Bart D.
Ehrman provides the following translation of 1 Clement 33:3-4:
For he established the heavens by his
all-superior power, and by his incomprehensible understanding he set them in
order. And he separated the earth from the water that surrounded it, and
established it upon the firm foundation of his own will. By his own decree he
commanded the living creatures that roam about on it to come into being. Having
prepared in advance the sea and all the living beings in it, he then enclosed
them by his power. And with his holy and
perfect hands he formed the one who was preeminent and superior in
intelligence to all, the human, stamped with his own image. (Bart D. Ehrman, The New Testament and Other Early Christian
Writings: A Reader [2d ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 311)
The phrase
translated as “holy and perfect hands” is the Greek ταῖς ἱεραῖς καὶ ἀμώμοις
χερσὶν (alt. “the holy and without blemish hands”). While “hands,” “eyes,” and
other terms can and are used in Scripture and non-canonical literature as
metaphors, this does not seem to be the case in this text, as the difference between
God’s “hands” and the “hands” of mankind are due to the former’s being holy and
without blemish, not that they are metaphorical in contrast to being real for
the latter.
For more, see, for e.g.:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
