Another Look at צלם Meaning of "Image of God" (Gen 1:26-27)

Male and Female as

the Image of God

by August H. Konkel

April 1992

Διοασκαλια (Journal “Didaskalia”)

A primary text for the Biblical doctrine of being in God's image as male and female is Genesis 1:26-27. The starting point for understanding the significance of these verses must be the function of the keywords within an ancient near eastern context. The use of the words likeness (Hebrew dmwt) and image (Hebrew slm) is best illustrated in the oldest known Aramaic inscription, found at the edge of a ruined city now known as Tell Fekherye close to the Syrian-Turkish frontier. The inscription was found in 1979 by a farmer enlarging his field with a bulldozer. The inscription is on a life size basalt statute of a man standing with his hands clasped at the waist and wearing a short sleeved tunic that reaches down to his ankles. The inscription is a dedication of a statue of Hadad-yis'i, ruler of Guzan, to the storm god Hadad. The word dmwt (Aramaic lines 1 & 15) is used in an exact parallel with the word slm (Aramaic lines 12 & 16) to describe the image. This is the same pair of words found in parallel in Genesis 1:26 to describe mankind in the image of God (cf. Gen 5:1,3). It is significant that the words appear to be used interchangeably, and therefore need not occur in a consistent order, just as we find in Genesis (cf. Gen 5:3). It is also notable that likeness (dmwt) does not qualify image (slm) but is a term parallel with it. Both terms are interchangeable as a reference to the statue itself.

The statue represents the dedicator, the king of Guzan, whose name is Hadad-yis'i, meaning "Hadad is my salvation." Hadad, equivalent to the biblical Baal, was the name of the storm God of Syria and Mesopotamia, and other sources prove he was a leading deity at Guzan. This statue, dedicated to him, is indicative of his standing. The statue is the image of the king who offers his obeisance to the god and who seeks prosperity from him in return. The image is either a slm or a dmwt, indicating that the use of the latter term in Genesis 1:26 is not a theologically motivated qualification of the more concrete slm as is frequently asserted. The Genesis text is unequivocally asserting that man as a physical being represents God, just as a statute would represent a king or a god. There seems to have been a fluidity in terminology between living, visible images and their static representations in stone, wood, or metal.

 

Kerry's note - I thought it interesting that the words are used of a physical likeness and image of what that statue was to represent, and that physically. In other words, as this ancient construct of the Aramaic and Hebrew is used, we are to understand the composers of the Bible understood that it is our physicality which represented God, who also has arms, legs, mouth, head, etc. It is a physical likeness, not an ephemeral "moral" likeness as some commentators wish it to mean.

Comments

[WalkerW]

Nice find Kerry. Is the entire article online?

[Kerry Shirts]

I am not sure. I got it through a friend.

[Calba Savua]

It is nice to have an outside source to complement the biblical usage.