THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN - Tyndale House

64 TYNDALE BULLETIN
Annunaki as discussing among themselves what may be
created next now that the world itself has been made:
‘What (else) shall we do?
What (else) shall we create? . . .
Let us slay (two) Lamga gods.
With their blood let us create mankind.’ 52
We think it extremely unlikely, in spite of the superficial
similarity of these texts, that the use of the plural in Genesis 1.26
is in any way dependent on such mythological descriptions. If
the author of Genesis 1 was in every other instance able to
remove all trace of polytheism from the traditional material
he was handling, as he is generally agreed to have done, 53 why
did he not manage to expunge the plural of 'let us'?, Did he
not realize the contradiction between 'let us' and 'God created'
(verse 27; א ָרְבִּיַו singular verb)? On general grounds we cannot
but agree with G. von Rad, who writes of Genesis I: ‘Nothing
is here by chance; everything must be considered carefully,
deliberately, and precisely. It is false, therefore, to reckon here
even occasionally with archaic and half-mythological rudi-
ments. . . . What is said here is intended to hold true entirely
and exactly as it stands.’ 54 If the plural is here, it is here
deliberately, not as some dimly recalled or partly digested
fragment of mythology.
2. Address to creation
This view, which was held by some mediaeval Jewish scholars, 55
but finds little support today, 56 at least has the merit of taking
the plural seriously and of looking for some subject mentioned
already in Genesis who will co-operate with God in His work
of creation. Maimonides argued, along these lines, that God,
addressed Himself to the earth, which was to bring forth man's
body from the earthly elements, while God Himself was to
52 A. Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis 2 , University Press, Chicago (1951) 69f.
53 W. Eichrodt, for example, speaks of the sources as having been 'energetically
corrected' for this purpose (Theology of the Old Testament I 408).
54 G. von Rad, Genesis 45.
55 Joseph Kimchi and Maimonides (cf. J. P. Lange, Genesis (ET), Clarke,
Edinburgh (1868) 173). This view is already in the Midrash; Genesis Rabbah 8.3:
‘R. Joshua b. Levi said: He took counsel with the works of heaven and earth . . .
R. Samuel b. Nahman: With the works of each day.' (Soncino ed. I 56).
56 Only by W. Caspari, 'Imago Divina', in Festschrift Reinhold Seeberg I, ed.
W. Koepp, Deichert, Leipzig (1929) 197-208, especially 207.