1:27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
It is important to point out that the creation of man in Genesis account is an exception the rule of creation by divine command, and solely in the case of man is the material from which he is made explicitly mentioned. This implies emphasis upon the unique position for man among created things and a special relationship to God, and is reinforced in many and varied subtle ways. It seems as if we have for the final creative act the usual act of God’s will reinforced by an act of divine effort. Man, alone, has the breath of life blown into his nostrils by God Himself, and only by virtue of this direct animation did man become a living being, drawing directly from God and the source of his life. Nothing else in the creative process is preceded by a divine declaration of intention and purpose, Let us make man... (Gen. 1:26). So much does the Sacred Author wish to signify the special status given man in the cosmos, that the verb BARA is used three times in the course of a single verse. Man, in fact, is the high point of creation and the entire story has a human-centered orientation. (We note also, that in similar degree, both man and woman share in God’s Image and Likeness. There is no discrimination!)
The situation contrasts strongly with the story of creation of man in the Enuma Elish. There, he is almost incidental, fashioned as a king of afterthought, as a servant of the gods to provide them with nourishment and generally to satisfy their physical needs. The Sacred Author seems to be emphasizing the antithesis of this, for part of the very first communication of God to man is an expression of divine concern for man’s physical needs and well-being: Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seeds in its fruit; you shall have them for food... (Gen. 1:29f).
We recollect that man is created in the image of God, for this idea is closely connected with what follows: God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Man is endowed with power over the animal and vegetable worlds and is conferred with the right and duty to use the resources of nature for his own benefits.
Thus, the Bible’s concept of the divine image in man constitutes another revolutionary break with the contemporary world. The pagan bond between man and nature has been severed once and for all. No longer is man a creature of blind forces, helplessly at the mercy of the rhythms and cycles of nature, but rather is a being possessed of dignity, purpose, freedom and tremendous power.
The pre-eminence of man over beast, however, is not the same as total independence. In the 1st Chapter of Genesis when we are told that God created man in His image, nothing is stated of the matter used in the act of creation. In the narrative to follow in Chapter 2, however, it is related that God formed man from dust taken from the earth (Gen. 2:6). The word translated here as dust is used quite often in Biblical Hebrew as a synonym for clay, and in various parts of the Old Testament we are confronted with the motif of man being shaped out of clay. In the Enuma Elish man is created from the blood of the rebellious Kingu. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the goddess Aruru washed her hands, nipped off clay and fashioned it into the man Enkidu. An old Babylonian myth, paralleled in an Assyrian version, explicitly describes the creation of the first men from clay. And the motif is also found in a third millennium, B.C., Sumerian composition. There are also Egyptian paintings which depict the god Khnum sitting upon his throne before a potter’s wheel busily fashioning men.
The very verb used in the second narrative of the creation of man by God – YASAR – is the same from which the Hebrew word for “potter” is drawn. This figure is a well-known Biblical symbol evoking the notion of God’s absolute mastery over man, so that through the ingenious use of a common mythological motif, the Sacred Author has effectively succeeded, not just in combating mythological notions, but has also conveyed both a sense of man’s glory and freedom and the feeling of his complete dependence upon God. Human sovereignty over the world can never be absolute, for there is also God’s moral order over him.
After every creative act, God pronounces His verdict: It is TOV (good)! And later: TOV MEOD (very good)! The creation, as such, corresponds completely to God’s creative design for it.
Evil has no place in the world created by God and does not correspond to God’s design. Evil is not an essence – it is not something. Evil corresponds to the choice the creation itself makes. Evil is not existence or being, but is only a condition of being, a state of existence. And, it is an unnatural condition of being.
And so, in Biblical teaching on the World and Man, Creation and Providence, (1) God Himself has not created evil, sin or death. (2) God’s representative, man, bears in himself God’s Image and Likeness, and has a vocation to continue the creation. (3) Man is called to cooperation and not opposition to God.
