Genesis 1:26-28 - Exegetical Odds and Ends

For the text and a translation of Genesis 1:26-28, go to the previous post entitled: Is Genesis 1:27 Poetry?

 The most plausible explanation for the first person plural in 1:26 (‘let us make’) is that God is addressing his heavenly court and makes them co-responsible for the action he will take. The usage is comparable to that of Gen 11:7 ('Let us go down') and Isa 6:8 ('Who will go for us?'). The thought that human beings are made ‘like’ both God and the members of the heavenly court is close to that of Ps 8:6, where God is said to have ‘made [humanity] little less than divine’ (like God and ‘the sons of God’ or ‘gods,’ as God’s celestial retinue is variously called).

Clines’ long essay on “The Image of God in Man” is readily available and makes for a delightful read.[1] His conclusion that in Gen 1:26-28 humankind is charged with being God’s representative on earth in the sense of exercising lordship over the animal kingdom stands up to critical scrutiny.

In view of ‘let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness,’ one might add the following observation. The exercise of dominion over the animal kingdom makes humankind like God who is lord and master of all, and like the members of the heavenly court each of whom is charged, as is said elsewhere, with being the lord and patron of one of the earth’s nations.[2]

But if dominion over the zoo sphere is exercised irresponsibly, it seems safe to conclude that humankind then falls under the same sentence of death as do the gods in Ps 82, whose malfeasance as champions of justice among the nations leads to the lord of all calling them to account.

For a printable version of this post, go here .

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[1] David Clines, "The Image of God in Man" TynBul 19 (1968) 53-103; online here.

[2] See MT Deut 4:19 and OG Deut 32:8. It seems likely that Deut 32:8 originally concluded with בני אל as in 4QDt^j, and that 32:9 originally began with ויהי (reflected in G καί ε̉γενήθη). For a discussion, see Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation [and] Commentary (JPSTC; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996) 302-303, 402-403, 513-18, 546-47. A historical setting for a series of ancient emendations at Gen 46:27; Exod 1:5; and Deut 32:8, 43 is hypothesized by Arie van der Kooij, “Ancient Emendations in MT,” in L’Ecrit et l’Esprit: Etudes d’histoire du text et de théologique biblique en homage à Adrian Schenker (ed. Dieter Böhler, Innocent Himbaza, and Philippe Hugo; OBO 214; Fribourg/Göttingen: Academic Press / Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005) 152-159; 155-59.

Comments

[ElShaddai Edwards]

Thanks very much for the pointer to the David Cline essay. I suspect that an understanding of the Hebrew text and critical apparatus would have improved my reading, but the article was well worth reading nonetheless.

I was modestly pleased to see some of the thoughts that I'd jotted down in "Shadows of the Almighty" appear as faint echoes of the works critiqued by Cline.

[Brett Bader]

i flirt with disaster when God tells me to write better.