First,
it should be noted that the word used for image, Hebrew ṣelem, is
regularly employed elsewhere in the Old Testament to denote the physical
representation of something, most frequently images of pagan gods (Nom. 33.52;
2 Kgs 11.18; 2 Chron. 23.17; Ezek. 7.20; 16.17; Amos 5.26). The only other
examples are images of the Chaldaeans (Ezek. 23.14) and of tumours and mice (1
Sam. 6.5 [x2]; 6.11). Further, the biblical Aramaic cognate ṣelēm,
ṣalmā’ is used eleven times in Dan. 3.1-8 of the statue of a pagan god
that the people are commanded to worship by Nebuchadrezzar, and the same
Aramaic word occurs several times in Dan. 2.31-35 of the statue symbolizing the
four world empires in Nebuchadrezzar’s dream. It may seem surprising that a
word which is used overwhelmingly of pagan images should be employed in Genesis
of humanity’s high dignity. However, the fact that its meaning was not confined
to idols but could refer to an image generally, meant that it was acceptable.
The
word ‘likeness’ (Hebrew demût) tends to be more abstract in
meaning. Sometimes it means ‘appearance, form’, though on occasion it is used
in the comparison of two things. Most frequently it is used in Ezekiel’s
visions, where it sometimes seems to make the comparison more approximate and
less definite (e.g. Ezek. 1.5, 26; 8.2; 10.1). So some think that in Genesis it
is used to make humanity’s physical resemblance to God a bit more approximate
and less definite. However, there are three places in the Old Testament where
the word demût is not abstract but a physical depiction of
some kind; cf. 2 Kgs 16.10, ‘a model (demût) of the altar,’ 2
Chron. 4.3, ‘figures (demût) of oxen’, and Ezek. 23.15, ‘a
picture (demût) of Babylonians’. (Note that in Ezek. 23.14 ṣelem,
‘image’, is likewise used of the Chaldeans [Babylonians].) Interestingly, in a
bilingual Aramaic-Akkadian inscription on a ninth-century statue of Hadad-yis’i,
king of Gozan, discovered at Tell Fekheriyeh in Syria, the Aramac cognates ṣelēm
and demûtā’ are both employed to render the Akkadian word ṣalmu,
‘image’, used of the statue. Ultimately, it is likely that there is no great
difference between the ‘likeness’ and ‘image’ of God in Genesis, seeing that
both terms are used interchangeably as noted earlier.
Second,
very tellingly, in Gen. 5.3 we read that ‘Adam . . . became the father of a son
in his likeness, after his image and named him Seth’. It will be noted that the
identical terminology of Gen. 1.26-27 about humanity being made in the image
and likeness of God is employed here. Moreover, just two verses before Gen. 5.3
in v. 1, we read that ‘When God created humanity, he made them in the likeness
of God’. Since Seth’s likeness to Adam undoubtedly implies a physical
resemblance, the natural conclusion is that there is similarly a physical
likeness between God and human beings.
Thirdly,
in addition to frequent references to Yahweh’s body parts, it ought to be noted
that the Old Testament sometimes envisages God as appearing in human form (cf.
Gen. 18.1-2; 32.24-25, 30). Perhaps the most well-known example is Isaiah’s
famous vision in Isaiah 6, where the prophet ‘saw the Lord sitting upon a
throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple’. But most relevant
for our present purpose is Ezek. 1.26, where the prophet states that in his
vision of God he ‘saw a likeness as the appearance of a human being’. It is
significant that Ezekiel was priest, not so long before the Priestly account of
creation in Genesis 1 was written. Moreover, the word ‘likeness’ (Hebrew demût),
which Ezekiel uses in Ezek. 1.26 (cf. 8.2), is the same word that the Priestly
sources employs in Gen. 1.26 to denote humanity’s likeness to God. Ezekiel’s
statement that God had ‘a likeness as the appearance of human being/man’ and
Genesis’s statement that humanity was made in the likeness of God sound like
the obverse and reverse of each other.
Fourthly,
it should be noted that God says, ‘Let us make humanity in our image . .
. ‘ There is general agreement amongst Old Testament scholars that God is here
addressing his heavenly court, the angels, since, as ready noted, in Hebrew the
verb has no royal plural, and there is no evidence for a plural of exhortation.
Accordingly a point often overlooked is that humanity is made in the image of
the angels, and not merely of God. Now there is good evidence that angels were
envisaged as being in human form. Compare, for example, the angel Gabriel, who
is described in Dan. 8.15 and 10.18 as ‘one having the appearance of a man’ and
in Dan. 10.16 as ‘one in the likeness of the sons of men’. Again, in Genesis
19, those referred to as angels in v. 1 are called men in v. 5.
So
it seems likely that human beings were thought to have a similar physical
appearance to God, and that this is at least part of what the image of God in
humanity includes. To the objection that men and woman do not have an identical
appearance, L. Koehler (L. Koehler, ‘Die Grundstelle der Imago-Dei-Lehre’. TZ
4 [1948], pp. 16-22) argued that we could think more generally of human beings
sharing upright form as what constitutes their resemblance to God. With him we
may compare Ovid’s Metamorphoses 1.83-86, where Prometheus ‘moulded them
into the image of all-controlling gods’ and in contrast to the animals, ‘gave
human being an upturned aspect . . . and upright’. (John Day, “’So God Created
Humanity In His Own Image’ (Genesis 1.27): What Does the Bible Mean and What
Have People Thought it Meant?,” in From Creation to Abraham: Further Studies
in Genesis 1-11 [London: T&T Clark, 2022], 30-32)
In a footnote to the above, we
read that
[Similar
to Ezek 1:26] Ezek. 8.2, referring to God, the prophet says he saw ‘the
likeness (demût) as the appearance of a man’. It is generally
accepted that the LXX preserves the original reading, ‘man’, and that the last
word in the Hebrew text, ēš, ‘fire’, should be emended to ‘îš, ‘man’.
The parallel description in Ezek. 1.27 confines the fire to the lower part of
the divine body, which supports this emendation in Ezek. 8.2, as does the
personal possessive in ‘his loins’, later in the verse. The occurrence of ‘fire’
later in Ezek. 8.2 could well have given rise to the confusion. (Ibid., 31 n.
33)
Further Reading:
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
