Medieval Christian scholars attributed the invention of idolatry to Ishmael or Prometheus

Evidence

Who was the human inventor of such idolatry? Isidore has two nominees: “The Jews say that it was Ishmael who first made an idol (simulacrum) of clay. The Gentiles however say that Prometheus first presented an idol he had made out of clay and that with him was born the art making idols and statues.” Here, too, Isidore is combining the classical scholarship of Lactantius with the biblical exegesis of Jerome. Jerome, in turn, probably relied on Jewish exegetes for some of whom Ishmael made the first idols and for this was expelled from the house of his father Abraham. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 130

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Islamic tradition naming Ishmael (Ismail) as ancestor of Arabs — here a Christian/Jewish exegetical tradition assigns him a dark origin story for idolatry, which bears on later Christian polemic against Islam.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: whether Jerome’s Jewish sources reflect an actual early Jewish tradition about Ishmael making idols, and whether that tradition later fed into Christian or Muslim Arab genealogy narratives.