The Torah, “Exodus” (Ki Tissa), 34:29-34:30:So Moses came down from Mount Sinai. And as Moses came down from the mountain bearing the two tablets of the Pact, Moses was not aware that the skin of his face was radiant, since he had spoken with Him. Aaron and all the Israelites saw that the skin of Moses’ face was radiant; and they shrank away from him.

The vivid story of the Torah is expressed by images and so we may think that Torah is the source of the drawing of icons and figures with a halo. But in fact, icons came into use as a means for telling ignorant people what cannot be expressed in writing since people were illiterate. So the content of the Torah was passed on orally and expressed in pictures.

The pictures are original conventional symbols, each conveying a specific event, like the “life of the holy.” This is where all the icons and from which everything that we call the “pictures of the saints” stem from. On the whole it is a means of conveying information, since in those days there were no other means but drawings.
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From KabTV’s “Secrets of the Eternal Book” 9/30/13

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