The Divine Pointer

Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; Genesis 1:26a

Image – Biblical words about the creator of humanity have occupied theologians for centuries.  Most of that time has been spent trying to determine what precisely is meant by the term “human.”  Since the Bible uses both ṣelem (translated “image”) and dĕmût (translated “likeness”), readers have tried to connect the two words to some duality in essence or purpose.  But Abraham Heschel has a brief comment that might reorient all these attempts.  Speaking about the interpretation of Genesis 1:26 by Hillel and Akiva, he writes:

For Hillel, the doctrine of man’s divine image clarifies the nature of human greatness; for Rabbi Akiva it teaches us about the Holy and Blessed One and the extent to which human deeds affect what happens above (‘diminishing the Image’). Moreover, the expression itself, et ha-demut, ‘the Image,’ makes it evident that its purpose is not to indicate the nature of humanity but to point to the existence of the Divine.[1]

Heschel’s remark suggests that these two biblical terms serve different purposes.  While ṣelem may be about human nature, dĕmût is about the divine.  It doesn’t describe another aspect of humanity.  Rather, it points to the divine Originator of human existence.  Both words appear in the story of creation because both perspectives are essential.

This has an interesting implication.  When humanity is conceived as something self-originated, either through an evolutionary process or through accident; when the connection to the divine is lost, the biblical idea of “Man” is also lost.  Without divine origin there is no biblical “Man.”  In a world that has excluded the divine for centuries we should not be surprised to discover homo sapien animals, and we should not be perplexed about the animal behavior of these creatures for that is what they are: animals.  In other words, remove the divine pointer, remove the essential difference between animals and humans.

The Genesis passage does not describe the creation of homo sapiens.  It describes the creation of divinely-originated, divinely-oriented humans.  It is not a story about the creation of “humanity” as we know the term today because what we know of ‘humanity” today does not include the two crucial connections: divinely-originated, divinely-oriented.  Genesis 1:26 isn’t about the “humans” in the world we have inherited.  It is about the world God intended, and that world is a far cry from the one we live in now, just as the biblical created “Man” is a far cry from the homo sapiens occupying our planet.  Perhaps we need to adjust our thinking about creation, and our exegesis of this introductory verse.  Perhaps we need to stop pretending that the world is full of “unsaved” men and women and start realizing that animals surround us.

Topical Index: dĕmût, image, likeness, human, animal, Genesis 1:26a

[1] Abraham Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted through the Generations, p. 261.