BibleProject - Image of God Part 1: Humans as Middle Management

Episode Date: February 19, 2016

What does it mean that humans are created in the image of God? In this episode, the guys discuss the biblical theme of the image of God and its implications for Jesus followers. As humans, we bear the image of God, but what is the purpose of this for us––what is the purpose for God? Creating images of gods was a fairly familiar concept in the ancient world, but representing the image of God, not through a statue or idol but through your very being, has profound significance. In the first part of the episode (01:31-13:58), the guys talk about Genesis 1. This passage tells us that humans were created in God’s image and then given the task to rule over creation. Compared to the Babylonian creation myth, the biblical story of creation gives a worldview and social order that is pretty unique. In the second part of the episode (14:14-26:10), Tim and Jon talk about the purpose behind God creating humans in his image. After God creates Adam and Eve, he tasks them with subduing creation? What does this mean? How should we be “subduing” God’s creation? In the final part of the episode (26:26-44:50), the guys talk about the ancient context of creating images of gods. What were images of gods in the ancient world? Statues or idols were viewed as a special connection to the god they represented. This is true of humans too. Humans are the realization of God’s presence––his temple on earth. God’s rule here on earth is not through elite kings, it is through humans multiplying, gardening, and making neighborhoods. Video: This episode is designed to accompany our video called, "Image of God." You can view it on our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbipxLDtY8c&t=2s References: The Babylonian Creation Story (Enuma elish) from Grand Valley State University http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Enuma_Elish.html The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis by Lynn White, Jr. https://www.uvm.edu/~gflomenh/ENV-NGO-PA395/articles/Lynn-White.pdf Scripture References: Genesis 1-2 Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Blue Skies by Unwritten Stories Flooded Meadows by Unwritten Stories

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪

This is the Bible project I'm John Collins and I'm going to be talking with Tim Mackey about the image of God. This is the first of a three or four part series on this theme in the Bible, the image of God. This theme pops up in Genesis 1, first page of the Bible. It's actually in the first poem in the Bible. What God had just created mankind and then this poem begins and says, so God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. So Tim and I are going to talk about what does that mean to be made in the image of God

and it's not what I expected, It's really changed my paradigms for how I read the scripture and how I think about myself and why I'm on Earth. Oh, also, you're gonna hear my buddy Brian Hall who's in the studio with us as we recorded this conversation. So you might hear him pipe up here and there. Brian wrote the music that you're listening to right now.

We made a YouTube video about the image of God. It's on a YouTube channel come March 2016. But in the meantime, enjoy Image of God Part One. Alright, Tim is drinking some coffee, you're gonna hear that. In the studio audience is Brian Hall, my good friend, Brian. So feel free to chime in. Hi. Hey Brian. At any time.

We're going to talk about the image of God, which is going to be a new theme video that we're going to do. So this is, we usually spend a couple hours, Tim walks me through his notes before we actually write the script. So let's do this. Let us do it. Image of God. Image of God.

In other cultures, this phrase, image of God was used for kings. And so a king would be called the image of God. You'd find it on their statues or you'd find it inscribed for them because they ruled on God's behalf over. That's right, everyone else. Yeah, or in Egypt and Babylon, the kings were the embodiment of the God, meaning they were a God. They were a god. Yeah, they were deified human beings. So being in the image of God actually met just being God and being a physical representation of the God. Yeah, that's why this thing is protecting the pyramids. Why is this thing protecting the pyramid? Because Sphinx is what the Cherubim do in the Bible. There are these animal-like semi-human

creatures that protect the divine presence. The divine presence being the king. So in the pyramid, yeah, you have three kings buried by the Spanks who were deified kings. And so you have the guardian being the Spanks cat. Guardian. So it's another one of these things where israel's picking israel is a part of a cultural environment, but it they they innovate there's something innovative That comes to us in the Hebrew Bible that didn't appear anywhere else

So they're looking around and they're seeing these neighboring cultures having kings call themselves the image of God and when they record their creation account they say all humans are the image of God. Yeah, that's how it would translate in terms of like a cultural statement. And then if you have the theological conviction, which we do, that these human words are a way that God speaks, that this is God revealing

through these Israelite authors, something new that we need to hear. Namely, there's much more than just kings are made in the image of God, but humans aren't. So, yeah, part of the image of God is all wrapped up in what's happening in Genesis 1 and why the humans are the pinnacle creation in the storyline of Genesis 1 and what humans do on God's behalf. Okay, so let's walk through that then. Let's talk about the creation story and how it all builds up to God making humans and

pronouncing them that they are in his image. But let's think this through. I want you to help me think it through as an ancient Israelite, how I would have heard it in the context of what was going on, how the world view back then. And so, yeah, Genesis 1, God is creating. We're very familiar with this. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Earth was foremost and void, and so he starts just creating all of these things.

God is depicted as a royal figure in the seven-day creation narrative. God's depicted as having just this power and authority to speak and things happen like a king. Wood, very similar. That's a significant to that story that I think ancient readers would have tuned in to. Ancient readers would have read that and said, this God's acting like a king.

Yeah, that's right. So yeah, Genesis 1, God is speaking and things happen like kings do. And then out of darkness and chaos. Because chaos, sorry. Yeah, sorry. During this time, I'm a king. I'm the king of wherever, as there's Babylonia or... Yeah.

Where do some of the places? Oh, I, yeah. The Am some of the places? Oh, yeah. Ammonite. The Ammonite. The Ammonite. I'm the key to the mobites. I would say to my servants, hey, go and build me this thing, and then it would happen.

So my words have the power to create in the sense that I have authority, and I say, go build me that. Yeah, go build the pyramid. Go build me that pyramid. Yeah, go build the pyramid. Yeah, go build me that pyramid. Right. And then the pyramid would be built. Yeah, you speak and it's an order and it's followed and things happen.

So in the same way God in the Bible speaks and says, I want a son, I want the earth and it happens. Yes. And creation obeys the command. Command, so on. Yeah. So there are, um, yeah, and we know, yeah, like later Biblical poets, when they reflect on Genesis one, they bring all this out.

Psalm 33, for example, talks about he commanded. It was created. The word command is never found in Genesis one, but Psalm 33 uses language of commanders and kings to describe God in Genesis 1. So there's an ancient reader, the poet of Psalm 33, go read Psalm 33, oh listener of the podcast, and you'll see the ancient Israelite reflecting on Genesis 1 and seeing God depicted as a commander in chief or a king. Yeah, that's interesting.

So that's the depiction of God in Genesis 1, bringing order and beauty out of the chaos and darkness. And then the pinnacle of it all is that God says, let us make humanity, and Hebrew word for humanity is Adam, where we get our name Adam. And so let us make Adam, and then the line is in our image and in our likeness, we're according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, every creeping thing that's on the earth. And those are all things that were made in previous days.

And then there's a little poem, the first poem in the Bible. This Genesis 1 verse 27, it's a little poem about the image of God. So God created humanity in his own image, in the image of God, he, God created him, that is humanity, male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them,

be fruitful, increase number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea, birds of the sky, every living creature that moves on the ground. So I'm reading this creation account, I'm from that time. And so it won't be surprising that God is King, and he's creating things with his authority as a King. That wouldn't be that surprising. But I would be blown away at the point that he creates humans and says, okay, you're all in my image. For the narrative to say, and then he made the humans,

and he made the male and female and they they rule they rule yeah and they represent me as the as a human race yeah so yeah that's right so a contrast to this would be other ancient Near Eastern creation account that depict the god ruling So the most famous one was dug up in ancient Iraq like 1860s I think. It's called Enuma Elish and it's a tale about the Babylonian gods and about how their god Marduk defeats the forces of chaos that's in the form of this goddess called Tiamat, a big dragon, and so he shoots this arrow. Well, no, he blows a huge wind that inflates Tiamat's throat.

If you ever like, then in one of those super fans, and you open your mouth and it makes your cheeks do that. Like a really powerful fan. Right. It's like that. He does that to it. To it.

And then shoot the arrow down or throat. So you open it up kind of like with air pressure. Yeah. Air pressure. And then that really hurts Tiamat. And then he rips Tiamat in half. Why didn't you just do that? I know. really hurts Tiamat and then he rips Tiamat in half. Why didn't he just do that?

I know. So how the world had the hero. The mobilizer. And then he takes one half of a body and makes sky and the other half and makes land. Oh, okay. So that's the one of the Babylonian creation myths is that the world is born out of a violent conflict

between the gods. Then later on, the gods get tired of making food for themselves. They kill one of the gods in the Pantheon Kingu, and then they slay his throat, and then pour his blood out of his neck into the ground, and then mix the divine blood and the dirt to make mud and they make humans who become slaves to the gods. Out of blood and dirt. Out of blood and dirt. So again life is born out of violent conflict among the gods. And then out of that comes Marduk establishes his kingdom. So these are stories that are being told and passed on in the temples, in Babylon, they're read at festivals, people grow up with these tales. And so if you're a Babylonian farmer,

you believe that the world is born out of conflict and violence, and you believe that that king that you see every month or so at the annual sacrifice or something, is the embodiment of Marduk. And Marduk has legitimated this king as the image of God and as the ruler over me, so I better pay my taxes. And you exist to feed him. You exist to feed him, to feed the gods. The gods and the manifestation of him, the king. That's right.

Yeah. So you can see how these, you know, these myths, we just call them myths, but these were stories that legitimate the power structures, the social structures. So Genesis 1 really strikes a different chord in that kind of setting. So you have a story about a god who doesn't have any rivals, he just speaks and things are. There's no conflict with the darkness and chaos. There is darkness and chaos in Genesis 1, but it's not threat to God. He just, yeah, he knows the spirit's hovering. Yeah, God's just there in the midst of darkness and chaos, and then he just speaks and makes it all beautiful. And then he makes all humanity, male and female,

as his image. And all humanity has this royal dignified task to rule the world on God's behalf. So you have to think, wow, what kind of social structure does that create? The vision of the universe in Genesis 1 I think, wow, what kind of social structure does that create? Right. The vision of the universe in Genesis 1 is the vision of how Israel was to be ordered, which was a very social egalitarian society, not male-female.

It was patriarchal in that sense, but economically it was very egalitarian. Nobody owned, like, family's owned like families owned land. I mean, there were no kings in Israel for a long time. It was just tribes and a federation. Everybody farmed and worked the land. In the year of Jubilee. Year of Jubilee, debts forgiven. All, you know, like it was a very no tribe owned more land

or was better, it could take the land of another. Yeah. It's very different. It's kind of hippie. It's kind of like a commute. But that's the Israel envisioned in the laws, in the penitent. Yeah.

And you can see how this story is giving a view of the world and who God is and what kind of world I'm in and what humans are. Mm-hmm. That is very different than the culture they came from in Egypt or in Babylon. So why did God create all humans in his image? So from the Genesis story, it's that the human task is to rule and have dominion and to subdue. So we should talk about those.

So yeah, ruleings not a way that we really talk about our day to day activities anymore. I do. I rule everyday. John rules. I mean, there's the 80 cents of like that rules. You rule, man. But that's not quite what we're talking about.

How's your day going, ruling? It's ruling. So yeah, that reminds me of the Adam Sandler movie Billy Madison have you seen that? I haven't. Did you watch Billy you didn't watch Adam Sandler movies? I was probably studying Hebrew version. Okay yeah so this particular scene Adam Sandler's character is in a cafeteria and this guy walks up and he throws a bunch of food on him and he says, oh, Doyle rules. And it's like this whole family thing.

They always say it. And so here's a clip of Adam Sandler interacting with, with Odoyl. Odoyl rules. Thanks a lot, Odoyl. Nice meeting you. Yeah, so I like how he says nice meeting you because it's not nice meeting someone who rules like that, right?

It's a pain. Yeah, right. So yeah, the Bible's talking about something different. This is about humans. There's something that humans do need to exercise power over. It's hard for us. We don't really have these categories in our day to day life. But again, this is something now humans are doing that is a reflection or an image of

what God has been doing. We'll talk about the word image a little bit later, but what it at least means is that humans are now to do what God has been up to and what has God been up to. He's been making a world that he wants. And it's a world that's not disordered or chaotic. It's a world that's reliable and ordered so that life can flourish. And humans are now being given an authority over dirt and birds and cows to make things flourish even more. And that's the idea of ruling. Yeah. And so connected to that is this word subdue, which I mean it just says to impose on it your

vision for it. Yeah. Which again, the weird impose is very negative in English. But this is all in the context of gardening and agriculture. So you suppose? So if you suppose? Yeah, yeah, let's go with this metaphor. Yeah.

This is what the story's trying to say. So I'm going to subdue my farm. Sibd... yeah, farm. A farm. So what do... I don't know. What does a patch of dirt do if you never do any it if you leave it alone and never bring your will?

Yeah, grows with you. It grows wild grass. Yeah, yeah. So to make a vegetable garden, takes an enormous amount of work and energy planning and you have to make that ground do something it wouldn't do by itself. Right, it takes cultivation.

And to the same degree, cows and goats will reproduce, but they can reproduce even more, and for greater purposes than just to keep themselves alive, but they can give milk and butter and all wool and all this. Well, not the cows. Yes, you sheep. Cow for that goat goat hair. People make stuff out of goat hair. Right. So the, again, the point is is that this or there's just leaving the world as it is, which is in a, it'll just do it.

It's being passive. Yeah. Is it just wild and raw? But then humans are to bring their will and intention to it to make it a place where life can flourish even more. Yeah, and that takes imagination and creativity. Yeah, and then muscle and will. Yes. I mean first you have to go, okay, this is what it could be. Here's this plot of land and I can imagine it actually being an orchard. Right. And then I've got to problem solve and figure out how I'm going to create that orchard.

And then, so that takes some creativity. Yeah, this orchard could provide apples for a thousand people instead of just my neighborhood. Right. So how do we do that? Yeah. Using your ingenuity and then you have to then build it. Yeah, which is just your own Muscle and effort and then you've got to take care of it. Yeah. Yeah, there's so it was all that subduing In the context of Genesis one, I think that's what that's what these words be easier just to go take over someone else's orchard

Yeah, so do it. Yeah, that's right. I mean, that's what I think of when subdued, I think of like going, I understand, use violence and exert my authority over something. And you know, actually what's interesting, you do a word study on subdued

and it is used, for example, like when Joshua goes in and they subdue the land from the canaanite. And so the canaanites resist and attack them and they subdue them. So, but again, the word doesn't inherently mean killed people. It's just or take or take. It depends on, that's what it means if you're going in to someone else's land and taking it from them Then the word is gonna take on that mean doing something that someone else has you're taking it If you're some doing something that doesn't exist yet. Yeah, the same word you would if you're subduing a patch of dirt You're making it do something that it wouldn't do on its own. Okay. Yeah, pyramids don't build themselves and

Apple orchards don't grow by themselves. They take somebody imposing will. So humans are being given, it's not even permission, they're being given this vocation to mediate God's rule. The God wants his world to be a place where life flourishes, where life multiplies, and that's going to require a lot of subduing and harnessing all the potential and resources in the dirt and fish and cows to make it work.

So that's, and when humans do that, they are said to be an image of the God of Israel. You know, if you live during this time, the world is actually kind of scary in some ways. Like to go into a new place, where there's lions and there's, who knows what's gonna get you? That's right. You're gonna have to subdue it. There's a sense of like,

we're going into the unknown, the pioneers. I mean, we don't just don't have that anymore, except for like, that's right. That may be going into space. Yeah, we're going camping. But like, to go into some new land that your tribe has never been into is going to feel kind of like a battle. And then you're going to subdue it. But then I guess what we want to be careful of is it doesn't mean go and just exploit it. That's right. And you're going to see all kinds of, in Israel's story, all kinds of ways that God

limits the degree to which Israel subdues its land. So yeah, like the law is about leaving whole sections of your fields unharvested, you know, for the poor. Yeah. We're getting your... like the whole concept of crop rotation and stuff like that, so you don't exhaust. Like all that's in the laws for Israel. You know, this is a footnote to it, but there was a really influential ecologist in the 60s, Sydney Wyatt, who wrote this essay, saying that the whole environmental exploitation that's one of the underbellies of Western development is all generated out

of the story in Genesis 1. He made that claim. The reason why we rape the world is because of Genesis 1. Because our culture is fueled by this biblical vision of ruling and subduing. And so just on purely historical terms, whether or not that's true, has been dismantled. It was actually more the development of the Enlightenment, deist or non-theist worldview, that nature is this object to be mastered and overcome. That has nothing to do with the Bible. But anyway, that's interesting. That's a cultural perception that's out there.

Yeah, somehow Judaism, Christianity, or the Bible inherently creates this objectification of nature. A top of then that verse is just the kind of the theological paradigm of this is going to burn, and we're all going to the point is to go to heaven. Yeah, that's, yes, that's not a layer. On top of that. Right, right. Which now we're going to be a big tangent.

But yeah, and then so that multiplies this idea of like, well, this is just a tool. It's a tool that's not going to last. Let's kind of use it for what it's worth and get out of here. Yeah, so yeah, your instinct was right a few minutes ago to go back and just say, we're talking thousands of years ago, agricultural setting, you know, this is more like

the pioneer mindset. Where. And it's hard for us to imagine what it was like when you could have been eaten by a lion. Right. Like that was like, that would happen. Like if I found out a friend was eaten by a lion last week, I'd be like, ah, sucks for him. I wouldn't what did I tell you I think I told you this when I went backpacking in August

Yeah, Colorado and I couldn't sleep one night. So I got up It while it was still dark and I hiked to the top of a tall peak to watch the sunrise Mm-hmm and the only thing on my mind I't shake it, was that there was a mountain lion that was gonna eat me. You were thinking about it. For hours, yes. Because it was totally, we were up there. Oh, they're mountain lions in the park. There's a lot of mountain lions in Rocky Mountain National Park. And they live right at where tree lion meets the rocks.

And that's where we were. But it was such a, I loved it, but I hated it. Because I was terrified, but I was like, I never have never have this experience right where I'm in really wild country and There's surely a mountain lion somewhere within 10 miles So yeah, so imagine you had a subdue that mountain. I know it. You would I know it you were subduing that mountain Yeah, sort of so your point is we've very seldom are in a situation anymore modern Westerners were I think subdued becomes the wrong word because there's not this sense of like,

oh, I need to go subdued my backyard. It's like, no, there's nothing scary back there. I don't know, that's how I feel. Well, I mean, I guess it gets unruly and you have to manage it. Weeds. But I'm not out there looking out for you have to manage it. Weed. But I'm not out there looking out for rattlesnakes. That's right.

That's why I'm just wondering if the word subdue has some aggressiveness to it because during that time, there was some aggressiveness that was required of going into new territory and cultivating it. Because there's crazy, there's gonna be apes that can rip your head off. There's gonna be snakes that can swallow you. Yeah.

There's gonna be, yeah, I mean not in the biblical stories. The Lizzards. Israel's full of bears and lions, and bears and lions. Not anymore, but it was. Yeah, that was just like a normal thing. So we haven't even talked about the word image. But the idea of being the image is connected to ruling. So maybe this is a good segue then to what in this story, in Genesis 1, with that idea of God and what God does, and then humans now carry on what God has been doing, what does it mean to call humans the image of God if they're going to be ruling and subduing and bringing that out of creation.

And so this is another area where the history of where this idea went. It's very hard for us to separate how the ideas developed from what it meant originally. Well, I don't know how it developed. So we're fine on that. Well, I'll just ask you, like what, when you think of the image of God, what comes to your mind? To say a human is made in the image of God. I guess John and Brian, what comes to your mind?

Well, what comes to my mind is, yeah, this supernatural aspect of us where I know that I'm biology, I've got flesh and blood and organs and stuff, but I also have consciousness and I have morality and I have these things that are less tangible and if you dissect me you're not going to find it. I guess I always thought that was in some way what the image of God meant. That sacredness, that there's a spirituality, there's a, maybe I guess, I mean, it's fuzzy. I will say it's always been a fuzzy phrase that you kind of just say to them to go, yeah, we're important. And there's something more to this than just being animals.

I don't know, what do you think, Brian? I just think of the creative and electric creative. I think a lot about, and to me, there's a lot of something very spiritual about our creative and electric, even if it's not us doing something related to the arts, for example, even if we're subduing a field, we have to use There's this there's this quality to how we think and how we process

that is um To me sort of uh You know like a songwriter never knows quite where a good song comes from like all that stuff is about the mystery of God and God's personhood in us. That's maybe what I would say. Yeah, so common denominator. There's something about humans that seems to transcend our just biology, right, and molecules crashing together and instinct to reproduce and hormones and so on. So, and that's throughout most of the history of Western interpretation at least, that's been the idea that we're talking about something additional to humans that's not shared by other rabbits and elephants or dolphins. Right, because that's what the narrative says, right?

That all these animals were made, humans were made, but then they were given God's breath. And, or is God's breath separate from the image of God? Well, God's breath is in Genesis two. But image of God's in... Image of God is Genesis one, yeah. So you're right. And image of God is something that sets humans apart from the birds and fish.

This is important. So Genesis 1 doesn't talk about God's breath. Well, it does at the beginning that God's breath, spirits hovering in the darkness of chaos. But as far as animating the humans. Yeah, so this is part of how Genesis works as a book because you get the seven-day story in chapter one through chapter two, verse four, and then chapter two, verse five, a second story about

the origins of the world and humans appears. And it has a different chronology. It happens all in one day versus the seven days. It has a different order of things being created. The animals come second in Genesis 2, but they come first in Genesis 1. Come second after humans. Yeah, because the guy is alone and he's like, man, which I had somebody to hang out with. So God makes animals. But in Genesis 1, God makes the animals first, and then humans are the pinnacle. So in Genesis 1, that's when that account is,

the image of God is how Genesis 1 reflects on the nature and purpose of humans. Genesis 2 reflects on the nature of humans as coming from the dirt, being made of dirt, and then infused with divine breath. So are we confusing, are we conflating those two things by saying the image of God is about creativity and about spirituality and that kind of stuff? Yeah, it's one of those things where I think I understand, I see how that happens. That's, I think it's as good readers, you put the, read the two stories out by saying, you go, oh, the image of God is something that God,

it's the word of life. Well, extra infusion that makes humans different. Yeah. But they are, I think different. I think they're different, they're making distinct, it's kind of like a diamond or something that has two fat multiple facets. So that's getting at the same reality at the center of the diamond, but they are two separate

facets that are giving a different angle. So the image of God is distinct in making one kind of statement about humans, and then the dirt and divine breath is making another kind of statement. But I think it helps to separate them because they're separate in the story. And when you separate them, what happens? So let's separate them. Let's just say what is the word image? Just the Hebrew word image. So if you go look around in the rest of the Hebrew Bible at that word. This is a really interesting fact. Its number one reference is two idols, which Israel was prohibited to ever make.

So, you end up with this interesting kind of paradox at the beginning of the story of the Bible, which is going to be about a god who tells people to never make images of him, but then page one begins the story with this God making an image of himself and his humans. So that's interesting that you're not supposed to try and image this God because images of this God already exist, namely the you and the person sitting next to you. And so what does it mean then that God has provided an image? Hold on. Yeah. The justification usually for don't make an image is because that would be blasphemy.

Like you would create something that wasn't actually God. Yeah. And yeah, or you're reducing the true reality and character of God by reducing him to a golden cow or something. So that's one reason, but then you're saying the other reason is because God already made an image. So let's not confuse anything you can make with what God already made. Yeah, namely. Yeah, that's right. You. Yeah, that's right. You.

Yeah, that's right. And you, so yeah, you and I are not, we're not God, but we are, it's not even, and it's not even that we're like God, but it's that you and I embody something about God here. I guess that is another thing I always thought about when you say image of God is in some way we're like God. In some way there's God has characteristics that he's given humans that he didn't give Yeah. The rest of creation. Yeah. That's your saying that's not true. No, I think well is it character traits or is it a task namely to rule and you're saying it's a task. In the poem in Genesis 1, God created them in his image, then he blessed them and said,

be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth, rule over it. So the story connects the image explicitly with the job description of humans, which is to multiply and rule, and subdue. So in context, I think this is what's called the functional interpretation of the image of God. So yeah, so a metaphysical interpretation of the image would be it's our conscious, conscious, rationality, ability to reason, spirituality, that kind of thing. That's the metaphysical one. Correct.

And that is, I think, it's intuitive, but it's actually hard to anchor in the story. It's more closely related to the breath of God. In Genesis 2. There's two. Genesis 1 seems to link the image with the role and job description that he's given to humans uniquely. Yeah, so he didn't ask cows to rule the world. He... That was a good decision. Yeah. Or maybe, maybe not. Maybe they'd do a better job. So there's that. Then there's, then that raised the question, well, what were these images?

What were idols in the ancient world and Israel that God prohibited making them? So what's the talk question? Yeah. So we're talked, did they actually, you know, did an Israel actually believe that the golden calf was God? Or did they have, you know, something more sophisticated that we would think a distinction you could easily make to be like, well, it's probably, it represents a God. Or there's some close connection between that statue and some invisible God who makes thunder

and lightning and who I can't see. And so I mean ancient people weren't stupid. Right. Probably smarter than most of us because they were pioneers. They could survive the mountain lion. They're, yeah, there's more editing of the gene pool back then. They probably were smarter. That sounded so clinical. Yeah.

So we're talking about an idea that this statue, but is some, like you carried on a pedestal and you put it in a shrine, so you treat it like very special and like holy inside a part, but it's viewed as having some special connection to the God that it represents. That's why you can have multiple statues representing one God. And so this statue is some kind of physical embodied representation of the God. And you can put it somewhere and it is now representing God's presence there. And the closest Israel ever got to this was the Ark of the Covenant, which didn't have an image.

It had a place, the Cherubim, which are the protectors of the Divine Presence, and then just a blank space above it. But they still have this idea that the temple was somehow a localized expression of God's glory and presence. So without having an actual image, it still had a representation of the place to realize God's presence. Yeah. So we have, you know, there's all kinds of stuff going on like this in the ancient world. The most famous one, just because they're so awesome, is they're called the Lamassu statues, but you've surely seen them.

They were found when they started digging up all these ancient Babylonian cities in Iraq. How do you spell it? L-A-M-A-S-S.U. and it has the body of an ox but then the head of a man and a huge stately beard. So these were used in the Babylonian and Assyrian kingdoms and they're very wings. They have wings. So they're similar to the sphinx and to the cherubim. They would be at the entrances to the city or the entrances to the Cherubim, they would be at the entrances to the city, or the entrances to the temple, and there are physical representations of the God.

And what's especially interesting about these is that that head piece is, the crown. Yeah, it's an icon of the king. If you look at a Syrian statue of their kings, they have precisely that head with like the square beard on it. So this is a cool example because it's the king as a god, with a physical image,

statue, representing king and deity and how those go together, and these would be placed at the entrances of cities or temples or Egyptian kings, like when they conquered new territories, they would put similar statues with their own cultural shaping, like it's the entrance of. So, for example, when Egypt ruled over Israel, there's a few times in Israel's history where Egypt came through. And we still today, people have dug up these Egyptian statues of deified kings near the entrances of ancient Israelite cities. I mean, just imagine walking past one of these things. They're so epic.

And what do statues do? Statues are these embodiments or representations of the divine. And I see them all the time every time I go to this big city and so on. And not holy. There's a holiness to them. That's right. Yeah. And a reverence for them.

That's right. And so then you read a story like Genesis 1 that says, that's what humans are. That would be the effect. I think that's what I think that's starting to land for me. I mean, I'm imagining going into walking by the temple and there's this massive statue of this, what's this thing called? La Masu. Like this beard, the size of my chest and like this big ox body and these wings and it would just feel larger than life and epic.

And there would be this gravity to that moment of walking by and being like, well, this is where God's, the embodiment of God's power and spirit is here. And the sense of that, the awe and reverence of that. And so I have that experience in my psyche. And then I'm told this creation poem, or this creation account saying,

yes, that's how God created you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's, you can just the layers of significance, the Genesis 1, just start heaping on here about God representing himself with these images. But far from the world of kings who have money and slaves to build these images that you see, it's saying humans getting married and building families and neighborhoods and having gardens and orchards like that God's rule Here on earth God rules the world not through the elite kings

But through humans multiplying right gardening making neighborhoods That's yeah because you'd have have these essentially peasants who are out working the land, having families, and then you would go to the temple and there would be the elite. That's right. And they would be the ones ruling. Yes. Yeah. Those were the kings' lives, that's where the gods are located.

Yeah. They're temples in the cities. Yeah. Yeah. And you would go to sacrifice there. Yeah. Yeah. And you would go to sacrifice for there. Yeah. And and now this, this scripture is telling you, uh, no, actually that holy task that you thought you had go the temple for is what you're doing. That's what you're doing every day with your family. Yeah. By having kids. Yeah. And by taking care of the land to feed people and to it's awesome

Genesis one is radical. It really it's so hard for us to see it anymore. Yeah That was part one of the conversation with Tim Mackey on the image of God. I mentioned in our conversation that the words subdued doesn't feel like the right word anymore, but in retrospect, you know, I think it's actually a pretty great word because if you think about it, life is tough. There's social and economic dangers around every corner. We're constantly fighting to make it, you know, to not feel isolated or afraid or lost. And so I mean it's comforting to know that God understands this, that to fulfill our tasks as his image, we're gonna have to face and overcome a lot

of challenges. In the next episode, we're going to talk more about this task of being God's image and compare it to what I've seen as a typical Western Christian narrative. We have a video coming out on the image of God in March of 2016. It's gonna be really good. That'll be on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash the Bible project. You can also say hi to us at Facebook, Facebook.com slash, join the Bible project, and we're on Twitter at JoinBibleProge. Thanks for being a part of this with us. Just a boy, trying to tell you Please, if all your man does another crack in this

Now you are the children of the free spirit test Now it's time to rest you