The Shadow of God - Dr. Wesley Muhammad

Akkadian ßalmu suggests that we should expect the former to exhibit the same semantic range as the
latter. 152 Also, P‟s intratextual paralleling of Adam the “Image of God” with Bezalel the “shadow of God”
may further indicate that this semantic nuance was known by P. 153 Thus, Adam is both image and shadow
of God, his “shadow picture,” as N.W. Porteous said it. 154 This description of Adam as the „dark image
(shadow)‟ of God may be related to the biblical designation for the material from which Adam‟s body was
made, ’adāmāh (Gen. 2:7). This latter term suggests a dark reddish brown inclining towards black. 155
Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition describes the material of Adam‟s body as a dark or black
substance. 156 A connection between ’adāmāh, ’ādām „human,‟ and the hue of the first man‟s skin has been
suggested. 157 There is also the widespread description of Adam‟s post-lapsarian body as black or
“darkened” after the withdrawal of the divine light. 158 These traditions must be rooted in the biblical
Root ‘-L,” 29-32; Barr, “The Image of God,” 21. Pace most recently Wildberger, TLOT 3:1080, s.v. “םלצ”; Stendebach, TDOT
12:388, s.v. “םלצ.”
152 Thus Barr (“The Image of God,” 21), preferring to see two different but homonymous Hebrew roots at work here, acknowledged
that by the time of P “the semantic content came to overlap, the component „image‟ and the component „dark, obscure reality‟ coming
to penetrate one another.” See also J.F.A. Sawyer, who in 1972 was doubtful of a Hebrew cognate to Akkadian ßalāmu (Review of
W.L. Holladay), argued in 1992: “It is much more likely that the term tselem is used here (Gen. 1.26-27) in its older sense of „shadow,
dream‟, as in two Psalms on the subject of human nature (Ps. 39.6; 73.20)”: “The Image of God, The Wisdom of Serpents and the
Knowledge of God and Evil,” 66.
153 We are reading לאלצב with Beth essentiae as the parallel with Gen. 1:26-7 suggests.
154 George Arthur Buttrick et al (edd.), The Interpreter‟s Dictionary of the Bible (New York: Abingdon Press, 1962; hereafter IDB)
2:3 s.v. “Image of God,” by N.W. Porteous. In his discussion of Poimandres in 1935 C. H. Dodd (The Bible and the Greeks [London:
Hodder & Stoughton, 1935] 157-8, n. 1), observing that the Greek terms ζκια and ειδος used with regard to the divine Anthropos
corresponded with the biblical םלצ and תומד used in the creation account of Adam (Gen. 1:26-7), noted: “…certainly there is an old
exegetical tradition according to which תומד and םלצ in Genesis mean „likeness‟ and „shadow‟ respectively, corresponding fairly
well with the ειδος and ζκια of Poimandres. Unfortunately, I cannot trace this tradition farther back than the Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide,
who died in 1637. Is there any evidence that it was known at a date which would make it possible that the Hermetist was acquainted
with this interpretation…?” We can now answer Dobb‟s question in the affirmative.
155 Cf. the Akkadian cognates adamātu, “dark red earth” and adamatu B “black blood.” CAD 1.94; TDOT 1:75-77 s.v. אדם ’ādhām by
Maass; ibid, 1:88-90 s.v. אדמה’ a dhāmāh by J.G. Plöger; ABD 1.62 s.v. Adam by Howard N. Wallace.
156 Jewish: see e.g. the haggadic tradition according to which Adam was made from dust taken from all four corners of the earth, and
this dust was respectively red, black, white and green-“red for the blood, black for the bowls, white for the bones and veins, and green
for the pale skin.” Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1:55; cf. PRE 11 (Frielander trns., 77). The green here at times substitutes for
tekhelet, the dark blue of the high priestly robe. See Gershom Scholem, “Colours and Their Symbolism in Jewish Tradition and
Mysticism: Part I,” Diogenes 108 (1979): 94; Rabbi Alfred Cohen, “Introduction,” in idem (ed.) Tekhelet: The Renaissance of a
Mitzvah (New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1996), 3. See also Maimonides who describes the “substance of dust and darkness”
from which Adam‟s body was made. The Guide of the Perplexed, trns. M. Friedlander (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1947) 3.8.
Christian: cf. St. Ephrem the Syrian‟s description of the “dark mass [of dust] šÈymwt"”; see discussion by Tryggve Kronholm, Motifs
from Genesis 1-11 in the Genuine Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian (Sweden: CWK Gleerup Lund ,1978) 53, 57; Edmund Beck, “Iblis
und Mensch, Satan und Adam,” Mus 89 (1976): 214. Islam: Qur"§n 15:28 and parallels: “I am going to create man from sounding
clay (ßalßāl), from fetid black mud (Èama’ maßnūn).”
157 ABD 1:62; Greenstin, “God‟s Golem,” 221. The latter‟s statement that Adam‟s “pinkish complexion and blood share their hue with
the reddish clay of earth” must be modified in the light of the Akkadian “dark red earth” and “black blood.” See also Josephus,
Antiquities I, 1.2: “He was called Adam…which signifies one who is red (אדם), because he was formed out of red earth”.
158 The post-lapsarian blackness of Adam is known from a number of Jewish, Christian, Gnostic and Muslim sources. The Iggeret
Baale Hayyim says of Adam: “Scarcely had he eaten of the tree of life, when his body became black and his countenance changed.
His garment of light fell from him and he was troubled by the heat of the sun.” See Angelo S. Rappoport and Raphael Patai, Myth and
Legend of Ancient Israel (New York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1966). See also the Syriac Christian theologian Pseudo-Macarius,:
“In the day when Adam fell, God came walking in the garden. He wept, so to speak, seeing Adam and he said: „After such good
things, what evils you have chosen! After such glory, what shame you now bear! What darkness are you now! What ugly form you
are! What corruption! From such light, what darkness has covered you!…Therefore, darkness became the garment of his soul.”
Pseudo-Macarius, II, 30 (Eng. 190). Relevant too is the description in The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan of the fall of a
certain angel whose relationship to Adam is ambiguous: “(And God said): „Oh Adam, so long as the good angel was obedient to Me, a
bright light rested on him and his hosts. But when he transgressed My commandment, I deprived him of that bright nature, and he
became dark. And when he was in the heavens, in the realms of light, he knew naught of darkness. But he transgressed, and I made
him fall from heaven upon the earth; and it was this darkness that came upon him (13.1-5; see The book of Adam and Eve, also called
The conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, a book of the early Eastern church, tr. from the Ethiopie, with notes from the Kufale,
Talmud, Midrashim, and other Eastern works, by the Rev. S. C. Malan [London [etc.] Williams and Norgate, 1882]).” In 10.5
Adam is said to have been a bright angel, and in 13.9 it is stated that the same darkness that came upon the fallen angel came upon
Adam, in contrast to 13.7. Gnosticism: Irenaeus (Against the Heretics 1.30.9) reports regarding his Ophites: “Adam and Eve formerly
had light and luminous and kind of spiritual bodies, just as they had been fashioned. But when they came to this world, there bodies
were changed to darker, fatter, and more sluggish ones.” Trns. By Dominic J. Unger and John J. Dillion, St. Irenaeus of Lyons
Against the Heretics, Volume One, Book One (Ancient Christian Writters, No. 55; New York: Newman Press, 1992). According to
the the Apoc. John (II, 1,23:26-32; BG 1, 61:19-62:3) the demiurge Ialtbaoth, after expelling Adam and Eve from the garden, “clothed
them in obscure darkness.” In Islamic tradition v. al-Tha#labÊ, #Ar§"is al-Maj§lis fÊ Qißaß al-anbiy§ who states concerning the