Commenting on Gen 1:26 and the meaning of the Hebrew term “likeness,” two Hebrew Bible scholars wrote in a recent volume:
Although hitherto no equivalent of דְּמוּת has turned up in Ugarit, the terms describing the likeness to God of human beings in Gen. 1:26 are simply taken over from the same terms other Canaanites used to describe a cult image of a king. In any case the idea that humankind reflected the physical appearance and spiritual excellence of the deity more than any other creature is definitely attested in the ancient Near East, also in Ugarit (Therefore it is unwarranted to overemphasize the uniqueness and theological importance of Gen. 1:26-27 as is done by many colleagues, even by Middleton 2005. It is also unwarranted to reduce the likeness to purely functional similarity, cf. Schellenberg 2009, 100-101. In observing these points we do not want to deny at all that the reverse—the anthropormorphousness of deities—is far more prominent in the ‘Umwelt’ of Israel. (Marjo C.A. Korpel and Johannes C. de Moor, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent: A New Beginning [2d ed.; Hebrew Bible Monographs, 65; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015), 122)
Such is further scholarly evidence supporting the long-standing Latter-day Saint interpretation of Gen 1:26 and the non-LDS attempt to empty the theology of the verse to only moral likeness is pure eisegesis and reflects nothing but desperation.
