in our image, according to our likeness בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ
God’s sneak preview of the adam (“earthling”) who will complete the work of creation on Day Six is that the earthling will be created “in our image, according to our likeness.” (See the previous post for discussion both of “earthling” and of the first-person plural.)
We begin today’s discussion with the word צלם tzelem ‘image’ and the meanings offered for it in the Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament:
—1. statue, inscribed column
—2. idol
—3. pl.:
—a. images, figures
—b. replicas, likenesses of the boils and mice
—4. a. transitory image
—5. likeness:
—a. of a man as the צֶלֶם of God
—b. the son as the צֶלֶם of his father
Akkadian, the East Semitic language known to us from thousands of clay tablets with cuneiform writing dug up over the last several centuries in Mesopotamia, has the related word ṣalmu, which has these meanings (according to HALOT):
the statue of a god;
the statue of a king;
a statue in general;
a figurine;
a relief, bas-relief;
metaphorical, a constellation, shape, likeness, representation
The Hebrew word actually appears in the Bible only 15 times, though you will find its Aramaic cognate 17 times in Daniel 2-3, referring to the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar insisted on everyone worshiping. The Hebrew word can refer to a statue as well, and when that statue is meant to become an object of worship, we would translate tzelem as “idol.”
God is certainly not creating an idol for himself to worship, but another of the meanings given in HALOT for the Hebrew word is replica (you can find some examples of that usage in 1 Samuel 6). I am leaning toward that meaning, because now we add the word דמות d’mut ‘likeness’, from the verb דמה d-m-h ‘to resemble’. Both the verb and the noun appear in Isa 40:18 (given here in the NJPS translation), a verse which I take to be arguing against God’s announcement here:
To whom, then, can you liken [תְּדַמְּי֣וּן] God,
What form [דְּמ֖וּת] compare to Him?
2 Kgs 16:10 shows us King Ahaz visiting Damascus, admiring the altar in the temple there, and sending the priest Uriah a דְּמ֧וּת of it along with a blueprint [תבנית tavnit] of how to build a similar one.
It seems clear from this comparison, and from the combination of tzelem and d’mut, that God is intending to create a replica of himself in some sense. The question is, in what sense?
The one other place these two words occur together in the same verse is in Genesis 5. Definition 5b in HALOT has already pointed us to it, so let’s have a look:
1 This is the family tree of adam. On the day when God created adam, it was in the likeness [דמות] of God that He created him. 2 Male and female He created them, and He blessed them and named them adam on the day of their creation.
3 Adam lived 130 years and sired a child in his likeness [בִּדְמוּת֖וֹ bid’muto], according to his image [כְּצַלְמ֑וֹ k’tzalmo]. He named him Seth.
The first two verses of the chapter remind us that God created human beings (using language that we will see in v. 27) in God’s own דמות (“likeness”). Then v. 3 tells us that Adam fathered a son in his likeness, according to his image. The simplest, most straightforward way to understand what it means to say that God intended to create earthlings “in our image, according to our likeness” is that the finished product will look like God in some physical way, just as children resemble their parents, just as Seth resembled Adam.
And now for a responsible opposing viewpoint.
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