Does human being created in image of god contradict the command to kill amalekite and to enslave non-jews especially a non-jew who survives a beating ?
Or
Image of god is not about treating someone with respect and love so killing gods image in form of amalekite children is not contradiction?
Creating man (and it was initially just man) in the “image” of God has always been a troublesome concept. Our physical bodies, which are largely responsible for our “image,” are how we interact with the world around us. We need to eat to survive (which also requires us to eliminate bodily waste). We need ears to hear, and noses and lungs to breathe, etc. Does God need any of this? Would God even have arms or feet? Would God sweat? The implications are almost too horrific to contemplate. Perhaps it reads somewhat better in the original, but I have never seen an explication that casts it in any plausible light. I think it is pretty clear that the phrase in question was written by a person granting man (and I do mean man) a special role, without actually considering how preposterous the whole idea was (even if they were not envisioning Charleton Heston when the did it).
No doubt, what I have to say is too simplistic for here among all you scholarly types but I want to see if anyone agrees perhaps there is something to it:
God is the creator of the world. He made us in his image. In some sense we, too, are creators. We have the ability to create our worlds. Oh, not in some major way but in our own little spheres. With foresight and planning and dedication and effort, we can create an atmosphere or an occasion. An example: Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away. Envisioning a special time has us doing all sorts of things to make it happen.
Isn’t it true for all of us all the time? When we get up in the morning, don’t we create our days with the plans we make? As parents we make the worlds our children grow up in. Without children now or pets, it’s a pleasure for me providing fresh water, sunflower seeds and suet for the birds that visit my yard. I like to think I am creating a nurturing environment for them.
We are creators, too!
Judith
God is the creator of the world. He made us in his image.
Steefen
God is not the creator of the Earth and the Sun.
Yes, psychologically, that works and can make people moral.
Who is “us” made in his image? The people who would like to depopulate the Earth by more than 50%. They want to “create” also.
Who is “us” in God’s image? I now see actions of evil the promise of prayers barely can counteract.
What I’ve learned from Christianity? End God because God could not counteract the self-destruction of the Jewish Civil War and God could not counteract the Roman victory in the First Jewish-Roman War.
Stop Judaism that advanced from faith in the Moses story to the Babylonian Exile response: Apocalypticism and Messianism. Faith in Moses no longer worked. Faith in Messianism no longer worked. So end that iteration of God. Move on theologically and religiously. Make your Savior do the one thing that would end the thought-form of God: make a metaphor of cannibalism (Lord’s Supper/Communion). Leviticus stated, the God thought-form would turn His face away.
The Apocalyptic Prophet, the Messiah, and His God did not come through victoriously at the first Jewish-Roman War or in the other two wars with Rome.
Freeing us from notions of god, apocalypticism, and messianism that cannot save us is salvation.
Steefen,
Continuing in my simplistic style, let me try to explain how my earlier comment came about:
When i go into a grocery store, I do not take one of everything off the shelf. Instead, just what I can use and need are put into the cart. It is the same with the Bible. As Steven Colbert said, the words leapt off the page for him. It’s as though you open the Bible and there is exactly what you need for sustenance, guidance or just solace. Once when in despair, I turned to the Bible and there was this: Trust not unto your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6) At that moment it helped. The Bible is full of horrible things but for those of us who look, we find God there, too.
Judith said
Steefen,Continuing in my simplistic style, let me try to explain how my earlier comment came about:
When i go into a grocery store, I do not take one of everything off the shelf. Instead, just what I can use and need are put into the cart. It is the same with the Bible. As Steven Colbert said, the words leapt off the page for him. It’s as though you open the Bible and there is exactly what you need for sustenance, guidance or just solace. Once when in despair, I turned to the Bible and there was this: Trust not unto your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6) At that moment it helped. The Bible is full of horrible things but for those of us who look, we find God there, too.
Russ, October 31, 2021 at 12:39 am
I agree, Steefen! We really can know nothing about God but, for those who want to believe there is a creator who cares for us, some think the Bible tells about Him.
Actually, a theologian once said all religions “at the top” are similar (Love ourselves. Love others as we love ourselves.) Now that would be an interesting topic to explore here though I’m not one who would have anything to add to such a discussion.
Also, I agree with Robert that it would be a fun idea to explore whether God has a “dark side”.
The idea of the Imago Dei has fascinated me for a long time. The view of this as a metaphorical concept seems ultimately derived from the Greek philosophical influence on the Christian tradition. The more ancient concept of God in the Ancient Near East is immanent and well, embodied. Yes God had a body. It may be the Imago Dei was intended to be taken rather literally.
If you find this idea bizarre or off putting go
** you do not have permission to see this link **
and ** you do not have permission to see this link **
and ** you do not have permission to see this link **
and if you want to completely go off the deep end (as I have) see this absorbing online monograph about the so-called ** you do not have permission to see this link **. Yes that’s CE.
In late winter of 399 the annual paschal epistle of the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria took occasion to condemn at length the teaching that God has a human form. The letter itself is no longer extant, but John Cassian, together with Palladius and the Church historians, Sozomen and Socrates, all agree that it hit a nerve among the monks of Egypt [1]. Cassian tells us that in three of the four churches at Scete the priests refused to read the patriarch’s letter aloud [2], while Socrates and Sozomen report a mob of angry ascetics converging on the patriarchal residence bent on lynching the offending prelate [3]…
A certain simple monk, Serapion, whom Cassian characterizes all the same as both an “elder and a holy man” [11] is enlisted as Isaac’s foil. The poor little fellow is aghast at the Patriarch Theophilus’ “new-fangled teaching [novella persuasio]” on the incorporeality of the “image of God” as taught by Genesis 1:26. Serapion is silenced, but later that evening cannot contain his distress: “They have taken my God away from me”, he weeps at vespers, “and now I no longer know whom I may take hold of, or whom I may call upon anymore or whom adore” [14]…
As late as the turn of the Fifth century there were still Christian sectarians who held on to the venerable ANE view that God had a body.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
1 Guest(s)
When a version of God is wheeled into the public square it is rarely a sculpture where the originators chipped away the falsehoods to find the truth left underneath. It is usually a mache of anthropomorphic paper and paste with layers of unwieldy concept glopped on over and over that over time needs a heavy dose of apologetic – like putting a warped mirror in front of it to make it look straight again.
Scholarship is a chisel.. it chips away the apologetic and the human mache just to find that what was wheeled in does not exist in that way at all. Maybe something does… but it’s not found by building a concept of God as much as tearing them down.