THE IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN - Tyndale House

96 TYNDALE BULLETIN
all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the sea.
(Psalm 8:5-8)
The question which arises here is whether man's dominion
over the animals is to be understood as definitive of the image
itself, or is merely a consequence of the image. Most modern
scholars agree that the dominion is only a consequence of the
image; even if it is the primary consequence, it is none the less
not to be included within the image. It is often argued that
support for this view is found in the special blessing of Genesis
1:28 in which man is directed to have dominion, as also in the
possible translation of 1:26 'let us make man . . . and let them
have dominion' (simple waw joining two co-ordinate jussives),
which would suggest that being the image and having dominion
are separate.
We agree that man's dominion over the animals cannot be
definitive of the image, for we have already seen that the image
must include a number of elements and cannot be defined so
narrowly. But it seems to us that since dominion is so immediate
and necessary a consequence of the image, it loses the character
of a mere derivative of the image and virtually becomes a
constitutive part of the image itself.
From the exegetical point of view this opinion is completely
justifiable. Genesis 1:26 may well be rendered: 'Let us make man
as our image . . . so that they may rule' (i.e. waw joining two
jussives with final force for the second). 187 The transference in
verse 28 of the thought of dominion to the context of a 'sub-
sequent' blessing need not be understood as indicative of the
purely consequential character of the dominion. In 1:6 ‘Let
there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
separate the waters from the waters’ we have two commands
(in form apparently co-ordinate jussives linked by simple
waw), yet two acts of creation are not referred to; the firmament,
in being a firmament in the midst of the waters, in fact is already
separating waters above from waters below. If the second
member of the sentence were not true, the first could hardly be
so; thus the second is not a mere consequence of the first but
187 So e.g. W. H. Schmidt, Schöpfungsgeschichte 142.