After a long time the great and awful Name was forgotten and the people, men, women and children, only recognized an image of wood or stone and the temple of wood or stone which they had been brought up from infancy to serve by bowing down. ... Abraham ... knew that all were mistaken and that what caused them to err was worship of the images which drove the Truth out of their minds.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "After a long time the great and awful Name was forgotten and the people, men, women and children, only recognized an image of wood or stone and the temple of wood or stone which they had been brought up from infancy to serve by bowing down. ... Abraham ... knew that all were mistaken and that what caused them to err was worship of the images which drove the Truth out of their minds." in the context of "Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (c. 1180), Treatise 4: “Idolatry,” H. Russell, trans. (1983), pp. 72-73" to mean that wisdom is timeless.