Tag Archives: creation

Idolatry: Both Horizontal and Vertical

I don’t know if I’m right in the following thoughts. These are just some connections I’ve been making in my own mind and blogging seemed to be a good place to lay them out there. As I’ve been reading in Romans 1, the thought occurred to me, the problem with idolatry isn’t just giving allegiance to another deity (bad as that is). The problem of idolatry in Paul’s perspective is that the idols imprison the truth in injustice.

That is, idolatry is the manifestation and cause of a world where both individuals and communities practice injustice against one another and thereby deny the truth of one another’s humanity. It is the manifestation and cause of a world where neither individuals nor communities can challenge or change (or even desire to change) these unjust practices and structures that dehumanize people created in God’s image.

The truth, both on an individual and collective level, becomes imprisoned within the unjust practices and agendas of various human cultural systems. And therefore the truth is not readily obvious – for we have traded what could be known about God for gods made in our own image, gods that will support rather than challenge our unjust hearts and communities.

Wrath then becomes God’s response to human injustice. Wrath is not the unbridled passion of a heartless God. It is the inevitable outcome of a God who values just relationships both on vertical (human to God) and horizontal (human to human) planes. Wrath exists because human injustice is so grave and terrible, and our hearts so apt to imprison the truth in injustice such that we can never see the truth about ourselves or God, that creation itself becomes perverted and inverted.

And this inversion of creation takes us back to idolatry, specifically the collective idolatry of the entire human race. It is an idolatry which perpetuates and is perpetuated by injustice.

Even in the OT, idolatry wasn’t just about the differences between Yahweh and the pagan deities. Rather, in scripture, idolatry always carries with it the practical implications of unethical behavior, specifically blood shed unjustly. In other words, idolatry is both a violation of a person’s vertical relationship with God and also a violation of their horizontal relationship with other persons. When we imprison truth in injustice, this is not just a violation of our relationship with God, but is a violation of our relationships with those created in his image.

Idolatry is thus dehumanization of my neighbor (among other things).

I therefore maintain, that even if one calls on Jesus and then uses the name Jesus to dehumanize another person, or somehow uses Jesus to promote injustice, then that person is participating in idolatry even if they are using the right language. The God of scripture cannot be reduced to my ideological agenda, he will not be shackled to anyone’s unjust causes, and he will not be associated with the dehumanization even of my enemy. Idolatry is, therefore, both a horizontal and a vertical injustice.

 

So, what do you think? Do you have anything to add to this random collection of thoughts? Where have you seen idolatry and injustice combined in obvious ways? How does this change the way we talk about the gospel?

The Word of the Lord Came to Jonah…

As I study through the book of Jonah, I’m going to start writing little reflection pieces here and there about different things that catch my eye. This won’t be anything too serious or deep, just some reflections based on the text.

Jonah 1:1: And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah…

I’m intrigued by this phrase, “the word of Yahweh came to Jonah.”

This same “word” was the agent of creation in Genesis 1, when Yahweh spoke everything into existence.

It is by this word that Yahweh created the sea: the sea that will eventually get violent and try to destroy Jonah’s ship (1:9).

It is by this word that Yahweh creates all the creature of the sea: one of whom swallows Jonah and takes him into the depths of the earth (1:16).

It is by this word that Yahweh creates plant life: plant life that would eventually give shade to Jonah only to die off later by the mouth of a worm that Yahweh also created through this word (4:6-7).

It is by this word that the Holy Trinity decided amongst themselves to create humanity in God’s image: a humanity which would later not recognize their Creator, would pray to their own gods (1:5), and hate rather than celebrate God’s redemptive desires (3:10-4:1).

And it is by this Word that even Jonah, in spite of all his faults, will eventually be redeemed by the God who created everything and therefore loves everything…including self-righteous sinners (John 1).

There’s just something beautiful and intriguing about Yahweh’s providential care  and love for His creation. From the beginning of Jonah’s story, the narrator wants us to know that the God who created by His word is the same God who sends his word out to his creatures that they might not be destroyed…de-created by their Creator under the weight of their own sin.

Jesus Hugged Trees…Except that Time He Cursed One

It’s really sad that ecological concerns have been solely a liberal project. It may come as a surprise to some, but conservative Christians have a strong impetus ecological conservation – Our God created this world and He plans to restore it!

Our refusal to take ecological concerns seriously is due to at least two things:

First, we have overreacted to liberal politics/theology. Just because something is taken up by the liberals, doesn’t mean conservative Christians can’t also be passionate about it.  The environment is everybody’s concern – no matter your theological or political persuasion. Just because we disagree with someone on one issue doesn’t mean we must disagree with them on every issue.

Second, we have neglected a biblical theology of creation. In most churches when a sermon is preached on Genesis 1 it deals with Evolution vs. 6 Day Creationism. Unfortunately this approach to Genesis not only misses the point, but it also distracts us from the larger picture of creation as the good work of a loving God, a work which He made to have a certain order and balance. Destroyed by human sin, this world groans for its redemption. Christians do not merely care for the salvation of individual souls – we care for the redemption of the entire cosmos! This means earth-care is part of the Christian doctrine of salvation (soteriology). When we read the NT, we do not see a God concerned merely with “my” individual salvation and whether or not “I” am going to heaven when I die; we see a God who cares for the entire earth, who wants to redeem everything in His creation.

Our God created this world. Our God wants to restore this world. We, as redeemed creatures, have an opportunity to participate in the redemption of the entire world here and now. To be sure, let us be passionate for the souls of men and women. But let us also see that those men and women are a single part of God’s larger saving purposes – purposes which extend to the restoration of the entire creation!

Jesus hugged trees. Well, except that time he cursed one. :)

Psalm 24:2 – Creation is Not Morally Neutral

Vs. 2 For he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.

This kind of language makes no sense to modern people – that is, substantiating Yahweh’s claim to ownership by appealing to His founding of the earth upon the waters. But to ancient Jews it would have made complete sense. Not only did their concept of creation involve the notion of the earth resting upon huge deposits of water, but that notion had interesting theological significance.

You see, ancient Jews associated water with chaos – even demons.

Consider all your Sunday School stories that involved major bodies of water and you will see that the water is hardly ever a good character:

1. Noah’s ark where the waters of chaos systematically undo the creation account of Genesis 1.

2. Think of the Nile River turned to blood. The Nile, and Egyptian deity, conquered, killed, slaughtered like an animal by Yahweh.

3. Consider the Red Sea where the sea stands between the Israelites and their salvation, where Yahweh proves powerful enough to move an entire body of water.

4. Or think of Jonah who goes out to the sea precisely because the sea is where He thinks Yahweh is not!

5. Or Jesus, who is out on the sea multiple times when he calms storms and, indeed, walks on the water.

6. Or finally, Revelation, where the sea is calmed and brought to glassy subjugation under Yahweh’s sovereignty.

For the ancient Jew, to say that God established the earth upon the waters was not merely a geological claim. No far from it – it was a theological claim. Yahweh was sovereign over all the forces of chaos in the world that threaten to unhinge creation and put an end to his redemptive purposes.

But consider this…

If Yahweh is claiming ownership, indeed Kingship, over a creation where he has set a certain order, a certain reality, a certain way of being, then it follows logically from there that this creation is not morally neutral.

To claim allegiance to any other deity, nation, or story is to fight against the very creation itself; indeed, it is to fight against Yahweh. But when  people and nations center themselves within His story, there is an order to life, a shalom (a peace which is more than merely the absence of violence, but the presence of Justice!).

The larger biblical narrative is clear that Yahweh’s defeat of the agents of chaos is not only a creative act, but a redemptive act. Particularly in the cross Jesus is said to have defeated all principalities and powers, thrones, rulers, dominions, and authorities. In the cross, according to Hebrews 2, Jesus defeats death (anti-creation) and the devil.

From first to last creation is connected to redemption and redemption involves the defeat of evil, chaos, and disorder.

So it remains clear, that if this creation is not morally neutral, then any who wish to approach King Yahweh must not assume moral neutrality is an option. But we’ll explore this a bit more in the next post.

Making Babies with God

I sat here tonight watching my wife hold our sleeping Phoebe and a thought occurred to me – The perpetuation of the human race is the best witness we have of the fact that God did not finish his act of creation on the sixth day of Genesis 1. Each new baby, each new soul, that enters human history is a direct and intentional creation of God. These little creations are just as direct and intentional as the formation of the land, the four-footed beasts, and the formation of the original humans with God’s very own hands in Genesis 2.

But then my brilliant wife added to my thought something really profound – these babies entering human history, though they are witnesses to the ongoing creative purposes of God, are also an indication that God’s creative purposes are accomplished through human action. We humans are, in fact, co-creators with God and children are an everyday testimony to that reality.

Since God’s creative purposes are still ongoing, though marred by human sin, we can still affirm that God sees creation as good and valuable. Each human life has intrinsic value because each human breathes with the gift of God’s breath of life.

God gives the breath of life and recognizes that it is very good. It is very good that we, together with him, create life…good life. It is good that, together with him, we sustain and protect life – encouraging its flourishing, protecting it’s value, and ever giving ourselves to it.

We are co-creators with God in many ways. But tonight I wanted to reflect on the specific act of baby making with God!

Cheers friends.

Sovereignty and Image Bearing – More Thoughts on Genesis 1:26-28

And God Said

As with each preceding creation day, the sixth day begins with God speaking. The waw sequential preceding rma establishes solidarity between this day and previous days. Humanity, as God’s image bearers, has dominion over those creatures previously created. The author purposely links this day with previous days not only overtly, but also in the subtleties of the grammar.

In God’s Image and According to Divine Likeness

The relationship between image (~l,c) and likeness (tWmD) is difficult to determine because they only appear together here and in 5:3. Most probably they form a hendiadys and are working together to form a single idea as opposed to two distinct ideas. This explains the absence of tWmD in vs. 27. The author did not need to pair them again.

Ki preposition accompanying tWmD further establishes correspondence between the two words and involves a “comparison that establishes equivalence between the things being compared, and often clarifying the identity of what is compared.”[1] The two words refer to a single idea.

Though we have established their equivalence, we are yet to determine the meaning, specifically of ~l,c, within this context. To do so we must examine the structure of vs. 27. Though the first line follows the usual Verb-Subject-Object; the second and third lines parallel each other but do not follow the general grammatical order.

Line 1

A

Created (arb) God (~yhil{a/)

B

humanity (~d’a’)

C

in his image (~l,c,)

Line 2

C

in the image (~l,c,)

A

He created (arb)

B

Him (At=ao)

Line 3

C

Male (rk’z”) and Female (hb’qen>)

A

He created (arb)

B

Them (~t’(ao)

First, the recurrence of arb, in the A position, suggests the writer wants to saturate this verse with the creative work of God. It also establishes a connection between arb and hf’[' from 26. The particularization which stems from 1:1, employing arb, filters down to humanity specifically and finally.

Second, I initially suspected a chiastic relationship between line 1 with 2-3, but in the end this was not the case. Line 1 relates to 2-3 with the side-by-side recurrence of the C position ending line one and beginning line 2 and 3. Lines 2-3 relate through a parallelism demonstrating what “image of God” references:

Line 1: C-A-B

Line 2: C-A-B

This parallelism demonstrates humanity, as male and female, gives full expression to ~l,c. They are in the image of God, as a gendered community. The change from humanity (~d'a'), in line 1, to male (rk'z") and female (hb'qen>) in line 3, further illustrates the importance of the gendered nature of this community. ~d'a' is a term referring to humanity in general without reference to sex while the writer moves more specifically into words referencing the two sexes specifically.

Finally, ~l,c implies human uniqueness which separates them from the rest of creation. This gets emphasized further when God speaks in vs. 28; the first time God speaks to a part of His creation. He set aside this special act for those in His image.

Defining God’s Image

Because the rare use of ~l,c, we must examine it in other texts. ~l,c has a semantic range including a statue, idol (2 Kings 11:18, Num. 33:52), image, model (I Sam. 6:5), drawing (Ez. 23:14), and phantom (Ps. 39:6). A probable connection lies with 2 Kings 11:28, implying that humanity, not idols, bears God’s image. Whereas humans erect their own images, they were created as images reflecting God’s creativity. Indeed, “while [humanity] is not divine, [humanity’s] very existence bears witness to the activity of God in the life of the world.”[3] Furthermore, whereas other images are to be destroyed (2 Chron. 23:17), this image is sacred and should not be destroyed (Gen. 9:6).

Also, in contrast to other ANE cultures where only the political rulers were viewed as image bearers of the divine,[4] Genesis says all of humanity represents God’s sovereignty. God desired that not only political elites but also common persons, not only men but also women, bear His image. Humans were created as socially egalitarian.

Dominion and the Plurality of God’s Name: My Working Solution

Though difficult to determine, it seems the need for a pre-Fall image of God’s sovereignty makes sense of the plural language in reference to God occurring in vs. 26. There the writer vacillates between singular and plural wording.[5] The most likely answer to this difficulty lies in a group of beings which were not included in the preceding narrative.[6] The primary difficulty with this answer is that there exists no overt textual warrant for this answer. However, the presence of the names of pagan deities (~y”)[7], language of violence (vbk), and the general, though limited, parallel structure of Genesis 1 with other ANE cosmogonies, gives validity to the possibility of other existent beings, some of whom were already in rebellion against God.[8] Humanity is represents God on earth in the midst of a world where some beings are already in rebellion.

Dominion and the Image of God

That dominion is an important aspect of God’s creation of humanity is supported by the inclusio of the word hdr in vs. 26 and 28.[9] Dominion encases the meaning of what it practically looks like to be God’s image bearers. Generally, hdr conveys a responsible rule (Lev. 25:43), though there are exceptions (Ezekiel 34:4).

This is demonstrated further by the dominion terminology in vs. 28 within the context of divine blessing upon humanity.[10] God speaks five imperatives of command. The first two (WrïP. and Wb±r>W) climax in the third (#r<a’Þh’-ta, Waïl.miW)). The meaning and objective of fruitfulness and multiplication resides in inundating the earth with signs of God’s sovereignty.

Completing the dominion theme is the word vbk. An epexegetical waw appears on the front of this Qal/Imperative, clarifying what God means by “be fruitful and multiply.”[11] That is, to be fruitful and multiply is not merely reproduction but dominion.

vbk is more violent in nature than hdr.[12] However, the hdr gives fuller expression to vbk, in a nominal hendiadys. vbk and hdr together explain the fruitfulness and multiplication. In that hdr is a much more responsible word for rulership, any interpretation of vbk permitting exploitation of the earth fails to understand the nature of how these words function together. Humanity rules responsibly.

Conclusion

Providing a theological framework for redemptive history, Genesis 1:26-28 also demonstrates humanity represents Him within the cosmos. This text emphasizes the communal and egalitarian nature of humanity, uniquely forged in God’s image and for the purpose of displaying His sovereignty.


[1] Bill T. Arnold, John H. Choi, A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 109, 103. Furthermore, this interpretation is supported by the pairing of ~l,c and tWmD in a ninth-century B.C.E. Assyrian/Aramaic inscription where “the two terms are used interchangeably and indiscriminately.” Nahum M. Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), 12. The B. preposition is spatial. The image is not “in” humanity, but humanity is “in” God’s image..

[2] Holladay, 306.

[3] Sarna, 12.

[4] Sarna, 12.

[5] A Trinitarian reading smacks of anachronism and fails to take the authors original intention seriously.

The author also doesn’t appear to be concerned with grammatical solidarity with ~yhil{a because (1) he begins with and switches back to singular wording, and (2) ~yhil{a is accompanied by singular nouns and verbs elsewhere.

[6] Sarna, 12.

[7] Holladay, 135.

[8] Sarna, 3.

[9] Both times hdr occurs in the Qal stem. The first is an Imperfect with Fientive aspect, and the second is an Imperative of command.

[10] The dominance of the Qal stem (occurring 14x) is interrupted in vs. 28 by a Piel. It occurs with the word $rb and appears to be Factitive in nature, describing a cause which produces a state: The cause is God’s blessing, the state produced is the dominion of humanity over the earth through the actions of procreation and governance.

[11] Arnold and Choi, 147.

[12] It means make subservient, subjugation by a foreign army, or even rape. Holladay, 151.

The Spirit and the Word

The Spirit and the Word are inseparable. They, together, are the means by which God created and sustains the world in Genesis. By His word God calls forth all of creation. By the Spirit He works chaos into cosmos. God has called the world into being with the breath of His mouth (ruach) and has made everything by his word (Ps. 33:6).

At times in the OT “spirit” and “word” are even interchangeable. Ancient Jews found it difficult to draw too sharp of a contrast between them. This is because they understood the creative and providential potential of both.

Ancient people believed they could create reality through the spoken word. The spoken word “is regarded as the medium of owners which effectively influence events.”[1]

And even today, though we hardly believe it, human words have the ability to create worlds. By gossip or negativity a world of despair may be created around a person. By love and grace a world of godliness may flourish around someone else.

If we are to have a renewed understanding of the Spirit in the church today, we need to also regain a new understanding of the power of words. With our words, we need to create a world where the Spirit and spiritual things may thrive and prosper. Clearly we do not take the freedom from God to choose to act on His own, but we can still work to create an environment that is ready when God does choose to act. This is done through a connection of Spirit and word.

Notice how so many of our spiritual charisms (gifts) essentially involve words: Tongues is itself a verbal gift, teaching and prophesy are gifts most often employed through spoken word, discernment involves distinguishing whether a spoken word came from God or not, and what would encouragement be if it did not involve a word of hope? And the list could go on.

In a world where everything has already been said, and much of our rhetoric is merely adding to the noise, we need to recover a sense of connection between the Spirit and words. If we fail to do this, “our words may well make a good deal of sense, but they will be devoid of power; it may be that they will explain something, but they will move nobody. They will be ineffectual, idle, fruitless.”[2]

We live in a world where words are considered either hurtful or meaningless. People do not trust the words of lying politicians, the words of cheating pastors, nor the words of even their own family members (“I love you.” doesn’t even mean anything anymore because it’s been so overused and commercialized!).

The church, to them, is just another political entity vying for power, a power to hurt other people. This is how the world sees the church – and we’ve given them no other model! But “if we really want the Spirit to place words on our lips, we need to live constantly in an attitude of death to our own glory, seeking only the glory of God.”[3] We need to stop our self-seeking and squelch our power-hunger. We need to humbly live in the Spirit and employ the words of humility and love.

A fresh recovery of the Spirit goes hand in hand with a recovery of our ecclesial rhetoric. From the individual struggling with gossip, to the larger community struggling with our political rhetoric, from the Pentecostal emphasizing the Spirit to the Protestants emphasizing the Word, we cannot forget that these are inseparable. The Spirit and the word, together, create and sustain worlds. As long as we ignore the value of both in the contemporary church we will continue to reap the harvest of spiritless meaninglessness.

[1] Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament Vol. II. 69.

[2] Raniero Cantalamessa, Come Creator Spirit. 233.

[3] Cantalamessa, 236.

Hovering Over the Face of the Deep: The Spirit in Creation

For all our debates about the nature and genre of the Creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, I’m amazed by the lack of discussion surrounding the meaning of the Spirit’s activities in 1:2 where the text reads, “And the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the deep.”

We’ve been so sidetracked by other questions, often questions the text isn’t even asking, that we’ve overlooked this odd and fascinating feature of the Creation narrative – the presence and activity of God’s Spirit.

Neglecting the Spirit’s role in creation is easy for us, not only because we’re distracted by the Creationism vs. Evolution questions, but also because we’ve severely limited the Spirits role in the Christian life to conviction of sin and assurance of salvation. Or, more specifically, we’ve limited the Spirit’s role to our subjective devotional lives.

But prior to the need for conviction of sin and the need for assurance of salvation, the Spirit was involved in the work of creation. Contrary to our privatized Pneumatology, the fingerprints of the Spirit are clearly displayed in the cosmos.

But what do those finger prints look like? And why was the Spirit hovering over the deep?

By placing the Spirit within Genesis 1:2, where we have the beginning of a movement from darkness and void to order and light, the author suggests the Spirit is the agent by which creation is given form and order. The Spirit is not removed from the creation; the Spirit is intimately with the creation, guiding its development and progress along with the spoken word of God.[1]

The Spirit’s hovering over the face of the deep is significant. For the ancient Hebrews, the sea was a force of chaos and unruliness. Often mythologized in Babylonian religions, the chaotic character of the sea is confirmed by numerous biblical accounts: Noah’s Flood and the destruction of the entire world, the crossing of the Red Sea, Jonah and the whale, Jesus and the calming of the Storm.[2] Even more telling is in Revelation when the sea is the place from which the great Beast comes (13:1) and, ultimately, a place to be destroyed in the new creation: “and there was no longer any sea.”(21:1)

Furthermore, within our narrative, it is important to note that the deep is possibly a subtle reference to a Babylonian deity, Tehoim, “a belligerent and monstrous ocean goddess.”[3] If so, Genesis 1:2 would have been an especially comforting verse for ancient Hebrews wrestling with the constant pressures of Babylonian culture and religion. Not only are the chaotic waters of the deep under the Spirit’s dominion, but implicitly and subversively, Babylonian religion is stripped of its power and demonstrated to be inferior to the religion of Yahweh. For in our narrative, the Spirit is holding at bay the chaotic forces of the world – Babylonian religious and cultural influence, to be more specific. The Spirit drifts over the deep and demonstrates the dominion of God over the disorder soiling the life of an exiled people attempting to be faithful to Yahweh’s covenant “in a foreign land.” (Ps. 137:1-4)[4]

I know the objections will be that there are no forces of evil yet b/c Genesis 3 has not yet occurred. But, again, like the Creationism debates, I don’t think that’s the question the narrative asks.[5]

Rather, it assumes some sort of rebellion has already occurred. You see, the pre-Fall narrative is replete with numerous subtle references to Babylonian deities, and even words which indicated violent subjugation (1:28).[6] Furthermore, such an answer also accounts for the mysterious serpent in Genesis 3 – another possible allusion to a Babylonian deity, and one which would, again, make a lot of sense to an ancient Hebrew person struggling with the constant influences of Babylonian religion and culture.[7]

Thus, what we’re learning from Genesis 1:2 is that those forces of chaos, those things in the world that are disorderly and unruly, are still held in check by the Spirit. The Spirit is already at work to bring the creation back to its original intention – the order of God.

The implication of this is, yes, that there were forces of death operative within creation prior to Genesis 3, but those forces of death were not yet operative within humanity or the earth in which humanity resided. But these forces of death are being checked by the Spirit. Indeed, even though the narrative makes subtle references to pagan deities, these subtle references are subtle precisely because the narrator wants the reader to see that the sea was created by God and that God is in control. The sea is not a deity, it is part of Yahweh’s creation and He is sovereign over it as the Spirit hovers over the deep and keeps it in its place (Ps. 140:9). “The author here plainly understands God’s act of creation to have involved some type of conflict with cosmic chaos, but also clearly portrays Yahweh as being more than up to the task.”[8]

So what is the Spirit doing hovering over the face of the deep? Displaying and maintaining God’s sovereignty over creation. Demonstrating God’s intimate concern for the details of His creation. And ensuring the ancient reader that God maintains control over the chaotic influences and forces of false religion. The gigs up: the Sea is demythologized and shown to be part of creation. It is not an independent agent, and insofar as chaotic forces do control the sea, Genesis 1 will not allow us to despair, as if Yahweh has lost his sovereignty.

[1] For a great discussion on the closeness of the Word and the Spirit, see Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament. Vol. II (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1967), 49-50. Eichrodt argues that there are times in Israel’s history where the “word” and the “Spirit” are nearly identical in nature and indistinguishable from one another.

[2] Also see Job 7:12 when Job asks God is he is a cosmic opponent that needs to be guarded and watched – like the Sea and the Dragon.

[3] Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapter 1-17. NICOT. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1990), 110.

[4] Obviously this assumes a later date for the final composition of Genesis. I have no problem saying the sources go back much further, but the final redactors included these stories with these details to communicate certain and specific theological truths to their contemporaries in exile.

[5] Notice how the narrative never says the “deep” was “good.”

[6] In 1:28, the word the first of the 2 words for “dominion/rule” is an extremely violent one. It is used elsewhere in Hebrew literature to refer to pillaging after war. The question, then, becomes, why is there a need for violent subjugation if the creation as a whole is still under God’s rule?

[7] The serpent, like the sea, is de-mythologized and is demonstrated to be merely a creature made by the Lord God, not a deity to be worshipped (3:1).

[8] Greg Body, God at War.

The Absence of Pre-Fall Patriarchy in Genesis 1

If Patriarchy was a Pre-Fall reality, then it would be at least implicit within the biblical text. I previously demonstrated that the 2ndcreation account (in Genesis 2) does not support such a reading, but I said nothing at the time regarding the 1st creation account in Genesis 1.

Genesis 1:26-28 describes the creation of humanity “in the image of God” and after his “likeness.” There are a number of hermeneutical and theological difficulties related to these phrases - particularly what exactly it means to be created in God’s image and how that relates to the phrase about “according to our likeness.” Couple those things also with the use of plural pronouns and you’ve got a longstanding theological and exegetical argument.

What I want to demonstrate in this post is that the *structure* of the pericope provides us insight into the author’s intention –that is, the way he formulates the narrative gives us insight into what he means by the mysterious phrases. More to the point, though, when we see what he means, we are also given insight into the Pre-Fall relationship between the man and the woman - one which, as I will demonstrate, is one of equality, not patriarchy. This argument will, in effect,support my reading of Genesis 2 and 3 which says that Patriarchy is a result of the Fall, not prior to it.

The Hebrew text in 1:27 reads something like this….(the word order is important – often skewed by our English translations)

“Created God humanity in His image. In the image of God He created him. Male and female He created them.”

Structurally, the text is a Chiasm (an inverted parallelism) followed by a straight forward Parallelism. Notice the Chiasm 1st…

  1. Created humanity

B God

C In His image

C’ In the image

B’ of God

A’ He created him

Surrounding the whole things is the Creative purposes of God. Central to the chiasm, and thus the emphasis of the writer, is the Image of God. Unfortunately, besides the fact that it is the creative act of God, no other exegetical clue is provided for us to help us discern the substance of the Image of God…..that is, until the parallelism which begins with the 2nd half of the chiasm:

  1. In the Image of God B. He created C. Him

A. Male and Female B. He created C. Them

What the structuring of this narrative suggests, then, is that whatever it means to be in the image of God, it must be fully understood in the context of BOTH male and femaleness. Man is not the image of God without woman and woman is not the image of God without the man. They are both, together the image of God. In other words – what the chiastic structure gives emphasis to (the image of God), the parallelism gives substance to (male and female).

Now notice that there is no implied subordination within this structuring. Rather, there is implied equality. Nothing within this text points to male headship. The Biblical Complementarian argument fails to account for the fact that this first creation account doesn’t even have a creation order for the genders. This narrative suggests that male and female are equal before God – for they both, together, stand before Him and are equally created in His image – so much for the old discussions about whether women were really created in God’s image or not.