Today I want to look at the creation of Man, Adam and Eve. I want to begin by looking at the perfection of Adam and Eve that they were perfect. There was nothing wrong with their intelligence as they were indeed created in the image and likeness of God. John Owen the great Puritan wrote:
“The Natural Theology of Man
Adam was created in the image of God…This means that Adam had the wisdom, justice and holiness of God. These are moral and rational qualities (Genesis 1. 26-27; Ecclesiastes 7.29; Colossians 3.10; Ephesians 4.23-24) (John Owen; Biblical Theology; chapter 4; soli deo gloria publications)). “
Before we move on let us look at the text of Scripture:
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Genesis 1:26-29
And again later on it says:
4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. 8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:4-9
I want to take the above as proof texts for the creation of Man. I want to look deeper into the text here to find out what ‘image’ and ‘likeness’ means. I want to know what it means for God to breathe into Adam and brings him to life. I want to later look on Adams relationship to the rest of the created beings. When we have done this, we will have a holistic picture of Adam.
I will be mainly sticking to the Christological Trinitarian meta-narrative. This will at times differ from the liberal road which does not accept the possibility of Divine revelation. For example:
When it says in Genesis ‘Then God said let us make man in our image’ the liberal way of thinking is to naturalize and interpret this as God speaking to the angels. I have a problem with this because angels were also created beings.
I’m not writing off the hard work liberal theologians have put on the text but I cannot agree with their conclusions. From that point of view, we are dealing with the same facts but seeing God’s Holy Revelation with different spectacles.
My Methodology
- I will look at the text from the Masoretic Hebrew Text and the Greek Septuagint
- I will look at key words, parsing of verbs, phrases and how it is interpreted in other parts of the Old Testament
- I will look at various commentaries (Whatever I have to hand)
Once we have done this work, we should have a better understanding of Adam and Eve.
Translation Questions in the Masoretic and Septuagint
It is a well known fact that the Apostles used the Septuagint (LXX). This is why it is good to compare these two wonderful translations. Having read a little further the Orhtodox Churches prefer the LXX to the Masoretic. Upto the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, Judaism too used the LXX. It is only after the destruction of the Temple that Christianity and Judaism (Rabbinic ‘Pharisaic rooted Judaism’) went their separate ways. The Masoretic text is important because it keeps us in touch with our Semitic faith roots but the LXX is also important because the Apostles used it most of the time.
After the groundwork has been done and we go into the Fall we will be looking at for example Saint Paul’s interpretation of the fall. We may gain a deeper understanding of Why Christ is referred to as the second Adam in 1 Corinthians 15.
I wrote on this in the Corinthians course on my web site and I feel this study will give us more insight into God’s precious word and the Word (Logos).
Man as the ‘image of God’
Genesis as we have seen earlier has been a critique of polytheism so you might be shocked to read that Man was made in the image and likeness of God. We can begin by saying tselem (image) is related to tsel (shadow). One blogger on this definition wrote that what an individual does their shadow follows suit. This does not mean that image relates to form (although it can). Here the context would be closer to having God’s wisdom and being God’s image bearer. (From; hebrewwordlessons.com/2019/03/24/tselem-being-image-bearers/)
Going a little deeper in the ancient world, the only person who could bear an image of a god was pharaoh or some Akkadian, Babylonian king. Here in this context in Genesis, bearing God’s image has been taken to mean that we all bear the image of God. No longer did it mean that only one royal person could be God’s image. For this reason, all human beings in the sight of God are precious. There has been a democratization of the image of God, and we are all image bearers of God. We were supposed to rule the world with justice and mercy but after the fall we chose to be ‘gods’ and have destroyed a lot of this beautiful world. (From; forward.com/culture/131691/one-image-to-make-man-and-woman/)
Reflection
Image of God is a seriously important concept. In the ancient world as was said, it was the ruler who was seen as the image of the gods. I once read or saw a video by Rabbi Sacks and he said something to the fact that Genesis here is a critique of the pagan rulers. ‘Image’ is not just for a ruler but for all of us. The image of God was a democratization of the human being. This in the ancient world would have been a revolutionary concept. It is a concept that is just as important today as it was then. Too many premature baby deaths who are the ‘image of God’. Too many politicians not living above disrepute but abusing their power in various ways. For Christians, me included the prototype of the image of God is our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord showed perfect love even death on a cross. Our road should also involve sacrifice by walking in love not looking out for our own selfish ends.
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