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I have had the same question about it and am excited to see if someone will respond with there opinions.

so it should also be listed under

depicting an idol in the reg?

It depends on how you look at it.  It was good that an idol was destroyed to get people back on track for God.  It was bad that something good that had been given to protect the Israelites so long ago had to be destroyed because of what they had turned it into.

Agreed

so it should also be listed under

depicting an idol in the reg?

So would King Ahaziah (PC) be able to get it from discard?

The Elder/playtest team had a pretty thorough discussion on what "depicts an idol" means awhile back. If I recall correctly, the conclusion was that the card had to depict something that was constructed for the purpose of worship of a false god. Since originally the brass serpent was not constructed as an idol, but was later used as one, DoN doesn't qualify. This helps us to avoid it only issues with Ahaziah recursion (not that recurring Dominants should never be done, but it should certainly take more effort than what Ahaziah would require) but it also avoids more philosophical questions on whether Thiity Pieces of Silver or Denarius depict idols, etc.

Yes, technically it should be a good card. However, at the time it was released, Redemption needed a way to get rid of artifacts outside of battle. Since most artifacts at that time benefited offense, discarding an artifact would have been evil. Also, for the purpose of Type 2, if a new dominant was to be added, it needed to be evil.

Remember that, in the end, this is still just a game that has to meet its own needs to survive. Literal theology is not going to be the primary basis for card decisions.