Ooof...interesting question, but there's no simple answer.
This was actually a question of great debate in the days of the Byzantine Empire post Constantine, and the ruling on what constitutes idolatry changed quite often.
The discussions were of broad interest in the community, and the views of different leaders were basically barracked for in a way somewhat similar to political parties now.
Yes, it is interesting. I am singing an anthem "Ascribe Unto the Lord", which contains gleeful contempt of idols: "As for the gods of heathen they are but idols. The have mouths but speak not. Ears have they, but hear not. Noses have they, but smell not." And so on.
It strikes me as rather silly. No serious religion, surely, would imbue a man-made representation with actual divinity. These "idols" of the gods of the heathen therefore must be, just as statues and religious pictures today,
depictions of a divinity, made to help focus the mind of the worshipper on the divinity represented, not the object itself. If so, what is the issue? We use words and music to do the same thing, so why a prohibition on visual representations, specifically?
I am curious about this. Maybe it is that, in Judaism, God is thought of as inexpressible in human terms and it is demeaning God to even try. I can see the logic in that, certainly. Is this right, do you think?
But then Christianity is different in that God became man, and so the man can be represented without demeaning God. Ditto for the saints, who are venerated, but not worshiped, in many branches of Christendom.
