Being Human in God's World

An Old Testament Theology of Humanity

J. Gordon McConville

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780801099700
• eBook ISBN:
  9781493404421
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

A Biblical Perspective on What It Means to Be Human

This major work by a widely respected Old Testament scholar and theologian unpacks a biblical perspective on fundamental questions of what it means to be human. J. Gordon McConville explores how a biblical view of humanity provides a foundation for Christian reflection on ethics, economics, politics, and church life and practice. The book shows that the Old Testament's view of humanity as "earthed" and "embodied" plays an essential part in a well-rounded Christian theology and spirituality, and applies the theological concept of the "image of God" to all areas of human existence.

1
Humanity in the Image of God (Imago Dei)

As I indicated in the preceding chapter, the concept of the human being created in the “image of God” has a certain claim to precedence in a study of the Old Testament’s view of humanity. It is often observed that the formula recurs very little after its famous use in Genesis 1. This elusiveness, together with uncertainties about its precise meaning in that chapter, makes it precarious to rest an Old Testament anthropology entirely on it. This point is made at length by David Kelsey in his two-volume theological anthropology,1 where he claims that Genesis 1:26 cannot be used to structure a theological anthropology systematically. There is indeed no “single plot or narrative logic” to a biblical anthropology; rather, the canon has multiple plots and is “systematically unsystematic.”2 In particular, he is unconvinced by renderings of a single, unifying eschatological narrative of the canon in which the “image” is lost, only to be restored through Christ at the end.3

This basic theological position coheres well with my understanding of the role of the “image” in Old Testament anthropology. Rather than assume at the outset that the “image of God” is the key to unlocking the Old Testament’s understanding of the human situation, I propose to consider how far we can understand it in its context, then look for ways in which it might shed light on other facets of the Old Testament’s portrayal of humanity, or indeed have light shed back upon it. This in turn should feed into our broader theological understanding. With John Goldingay, I think that “the expression [“image of God”] is a stimulus to reflection as much as a deposit of reflection.”4

The “Image of God” in the Context of Genesis 1:1–2:4a

We begin, however, by considering the “image” in its context. This brings its own challenges. Kelsey’s position, outlined above, rests partly on his belief that the chances of finding firm ground in the exegesis of Genesis 1:26–28 are too slight to allow the text to be used much for theology. For him, the phrase “is so problematic and controversial that the most careful and influential exegeses seem to cancel each other out.”5 Goldingay is hardly less pessimistic: “Neither the expression itself nor the immediate context spells out the phrase’s meaning, and answers to the question [wherein lay God’s image in humanity] commonly reflect the prejudgments of the circles where they are propounded.”6 We have been warned! Even so, Genesis 1 must be understood somehow, even if only to weigh it carefully as part of the Old Testament’s wider testimony.

Let us observe, then, how the “image” takes its place within that first great biblical statement about the creator and the creation and how they relate (Gen. 1:1–2:4a). I offer here a short account of its features, all widely observed, in order to situate verses 26–28 in a discourse and to illustrate the issues for interpretation. It is a highly structured passage. Most obviously it divides God’s creative activity into the work of six days, followed by a day of rest. This structuring system is underlined by the repetition of certain phrases: “and God said,” “let there be . . . and there was,” “and God made,” and “God saw that it was good.” The seven-day pattern has been analyzed to show how carefully crafted the composition is. In a time-honored and widely followed analysis, the six days are paired, so that days 1–3 correspond to days 4–6 respectively, as the general to the particular. Thus light is created on the first day and the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth. In this structure, the seventh day, with its Sabbath rest, stands outside the pattern and may be seen as a culmination of the whole.7 In an alternative structure, the fourth day is understood as a midpoint. The effect of this is to throw some weight onto the theme of worship, since the fourth day portrays the heavenly bodies not as the objects of worship that they almost universally were in the ancient Near East but simply as parts of the one God’s creative work.8 These two patterns, which can be regarded as overlapping, have in common that they portray the creation of all things within a context of the worship of the one God who made everything, in the one case by focusing on the Sabbath, which was a vital part of Israel’s worship (cf. Exod. 20:8–11), and in the other by means of a repudiation of the worship of anything other than the God of Israel.

In addition to these observations, Gordon Wenham has drawn attention to the preponderance of the number seven in the passage: for example, the phrases “God saw that it was good” and “and it was so” each occur seven times. The phrase “And God said” occurs ten times.9 Furthermore, the passage is enclosed by statements about God’s creation, with Genesis 2:3–4a echoing chiastically the elements of Genesis 1:1.10 These features draw attention to leading interests of the passage. The sevens echo the seven-day sabbatical structure, and perhaps in addition express something of the wholeness and orderliness of the creation. The prominence of “and God said,” together with “and it was so,” highlights the powerful, creative speech of God. And the repetition of “God saw that it was good” emphasizes the divine appraisal of the created world as “good.”

To these formal points should be added the observation that the account of the sixth day of creation is substantially longer than those of the other days. In narrative terms, the story slows down and becomes expansive, so that it is not adequate to express the structure of the passage as a neat symmetrical framework. Rather, there is a particular focus on the subject matter of the sixth day, on which God creates humans. The humans do not have this day all to themselves, however, but share it with other land creatures (Gen. 1:24–25). In distinguishing the humans from the creatures of both days 5 and 6, one must recognize similarities as well as dissimilarities. As with the humans, God speaks to the creatures of air and sea on day 5, blessing them and commanding them to “be fruitful and multiply” (1:22; cf. 1:28). Humans therefore share the land with the land creatures, and with the nonhuman creatures of the air and sea the capacity both to be addressed by God and to propagate. (It is curious that the latter features occur with the creatures of sea and air, and not with the land creatures, but they are presumably not intended to be exclusive.) In terms of propagation, therefore, humans are part of a created order that is designed for reproduction, as with the vegetation on the third day.

Humanity is nevertheless distinguished from the other creatures in important ways. It is only in the case of the humans that God deliberates with himself before acting, and only the humans are said to be made “in our image and according to our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). They are further marked out, first, by a triple use of the verb bārāʾ rather than the more regular ʿāśâ; second, by being specified as “male and female” (v. 27; this is evidently assumed of the other creatures, since they too “multiply,” but passed over in silence); and third, by assigning them “dominion” over the other creatures of both the fifth and sixth days (v. 26b). The command to have dominion is then repeated and el...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Humanity in the Image of God (Imago Dei)
• 2. “Like God” in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2–3)
• 3. The Human “Constitution” in the Old Testament
• 4. The Situated Self
• 5. The Old Testament’s Transformations and the “Spiritual Sense”
• 6. Embodiments: Place and Memory
• 7. The Political Self
• 8. Male and Female
• 9. Work and Creativity
• 10. The Old Testament and Human Formation: The Psalms
• Bibliography
• Subject Index
• Author Index
• Scripture Index
• Back Cover