The history of the interpretation of the imago dei is extraordinarily rich in
theological insight, but we must not overlook what it means when read in its
textual and cultural context. What, then, does it mean for God to create
humanity in God’s image, after God’s likeness? Like its cognate in other
Semitic languages (e.g. Akkadian ṣalmu),
the Hebrew term for ‘image’ (ṣelem),
can refer to a replica of a cult object or ex voto (1 Sam. 6:5, 11), a painting
(Ezek. 16:47; 23:14), or even an evanescent or phantom figure, a silhouette,
the shadowy image of a person (Pss 39:7; 73:20). More commonly, however, it
denotes a statue, especially a statue of a deity, what in biblical terms is
called an idol (e.g. Num. 33:52; 2 Kgs 11:18; Amos 5:26). The word translated
‘likeness’ (děmût), on the other
hand, often has a more general and abstract meaning. The abundant
iconographical repertoire available shows how the identity and function of the
deity are exhibited by symbolic correspondences, whether garments, headdress or
objects emblematic of the deity in question held in the hand. For obvious
reasons, the religious function of the image is often deliberately
misrepresented in biblical polemic. For its devotees, however, the image is a
powerful object which focuses the psychological and spiritual energies of the worshipper
and re-presents the deity, in other words, makes the deity present. A close
analogy is the invocation of the deity’s name. To invoke the name solemnly in
an act of worship is to make present and available the power of the deity;
hence the close parallelism between the image and the name in the Decalogue. An
analogous instance is the calling out of the name of the demon in rituals of
exorcism as a means of making it present and subject to the control of the
exorcist, a practice we still memorialize when we say ‘speak of the devil and
he will appear’. (Joseph Blenkinsopp, Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation: A Discursive Commentary on Genesis
1-11 [London: T&T Clark, 2011], 27-28)
Lynn Wilder vs. Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) Theology on Divine Embodiment
D. Charles Pyle, I Have Said Ye are Gods: Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament (Revised and Supplemented)
