YHWH
AND HIS CELESTIAL ENTOURAGE
The first item to be considered is
YHWH’s use of the plural pronouns in v. 26. In short, while his language has
caused confusion for later interpreters, it is fundamentally near eastern. His
language conjures the image of a creator deity, surrounded by a celestial entourage,
about to bring his creative process to its climax. This image would make perfect
sense in the near eastern world. In Mesopotamian cosmogonies, the heavenly
world was already populated by the time humanity came into being. Even Egyptian
cosmogonies, which boasted of a creator who was initially alone, claimed that
other deities had come into existence by the time humanity entered the scene.
Nevertheless, the possibility that God
was not alone when he created humankind presents certain difficulties that have
led Jewish and Christian interpreters to look for alternative readings of Gen
1.26. The only interpretation that might make some sense in a historical rather
than theological context is that some interpreters call a ‘plural of majesty’ (pluralis
maiestatis). As a king, this camp insist, YHWH was referring to himself and
others but only to himself (v. 26). W. Garr points out this resembles a
number of plural nouns used of God (e.g., Gen 1; Dt 10.17; Hos 12.1; Prov 9.10;
30.3; Ps 136.3). So there is some precedent for interpreting Gen 1.26 in this
way. However, YHWH here employs a possessive plural pronoun, not a noun, and as
Garr observes there is no attestation of a majestic plural pronoun in the
entire Hebrew Bible. As G. Hasel states, ‘there is no linguistic or grammatical
basis upon which the “us” can be considered a plural of majesty’. What is more,
Levenson insists that there is no evidence of such language being used in the biblical
world. As he writes, ‘it is important to remember that the “royal we” was not
part of the vocabulary of kings of individuals gods in the ancient Near East’.
In the Ancient Near East, it was
assumed that by the time the gods created humans, other gods also existed in
heaven. The Israelites imagined those primeval moments of creation the same
way. The Priestly writers were monotheists, but they were ancient near eastern
monotheists. When they conceived of the primordial moments of creation, they
imagined a deity who was not alone. They may have imagined him as the chief God
among gods or as the only true god among a host of beings we would call ‘angels’.
Regardless, in making use of what M. Smith calls the ‘traditional language of
the world, these writers imagined YHWH as making a declaration not those around
him: ‘Let us make humankind in our imagine, according to our likeness’
(v. 26). (Tyson L. Putthoff, Gods and Humans in the Ancient Near East [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2020], 139-40)
The ’Image’ (צלם) and ‘Likeness’ (דמות)
According to the Priestly account, YHWH
crafted the ‘image’ (צלם) according to his ‘likeness’ (דמות). Scholars debate
the relationship between צלם and דמות. The term Heb appears a number of times
in Priestly writings (Gen 1.26; 5.1, 3; Ezek 1.5, 10, 13, 16, 11, 16; 8.2;
10.1, 10, 21, 22, 23.15). According to Gen 1.2, God created humanity in his
image ‘according to our likeness’ (כדמויבנו). A recap of 1.26 then comes in
5.1, which sets the context for a discussion of Adam and his lineage (תולדת).
This text does not state that God created humanity ‘in his image’, as in 1.26,
but instead ‘in his likeness’ (בדמות). In 5.3 we then learn that Adam bore a
son ‘in his likeness, according to his image’ (בדמותו כצלמו) called Seth.
The key to any interpretation of דמות in
Gen 1.26 is to understand that it cannot be separated from צלם. While the
meaning of צלם has proven difficult for interpreters, its physical nature
becomes undeniable when combined with דמות. In a near eastern context, the idea
of a material cult object (צלם) that shared in the physical form (דמות) of a
god made perfect sense. The physicality of this cult object is especially clear
when we consider the relationship between the Semitic צלם (Heb.) and ṣalmu (Akk.).
As Garr writes, ‘not only is the Akkadian expression, ṣalmu “image”,
perfectly cognate to its later, Hebrew relative. ṣelem and ṣalmu also share a number of “functional
equivalencies”’. He adds that the ‘ṣalmu provides an unusually
compelling an detailed correlate to the biblical “image”’. Like an Akkadian ṣalmu,
a צלםwas a specific type of cult object that resembled the god who created it
(vv. 26-27).
The צלם in Gen 1 receives a particularly
theomorphic form, as it is explicitly identified as being made ‘according to’ (כ)
the physical appearance of its creator In this light, Humbert’s interpretation of
צלם as a physical statue—an effigie extérieure—makes best sense in a
near eastern framework. Or as Garr writes, ‘humanity, then’ is (like) a
theophany’.
Scholars try to avoid interpreting the
צלם and דמות in such physical terms. P. Davies asserts that this reluctance to ‘allow
that the god has a shape that is the same as a human one’ is ‘inspired by the
presence of a theological agenda’. However, in the ancient world, gods had
bodies. Thus, an image would naturally have been understood as a physical representation
of a god (or king). Seeing the image in Gen 1.26-27 in physical terms simply
made the most sense.
C. Crouch argues that ‘all the
creative manoeuvring around the apparent physicality’ of the biblical image ‘was
effectively arrested by the discovery of’ the bilingual Aramaic-Akkadian inscription
on a statue of king Hadd-Yith’i from Tell Fekheriye. In the inscription, the
Aramaic terms צלמא and דמותא (‘likeness’) appear next to one another. Garr
argues that both צלמא and דמותא refer to the physical statue of the king.
Crouch also maintains that both terms refer ‘to the unequivocally physical
statue in question’. In M. Stol insists that ‘these words are not synonyms in
the inscription: dmwt pictures or reproduces somebody or something, and ṣlm
is the object representing him or it’. Crouch adds that, in the wake of this
discovery, scholars agree more and more than in Gen 1.26-27, צלם and דמות refer
to the physical aspect of the human creature.’
When paired together, these terms
communicate a rather clear idea. One term (צלם) refers to the cult object YHWH
created. YHWH created a ‘statue’ from the earth (2.7 . . . ) The other term (דמות)
refers to the form or shape of the cult object. In this sense, it was, as Garr
calls it, a ‘theophany’. For YHWH created the ‘statue’ to resemble him
physically.
As YHWH expected his image to
participate in his rule over the earth (Gen 1.26, 28), he knew that it had to
look like him. This was true of any ruler or god. Thu, if Ramesses II or Narām-Sîn
wanted to expand his presence throughout the earth, he would establish images
that looked like himself. This was the only way onlooker would know which
god-king was watching them. Likewise, YHWH created the image to resemble him
physically, for he fully intended it to be the visible manifestation of him in
the world, his cosmic temple.
It is safe to say that צלם and דמות are
not synonyms, even if they are closely related. One indicates what YHWH created
to represent him (צלם), while the other indicates the shape (דמות) of the
object once it was finished. The צלם was none other than a statue that
physically represented the creator deity, after whom it derived its physical
shape (דמות). (Tyson L. Putthoff, Gods and Humans in the Ancient Near East [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2020], 143-45)
Fashioning the Statue
In addition to calling YHW by name
(i.e., ‘YHWH God’), the Yahwist’s account offers important detail about how YHWH
constructed the human and what he used to do so. For one thing, he used ‘dust
of the ground’ (עפר מן-האדמה) to give the human its basic shape. As we saw in
earlier chapters, ritual texts often provide detail about the material used to
construct cult objects. Craftsmen were to follow precise orders in choosing
materials from which to construct gods’ bodies, just as gods were deliberate
about the material they used to create the human body. The Yahwists have
followed this custom, depicting YHWH as having created the human from the material
stuff of the earth. Not surprisingly, like their Egyptian Mesopotamian and
Hittite neighbours, the Israelites believed that the human body was ontologically
related to the material cosmos. Earth-stuff was the fundamental ingredient from
which YHWH created the human body.
Additionally, whereas P states simply
that YHWH ‘created’ (ברא) the human (1.27), J states that he ‘formed’ (יצר) it
from the earthly material (2.7, 8). Cognates of the Hebrew יצר include the Ugaritic
yṣr, Phoenician yṣr, Akkadian eṣēru, which was used of craftsmen
who would make ‘reliefs’ (uṣṣuru) or statues as effigies of the gods or
kids they resembled. Like the cognates, יצר conveys the picture of a craftsman
carefully shaping an object into form (Exod 32.4). when the Yahwists imagined
the human’s first moments or existence, they envisioned YHWH as a skilled
craftsman giving shape to the lump of earth until it resembled him and his divine
council. Here again, it is hard not to see the physical nature of humanity’s
resemblance of God. (Tyson L. Putthoff, Gods and Humans in the Ancient Near
East [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020], 146-47)
The Ontological-Functional Interpretation of
the Image
As we have seen, the consensus among biblical
scholars is to offer a functional interpretation of the ‘image of God’ in Gen
1-2. In a well-known statement, von Rad writes:
Just as powerful earthly kings, to indicate
their claim to dominion, erect an image of themselves in the provinces of their
empire where they do not personally appear, so man is placed upon earth in God’s
image as God’s sovereign emblem.
von rad is correct to a certain point.
YHWH did establish the human-image to indicate his ‘claim to dominion’ over the
earth. However, Gen 1-2 makes clear that this image was much more than a
propaganda piece. Propagandistic images were established in locations where
they were visible to onlookers. Rulers wanted everyone who saw them to know who
was in charge. Thus in Egypt and Mesopotamia, rulers placed images of themselves
in distant locations for this reason. Similarly, in these cultures the king was
the ‘image of God/gods’ in the sense that he carried out the divine rule on
earth on behalf of the gods. The image therefore carried out an important
function. It extended the rule of the gods or kings in locations where they
were physically absent.
Indeed, the royal flavour of Gen 1
cannot be missed. YHWH is the divine king who issues decrees and who has commissioned
his ‘image’ to carry out his rule on earth on his behalf. However, the
narrative is also fundamentally cultic in nature. It concerns the way YHWH
built his cosmic temple and established his image inside it. In this sense, it
is not about a king establishing an image of himself in a remote region of his
empire, as von Rad claims. Rather, it is about a god establishing his image in
his temple.
As we have seen, images in temples
were always cultic before they were propagandistic. They may have declared to
worshippers who was in charge, and they may have extended the rule of the god
on earth. But because they were situated inside temples, they were not primarily
intended to be seen by the masses. Instead, they were to be worshipped as if
they deity were inside them. In this regard, the functioned as the physical
body of the god or ruler they represented and not just a symbol or extension
of the god’s rule.
In this light, the functional interpretation
Gen 1-2 is incomplete without the embodied interpretation. Schüle is correct
that there was both a functional and a cultic aspect of the image. A deity
would never establish his or her image in a temple as a mere ‘representational
copy. Rather, the image was always intended to be the ‘embodied double’ of a
deity who was very much present. The image because a living embodiment of the
deity inside. Contrary to Levenson’s argument, the human was not just ‘God’s
royal stand-in’. It was not to go out on behalf of the distant god as an
ambassador in a foreign land acting on behalf of the king back home. Instead,
the ‘image’ was the bearer of the presence and power of the divine in God’s
cosmic temple.
This is precisely what YHWH created his
image to be and do. It was not simply a symbol or participant in his rule in distant
lands. Rather, it was his cult body and his temple attendant, in which he might
reside and through which he might maintain order within his cosmic temple. As
Herring explains:
This is not, first and foremost, royal
ideology, wherein humanity is given the title and role of king over the earth.
It is more drastic than that: humanity is given the place primarily occupied by
the statue of the gods in the ancient Near East and secondarily by kings and
other temple officials.
Far from a stand-in for God, the
human-image in Gen 1-2 was an incarnation of a deity who was very much present
in his comic temple in this, his very own (human) physical body. (Tyson L.
Putthoff, Gods and Humans in the Ancient Near East [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2020], 153-54)
