part0021

The Myth: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. (Gen. 1:27)

The Reality: The idea that God created humanity in his own image comes from Egyptian beliefs about the relationship between humanity and the Creator.

The Bible says that God created man and woman in his own image but it doesn’t explain what it means to be created in God’s image. Do they share the same physical form, or physical characteristics such as immortality or just some of sort of spiritual similarity? None of these options seem to be the case.

We know from the story of Adam and Eve that knowledge of good and evil (the fundamental basis for spiritual similarity) and immortality (a physical characteristic) were attributes of God and his angels but they were not attributes given to humanity when it was first created. Also, God assumed many shapes in the Bible, including that of a burning bush and a cloud of smoke, to describe just two. So, God and humans did not share a similar physical form.

Another question raised by the biblical passage concerns the sex of this image. Was the image of God male or female or both? Although the English translation initially says God created “man” in his own image, it then goes on to say,“male and female created he them.” The problem is that the English translation does not accurately reflect the underlying Hebrew text. The Hebrew does not say God created “man”; it says he created ha-adam , which means “the adam,” and he created “the adam” male and female. Since the Hebrew word for “man” is “ish”, what we may ask is an adam?

Underlying the English translation is the idea that adam means “man,” but this is actually a speculation by biblical scholars who have assumed this meaning. It derives primarily from a pun based on the belief that Adam was made from clay.

In Hebrew and other Semitic languages, the word for clay is adamah, and, since Genesis says that God made the being later named Adam out of clay, the biblical scholars have assumed that the word for clay became a metaphor for man. In fact, there are a couple of non-biblical references to indicate that such might be the case but this is limited to a handful of personal names found in texts in the library of ancient Ugarit and dating to about the fourteenth century B.C. We have no general evidence of any widespread use in Semitic tongues for the use of adam to mean “man.”

The problem here is that the Hebrew scribes adopted this idea that man was formed in the image of God from Egyptian traditions. That belief remained with the Israelites throughout their history but, because they didn’t believe in any form of physical representation of deity, by the time that Genesis assumed its final written form, the concept of an “image of god” no longer had a specific meaning.

To trace the concept back to its roots, look at the Egyptians’ view. The Egyptians believed both that humanity was created in the image of the Creator and that the Creator had both male and female characteristics. A passage from an ancient text known as The Instruction Book for Merikare, illustrates the first principle.

Well tended is mankind—god’s cattle.
He made sky and earth for their sake
He subdued the water monster, He made breath for their noses to live.
They are his images, who came from his body.

Note the parallel here to the biblical passage, where it talks not only about humanity being in the image of god, but also incorporates both male and female within the image.

This text apparently had wide circulation in Egypt. It dates originally to the twenty-first century B.C. and the present form of the text cited here comes from a papyrus written during the New Kingdom period, several centuries later. Hebrew scribes in Egypt almost certainly would have been familiar with the ideas expressed.

While Egyptians had several ideas about how humans were created, this particular version indicates that men and women were parts of the body of the Creator and it is in this sense that humanity had the image of a god. Several texts also show that the Creator incorporated both male and female characteristics, explaining how both male and female forms could come from the same source.

In the Hermopolitan scheme, for instance, the Creator was comprised of four males and four females as a single entity. In the Heliopolitan and Memphite traditions, Atum, without benefit of a mate, actually gave birth to two deities, Shu by sneezing him out and Tefnut by spitting her out. He did so, according to one text, after first having “acted as husband with my fist.” Atum has also been called the “Great He-She.” Ptah, the Memphite Creator, also exhibits male and female characteristics. As one text puts it:

So, we find that Egyptian texts depict the Creator as having male and female aspects and that humanity was formed in the Creator’s image. This translates into Genesis as,“So God created man [i.e., humans] in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Finally, we come to the question of the identity of ha-adam, the being created male and female. Since the names Atum and Adam are pronounced in an almost identical manner, the “d” and “t” being interchangeable on a phonetic level, it makes sense that “the Adam” would be a collective term for the multitude of beings that came forth from Atum, the Heliopolitan Creator.