Day 6: Animals and Humanity (1:24-31)

Day 6: Animals and Humanity (1:24-31)

²⁴ Elohim said, "Let the earth produce living creatures according to their type: beast and swarmer and land animal according to its type. And it happened. ²⁵ Elohim made the land animal according to its type, and the beast according to its type, and the swarmer of the ground according to its type. Elohim saw that it was good. ²⁶ Elohim said, "Let us make humanity as our image, according to our likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea, the bird of the heavens, the beast, the whole earth, and all the swarmers which swarm on the earth. ²⁷ And God created humanity as his image: as the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. ²⁸ And God blessed them and God said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth and dominate it and rule the fish of the sea, birds of the heavens, and every swarming creature on the earth." (1:24-28)

    As with the third day, there were two distinct creative acts on the sixth day. First, God created the animals to live on land. Then, in a separate act, God created humanity. This last act of creation is set off from the others in two ways. Instead of saying, "Let there be humanity" God said, "Let us make humanity." And humanity is the only entity whose creation is related to the image of God.

    God said, "Let us make humanity in our image." The act of creating humanity was so momentous that God sought the approval and cooperation of the divine council, the heavenly court that attends the Most High. This underscores the importance of humanity. In addition, it implies that the image of God, to which humanity was to be related, was something common to God and angels.

See Table 1.B for evidence of the divine council in biblical literature.

    A couple of important points should be noted with regard to the image of God. Whatever it is, male and female alike are related to it. Furthermore, God's blessing is somehow associated with being created in God's image. This blessing is to be realized as growth and fruitfulness, as well as power and rulership. Verses 29-31 detail all the created elements that God places under human dominion. And at the conclusion of the sixth day God declares that everything was "very good" using the qualifier "very" for the first time.
    The image of God notion is central to a biblical and theological understanding of the nature of humanity. At the very least it posits that we have something in common with God. Furthermore, it defines who we are and what we should do. Humanity was created as the image of God on earth to represent and implement God's rule. Done rightly, this would lead to blessing and benefit for all of God's world.

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Statue of Adad-iti The statue of king Adad-iti from Tell-Fekheriyeh contains an Assyrian inscription, also translated into Aramaic, dedicating the statue to the god Adad. In it the king acknowledged that Adad was his lord and was the one who had blessed him. It also memorialized the king's rule over the territory of Guzan in Assyria, and in the words of the text was to function "for perpetuating his throne, for the length of his rule." The Aramaic translation contains the words statue and image, which are linguistically equivalent to the Hebrew terms likeness and image found in Genesis 1:26. This suggests that Genesis 1 may have deliberately used the statue notion to describe humanity (Millard and Bordreuil 1982). Damascus Archaeological Museum, Syria -- Photo courtesy of Wayne Pitard

Image of God. What exactly is meant by the phrase "image of God"? Many theologians have made suggestions (see Clines 1968 for a review of the proposals).
    Some suggest the image of God has to do with the spiritual qualities of God that humans originally shared with him, qualities such as wisdom and righteousness. Others suggest that the image of God has to do in some way with a physical shape or form that we have in common with God. This view, which implies that God has arms and legs, is usually rejected. Still others, including theologian Karl Barth, note how being made in the image of God is followed immediately by the words, "male and female he created them." This, they say, means that in God, as in humanity, there is relationship within unity. Being made in the image of God, therefore, means that interpersonal relationship is the essential characteristic of personhood. Giving it another twist, others suggest the mention of male and female makes explicit that both males and females image, or reflect, God, that God has both male and female components. Being so concise and without elaboration, the text can only be suggestive. So how can we decide what it means?
    As always, the text itself provides the essential clues. The image of God specified in verses 26-27 is immediately followed by the mandate to rule and have dominion. This in itself suggests that the image of God is not something we have, but it is something we do. Humanity was created to model God's (and the Divine Council's) ruling function on the new earth God had created. Humanity was created as God's image rather than in it. As such the image of God notion is a royal concept.
    In Egypt and Mesopotamia a ruling king could be described as the image or the likeness of a god. A conquering monarch in Mesopotamia would install statues of himself in the territories subject to his rule. These statues would be visible evidence of his claim to authority. It would remind citizens that he was in charge. In a similar way, according to Genesis 1, humanity was to represent the rule of God on earth, and put that rule into effect. Humans are to function as walking, talking images of God, created by God's authority, and designed to rule the earth on his behalf. Curtis (1990) defines the role of the divine statue in the religion and society of ancient Mesopotamia as "a local representation of the deity." We are not to infer anything about the physical shape of God from the fact that humanity is God's "statue." Rather, the text is saying that humanity was created to perform a unique function, to be a reminder of God's rule and to rule the earth as God's agents.

"Let us make . . . " The description of this last act differs from all the preceding acts. Instead of "Let there be . . . " God said, "Let us make . . . . " A similar reference to the divine "us" is found in 3:22 and 11:7. To whom was God speaking? There are three possibilities.
    1. Royal Plural. God was simply thinking out loud, talking to himself. Supporters of this position point to the fact that Elohim, the word for God, is grammatically plural. This might account for the plural "us." A variation is to call this the "plural of majesty," which royal officials preferred others use when addressing them, something like "your Highness."
    2. Holy Trinity. Those trained in Christian theology see a reflection of the Trinity here. God the Father was conferring with God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This option is remote, however. Certainly the early writer of this passage had no conception of a Trinity. That doctrine is only a much later theological development. The first control on our interpretation is, What could the original writer have meant?
    3. Divine Council. Based on an analysis of similar notions in the Hebrew Bible, the most likely reading is that "us" refers to the Divine Council. The Divine Council was thought to be the governing assembly of angelic divine beings that supervised the world with God. The angels, called "sons of God" in other texts, were the parliament of heaven. A good example of this notion is in Job 1-2, where the "sons of God" met in session with Yahweh and the accuser (the satan) to evaluate the sincerity of Job's piety.