Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Those pesky little prepositions

[T]he nature of the divine-human relationship as it is presented in Genesis 1 has three major components that are intimately related to one another: kinship, kingship, and cult. At some level, humans seem to be members of the divine species, which implies “biological relationship,” metaphorically speaking, to God, and specifically, sonship. Genesis 1 uses the terms ṣelem and dəmût to express this intimate, filial relationship, similar to the way they are used in Gen 5:1–3, where Adam begets a son, Seth, “in his own likeness and after his image.” But clearly, ʿādām is not a divine being, as indicated by the prepositions and in Gen 1:26–27.—The "Image of God" in the Garden of Eden, pages 136–37

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