Receiving the Law from God, Moses descended from Mount Moriah to find the Israelites worshiping a golden calf they had made out of material possessions. The juxtaposition of the Commandment and the devotion toward the graven image was ironic, and a source of adversarial suspicion developed between Hebrew culture and visual art.