The Image of God

I've been having this thought since I've been in Israel, and I think I've developed it enough to explain.
In earlier posts I believe I touched on my issue with the Image of Christ. If not, then here is an explanation. When I first got to the Holy Sepulchre -a giant church where the hill of Golgotha, the stone on which Jesus' body was prepared for burial, and the tomb itself are housed- I felt odd, as if I couldn't possibly imagine this man living so long ago and dying several feet away from where I was standing. It was an incredible lack of emotion, or feeling, or really anything.
This last week my group stayed for three days on the coast of Lake Galilee (inappropriately named "the Sea of Galilee" by the ancients) and we toured many archaeological and natural sites of the Galilee region. The last morning we were at the Lake, I decided to wake up early and go sit on the shore. I tried and I tried, but I couldn't see the boat, I couldn't see the storm, or the man on the water. I couldn't see the man cooking fish on the shore while his friends swam and paddled to witness his resurrection.
My mind has been muddled by the Image of God, and I believe it is too late for me. Too late to get these images out of my head, these cartoons, movies, t-shirts, paintings, even icons, that represent the image of Jesus and God.
When God said to have no graven image of him, some ancient people responded by creating standing stones, stones which were only about two feet high and completely bare of marking, smooth and cylindrical, with a round top. Others decided that icons would be a way to do this same thing, to take God from abstract to concrete. Now there are plenty of other and new ways, including crucifixes, that wrongly use the Image of God.
I think the point of not creating any graven image of God is so that humans wouldn't materialize him, or make a material thing to represent him. Though Jesus was a flesh-and-blood man, I don't think we have any right to recreate what we think he might have looked like. When people became interested in only following the graven image command to steer clear of idol worship, they created new ways of idol worship, which I have explained, which I think the graven image command covers and should be interpreted as a command against any image of God, as times and art have changed significantly over the pasr 3,250 years or so.
Interpreting that command word for word has led civilization to where it is now- apart from the reverence of the creator. The Israelites were terrified of speaking his name, and we put him on t-shirts and call him our daddy? Yes I do realize that some of this, including movies, can be helpful in advancing the gospel. But aren't there other ways? How did people evangelize before movies and literacy among the common populace? How did their ministry survive without a Jesus action figure!?
I'm well on my tangent, but I hope you are seeing my point. The Image of God is forever engrained in my vision, which has clouded my ability to feel any kind of spiritual connection to the Holy Land. Granted, capitalism + tourism + religious theme park = disaster, but thats an entirely different subject. Granted, I would get much more out of a dirty hill or cave than a magnificent cathedral, but thats an entirely different subject as well.
Think about your perception of the Image of God. What does he look like to you? What is the source of this mental image? Is God a great and powerful being, too great to physically recreate by human efforts? Or has human civilization across many cultures and centuries skewed your interpretation of the Image of God?
-Jonathan Lincoln