"Just as it would be an impossible task to survey everything that has been written on iconography in the polytheistic tradition of India, so it would be an equally impossible task to survey everything that was written against images in the monotheistic tradition. The word idolatry is formed from the Greek eidoolon, 'image', and latreia, 'adoration'. Hence, from a strictly etymological point of view, idolatry would mean nothing more than 'adoration of images'. However, the concept of idolatry originated in the con- text of the monotheism of Israel, i.e. in the application of the Second Commandment, forbidding the making of representations of the divinity. Idolatry is what was to be censured of the pagan cults by the prophets of Israel. As such the concept passed into the New Testament and early Christianity, and, ultimately, into Islam, with the result that all three great monotheisms censured idolatry. In other words, it was through Greek translators of the Bible that eidoolon acquired the meaning of 'false god': nothing but vanity, molded metal and carved wood."