Friday, September 9, 2022

M. David Litwa on Genesis 1:26-27: Humans are iconically like God

  

In Genesis, what the "image" (εικων) of God consists of may never (and may never have been meant to) be reduced to a single element. A range of characteristics and functions have been proposed in medieval and modern theology: sexuality, relationality, reason, etc.

 

Initially, I am less interested in pinpointing the specific divine quality possessed by humans than in stating the basic fact: human beings, according to the first chapter of the Bible, are iconically like God. The fundamental likeness provides (as we see in Gen 3, 6, and 11) the basis for the further step: mixing with and potentially entering the class of divine beings.

 

Those who were part of the class of divine beings were, as we noted, called "the sons of God" (οι υιοι του θεου) (Gen 6:2; Ps 28[29]:1; 88:7 [89:6]; 81[82]:6). Divine sonship links back to the divine image, as is indicated in Gen 5:3. Here Adam begets a son "in his likeness, according to his image" (כצלמו בדמותו; κατα την ιδεαν αυτου και κατα την εικονα αυτου). The language in Gen 1:26 is similar, except for the prepositions which appear to be interchangeable: "in our image, according to our likeness" (בצלמנו כדמותנו; κατ εικονα ημετεραν και καθ ομοιωσιν). It seems, then, that even in Gen 1:26, Yahweh wants to draw humankind (אדם; ανθρωπος) into a kinship relation with himself. As an image of God, the human is a son of God. Accordingly, the author of the Gospel of Luke can write that Adam, created in God's image, is genealogically (and genetically?) speaking, "son of God" ([υιος] του θεου) (3:38; cf. 17:28b). By making mankind in the image and likeness of himself and the other divine beings (note: "Le us"), Yahweh makes humans his children and thus strikingly close to the "sons of God" who in Gen 6 and Ps 28(29):1 are part of the class of divine beings.

 

When we turn to the historical meaning of human iconicity, Hebrew Bible scholars have allowed us to see it at least in part as a morphological and thus physical similarity to Godself. In the words of Benjamin Sommer, Genesis 1:26-27 "asserts that human beings have the same form as God and other heavenly beings." The words צלם (εικων) and דמות (ομοιωσις) refer to the "physical contours" of God. To share God's image thus means to share God's corporeality. Although scholars of all stripes and times have downplayed the corporeality of God in the Jewish scriptures, the notion is unavoidable.

 

In Genesis 2.7 God blows life-giving breath into the first human—an action that might suggest that God has a mouth or some organ with which to exhale. Less ambiguously, in Genesis 3.8, Adam hears the sound of God going for a stroll in the Garden of Eden at the breezy time of the day. A being who takes a walk is a being who has a body—more specifically, a body with something closely resembling legs. As we move forward in Genesis, we are told that God comes down from heaven to earth to take a close look at the tower the humans are building (Genesis 11.5) and that God walks to Abraham's tent, where He engages in conversation. (Genesis 18) (Sommer, Bodies of God, 2).

 

Thus by making humankind iconically similar to himself, God apparently shares his bodily form. Humans become the statues (εικονες) of God ("statue" being a common meaning of εικων in Paul's day). This line of interpretation is confirmed in later Jewish literature. In Vita Adae et Evae, Adam's bodily face and likeness take on the image of God (13:3). The patriarch Isaac affirms that not preserving the body profanes the image of God (TIsaac 6:33-7:1). R. Hillel goes to the bath to take care of the image of God (his body!) (Lev. Rabb. 34.3). Likewise, when Adam shares his image with Seth, he shares his bodily form (Gen 5:3). Just as Seth is embodied in a form akin to that of Adam, so Adam in Gen 1:26-27 is embodied in a form akin to that of God. (M. David Litwa, We Are Being Transformed: Deification in Paul's Soteriology [Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 187; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012], 100-2)

 

 Further Reading:


Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment