| Who wants to be the next Idol? |
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Who wants to be the next Idol?
Many readers of this blog will be familiar with the popular television show called “American Idol.” Did you know that there are actually a lot more “idol shows” captivating audiences around the world with their own country’s version of the American show? Taking a peek at this forum for “idol fans” from all over the world in the International Idol Shows Subforums, we see listings for:
- Asian Idol
- Bulgarian Idol (actually known as “Music Idol” – more on that after this list)
- Finland Idol
- Indonesian Idol
- Malaysian Idol
- Norwegian Idol
- Pan-Arabic Idol
- Philippine Idol
- Singapore Idol
- Vietnam Idol
- West Africa Idol
There must be a lot of idol shows going on worldwide! I'm almost positive that other countries are also running their own versions of American Idol.
In the Bulgarian version mentioned above, two of the forum members had the following exchange in this thread:
Chandelier asked: “Cool. But why do they name it Music Idol?”
Shameless responded: “because in bulgarian language the word "Idol" is more often used in its origin sense - a religious object to admire. I guess they wanted to clear up that it's a show were people sing music”
From Shameless’ response, we “learn” that the word “Idol” must come from a "religious" use of the word which apparently means “a religious object to admire.” Hmmmm... Let’s check that hypothesis with the Holy Bible. Opening your bibles to Ezekiel chapter 20 and reading verses 18 and 19, we see (using the NIV translation):
I said to their children in the desert, "Do not follow the statutes of your fathers or keep their laws or defile yourselves with their idols.
I am the Lord your God; follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”
20:18 And I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their ordinances, nor defile yourselves with their idols. 20:19 I am Jehovah your God: walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; Using Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary (Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.), we find that the Hebrew word for “idols” in verse 18 has a Strong’s number of OT:1544 leading us to "gilluwl" (pronounced ghil-lool'). Now the Hebrew word "gilluwl" literally means a wooden log and is translated by many versions of the English language bibles to simply “idol.” So if Ezekiel had ever referred to an idol as being “dead as a log,” that statement would have been deadly accurate.
There are 48 occurrences of the Hebrew word "gilluwl" in the Holy Bible and 39 of those occurrences are found in the book of Ezekiel. The word comes from the root word “galal” (pronounced gaw-lal') meaning “to roll.” Of course, logs do in fact roll. That is how the Egyptians moved those large blocks of stone to build their pyramids by placing the stones on rolling logs.
Still with me here? We might actually learn some Hebrew as a result of this blog entry.
There is another similar Hebrew word “galal” (pronounced gaw-lawl') word’s root to the former and is one Strong’s number difference from the word pronounced gaw-lal' (Strong’s OT:1556 versus OT:1557). The root word means dung (as in "excrement" balls) which can also be rolled like a log.
Sorry for the picture we’re painting here but it’s life in Ezekiel’s neighborhood.
To make things more interesting, matters worse or however you want to look at it, they used to throw these dung balls against the sides of their dwellings. The dung balls would stick to the wall (yuck!) and dry out in the sunlight making them a good source for fuel to be used in fires for cooking, heat and other applications.
[heard in the background...] “Hey John, go grab me another dried galal for the fire.” :eek:
Vine’s Expository Dictionary presents the concept of idols this way:
This word for "idols" is a disdainful word and may originally have meant "dung pellets…"
Vine’s goes on to compare other Hebrew words that have been translated to the English word “idol” and we read:
“This word and others for 'idol' exhibit the horror and scorn that biblical writers felt toward them. In passages such as Isaiah 66:3 the word for 'idol,' awen, means 'uncanny or wickedness.' Jeremiah 50:38 evidences the word emim, which means 'fright or horror.' The word elil appears for 'idol' in Leviticus 19:4; it means 'nothingness or feeble.' 1 Kings 15:13 uses the Hebrew word, mipletset, meaning a 'horrible thing, a cause of trembling.' A root signifying to make an image or to shape something, 'tsb' (a homonym of the root meaning 'sorrow and grief') is used in several passages (cf. 1 Samuel 31:9).”
(taken from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
So let me re-phrase my original question now that we know what the history behind the word "idol" is...
“Anyone still want to be considered as the next Idol?” |
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