The following question was once posed to an LDS apologetics email list I subscribe to:
What is the explanation for the many statues, monuments, etc depicting Christ, the angel Moroni and various prophets [?] Are they not which is forbidden in the 10 Commandments?
Surprisingly, among the most fundamentalist type of critics of the LDS Church, this is a common question.
Firstly, with respect to the Decalogue/Ten Commandments in Exo 20:4-5 (cf. Deut 5:8-9), we read the following:
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.
This pericope is not against the making of images per se, but their use in religious devotion, such as one bowing down to them (חוה) and serving them (עבד). That this is the case can be seen throughout the Torah itself, such as God commanding Moses to forge the brazen serpent and His using it as an instrumental means of saving the Israelites from their ordeal in the wilderness (Num 21:8-9), which the author of the Gospel of John uses as a type of Jesus Christ (John 3:14-17). Furthermore, in the historical books of the Old Testament, we read of how God commanded Solomon to make statues which would be within the temple (cf. 1 Kgs 6-8). However, such was proper as they were never the recipients of worship, and when they were, the “orthodox” response of the time was to destroy them due to the idolatry attached thereto (in the case of the serpent, it was destroyed during Hezekiah’s reforms [2 Kgs 18:4]). The LDS practice is consistent with the biblical witness—the images of Moroni adorning most LDS temples and the paintings depicting scenes in the life of Christ one finds in LDS chapels and homes, for instance, are never given veneration by members of the Church.
In the New Covenant, there are two “images” that are allowed explicitly by Jesus, namely the bread and wine (in modern LDS practice, water) that represent his body and blood as potent reminders of His atoning sacrifice (Matt 26:26-28; Mark 14:22-24; Luke 22:19-20; 1 Cor 11:23-27). However, there is no evidence that that the bread/wine, even after consecration were the recipients of worship/veneration, notwithstanding the claims of the Council of Trent commanding such Eucharistic adoration. When one examines the Greek grammar of these texts, they support the “symbolic” understanding of the Lord’s Supper.
Within early Christianity, there was an allowance for images, but again, only if they were not given any worship, such as stylised manuscripts, chalices with carvings, and even paintings. For a good historical analysis, see the work of Eastern Orthodox scholar, Stephen Bigham, Early Christian Attitudes Towards Images. To be sure, there were some early Christian writers who were totally opposed to any images whatsoever. Catholic apologist, Patrick Madrid, is forced to admit that Epiphanius (a father often abused to “prove” the assumption of Mary was known in the late fourth century) was, according to modern Catholic theology, heterodox in his views:
[Epiphanius] was not free from all error . . .[as] revealed by his fanatical opposition to icons. (Patrick Madrid, Any Friend of God’s is a Friend of Mine: A Biblical and Historical Explanation of the Catholic Doctrine of the Communion of Saints, 114).
Catholic theologian, Ludwig Ott, stated the following, showing the late development of Catholic dogma of the veneration of images (which would become defined at the Second Council of Nicea in 787):
Owing to the influence of the Old Testament prohibition of images, Christian veneration of images developed only after the victory of the Church over paganism. The Synod of Elvira (about 306) still prohibited figurative representations in the houses of God (Can. 36). The original purpose of the images was that of instruction. The veneration of images (by kissing, bowing down before them, burning of candles, incensing) chiefly developed in the Greek Church from the fifth to the seventh centuries. The Iconoclasts of the eighth and ninth centuries saw in the veneration of images a relapse into paganism. Against them St. John Damascene (died 749), the Patriarchs Germanus (died 733) and Nicephorus (died 829) of Constantinople and the Abbot Theodor of Studium (died 826) defended the Church practice. They stressed above all the relative character of the veneration and also pointed out the educational value of the images. (Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 320-21)
The Council of Trent in 1563, emphasising the teachings of Second Nicea, stated:
The holy Synod commands all bishops and others who hold the office of teaching and its administration, that in accordance with the usage of the Catholic and apostolic Church, received from primeval times of the Christian religion, and with the consensus of opinion of the holy Fathers and the decrees of sacred Councils, they above all diligently instruct the faithful on the intercession and invocation of saints, the veneration of relics, and the legitimate use of images, teaching them that the saints, who reign together with Christ, offer up their prayers to God for men; and that it is good and useful to invoke them suppliantly (DS 984)
Interestingly, Trent (and Second Nicea) are incorrect with respect to the so-called unanimous consent of the Fathers on this issue. Note the following quotes which are representative of the understanding of images by the early Christians (the following are only representative examples):
Clement, Stromata, Book II, XVIII: "The Law itself exhibits justice. it teaches wisdom by abstinence from the visible images and by inviting us to the Maker and Father of the universe." Ibid., Book V, V: "[Because God does not want us] to cling to things of sense . . .For familiarity with the sense of sight disparages the reverence of what is divine."
Origen, Against Celsus, 7.4-5: "The Scythians, the nomadic Libyans, the godless Seres, and the Persians agree in this [rejection of images] with the Christians and Jews. However, they are actuated by very different principles . . .For none of these other group abhor altars and images on the ground that they are afraid of degrading the worship of God and reducing it to the worship of material things."
Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book II, II: "What madness is it, then, either to form those objects that they themselves may afterwards fear, or to fear the things they have formed? However, they say, 'We do not fear the images themselves, but those beings after whose likeness they were formed and to whose names they are dedicated.' No doubt you fear them for this reason: because you think they are in heaven." Ibid. "So why then [since you think they are in heaven], do you not raise your eyes to heaven? Why do you not invoke their names and offer sacrifices in the open air? Why do you look to walls, wood, and stone--rather than to the place where you believe them to be? What is the meaning of temples and altars? What, in short, is the meaning of the images themselves, which are memorials either of the dead or of the absent?"
Notice that these authors were not just arguing against the use of images, but also that the veneration one gives to the images ultimately is given, not to the image, but to the heavenly prototype, which is part-and-parcel of Catholic dogmatic theology on this issue. The Catholic apologist is in the unenviable position of having to defend a dogma that is absolutely unknown to the biblical authors; is condemned as idolatrous by these very same authors, and furthermore, goes against the writers of the early Christian authors. Furthermore, it shows that Rome’s claims to infallibility on this issue, when held to the bar of both Scripture and history, are found wanting on this issue and so many other issues (e.g. the entirety of the Marian Dogmas). To see the Catholic inability to argue for their position from Scripture and so-called “tradition,” see this exchange between Robert Sungenis (RCC) and Eric D. Svendsen (Reformed) on the veneration of images here.
It is common for Catholic and Eastern Orthodox apologists to appeal to Basil, De Spiritu 18.45 as Patristic evidence for the veneration of images which would later become dogmatised in 787. As Ludwig Ott (ibid, p. 320) writes:
[T]he veneration of the image refers to the prototype (Basilius, De Spiritu S. 18, 45)
However, when one examines this passage, Basil is not speaking of images/icons; instead, he is speaking of the relationship between Jesus and God the Father, the former being the εικων of the Father (cf. Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). Nothing in context is implied about Christians venerating the physical images of Jesus, let alone the glorified saints. Here is the section from Basil's work:
For we do not count by way of addition, gradually making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three,--nor yet first, second, and third. For "I," God, "am the first, and I am the last." And hitherto we have never, even at the present time, heard of a second God. Worshipping as we do God of God, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy. We do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united in the invariableness of the Godhead, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only begotten. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king's image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype. Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the Godhead. One, moreover, is the Holy Spirit, and we speak of Him singly, conjoined as He is to the one Father through the one Son, and through Himself completing the adorable and blessed Trinity. Of Him the intimate relationship to the Father and the Son is sufficiently declared by the fact of His not being ranked in the plurality of the creation, but being spoken of singly; for he is not one of many, but One. For as there is one Father and one Son, so is there one Holy Ghost. He is consequently as far removed from created Nature as reason requires the singular to be removed from compound and plural bodies; and He is in such wise united to the Father and to the Son as unit has affinity with unit.
Interestingly, Martin Luther, while opposing the Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) understanding of images, equally opposed those who were “image-breakers” (Iconoclasts); see, for instance, his work against Andreas Karlstadt et al. from 1525, “Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments.” One can find an online edition here or consult pp. 153-301 of The Selected Works of Martin Luther, Volume 3: 1523-1526, ed. Theodore G. Tappert. I reference Luther, not because I am a huge fan of him (I am not), but because it shows that one can hold a balanced view of images; not the "all-or-nothing" approach one finds within the polemics about the propriety or lack thereof of the veneration of images (i.e. if you don't venerate images you automatically must hold to Iconoclasm).
Overall, the Latter-day Saint attitude towards images is consistent with the witness of both the Bible and earliest Christian commentators on this particular issue. While not a teaching unique to either Joseph Smith’s time period or even in the modern era, it is another (albeit, small) piece of evidence consistent with the Latter-day Saint claim to be a Restoration of New Testament Christianity.