What did "created in His image" mean to you?

[Wertbag]

I've seen Christians debating what is meant by "created in His image" and I'm yet to hear a single answer that most agree on.  Some seem to vaguely say its freewill, emotions or intelligence, but pointing to animals that have those same traits usually gets that hand waved away.  Some say it is having a soul, but then there doesn't seem to be any agreement on what that is or does, with some also saying animals would have them (if it's a spark of life kind of thing).

Most try to avoid the literal reading of this (even the fundamentalists who will say Genesis should be literal), where it would mean God was a humanoid.  He did walk in the garden of Eden and show Moses His back, so perhaps it really should be taken in such a manner?

It can't have been knowledge of good and evil, as the story says that came after creation.  Looking at the OT God maybe it's our ability to commit genocide?

 

So, what was your understanding as to what this phrase meant?  

[TheRedneckProfessor]

I've heard the trinitarian approach that humans have a mind (father), body (son), and spirit (holy ghost).  As bovine excrement goes, that's as good as any, I suppose. 

[TABA]

2 hours ago, Wertbag said:

I've seen Christians debating what is meant by "created in His image" and I'm yet to hear a single answer that most agree on. 

It’s hard to think of much that most Christians DO agree on, except that God exists, that Jesus is somehow related to God, and that Jesus died on a cross and came back to life.  That’s about it.

 

When I was a Christian I didn’t think much about what it meant to be made in God’s image.  It did make me feel special though!  I guess I did think of it as having a sense of right and wrong, but as you say that’s not how humans were created, supposedly.   
 

I think the whole “made in his image” thing developed at a time when YHWH was like a lot of gods of that era, with human characteristics, good and bad.  He walked in the garden in the cool of the evening, he got angry, he was sometimes surprised by how his creation turned out, as if he was not omniscient back then.  And of course I’ve used the word “he” a lot here, because this god was indisputably male.  Did he sexually reproduce, or did he lack that glorious but mostly sinful aspect we enjoy so much?  If not, what did his maleness mean?  
 

One of the many things I’ve learned since deconverting is how so many Christian concepts clearly evolved over time.  The nature of God himself as much as anything else.  
 

 

[webmdave]

For the pedantic among us.

 

 https://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1017-04992016000100014

[◊ Weezer ◊]

It just occured to me that I never really questioned that through the years.  It was never an issue for me, (thank goodness!!)  Ha!  There were enough other issues to worry about! 

 

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

According to the much earlier Sumerian version of creation, which some believe the Hebrews borrowed the story from (and revised it), the gods evidently "created" humans to literally look like themselves.  They wanted to use them as slaves and servants.  And later some of their males found the human females to be attractive, and married them.  So perhaps it was the physical image that was desired.

[pantheory]

20 hours ago, TheRedneckProfessor said:

I've heard the trinitarian approach that humans have a mind (father), body (son), and spirit (holy ghost).  As bovine excrement goes, that's as good as any, I suppose. 

 

You often come up with some divine verbiage, like "bovine excrement," which makes me envious

[pantheory]

 

What did "created in His image" mean to you?

 

Like in Greek Mythology, it reminds me that men have often created their gods, or a God, as being in human form.

 

 

https://issuu.com/united_societies_of_balkans/docs/issue36-web/s/13265212

[TheRedneckProfessor]

1 hour ago, pantheory said:

 

You often come up with some divine verbiage, like "bovine excrement," which makes me envious

The word of the lord is written upon my heart, I suppose. 

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Francesca Stavrakopoulou wrote a book "God: An Anatomy" where she talks about the earliest form of Yahweh, complete with body (and massive dick like he later mocks the idols about). Also, given the appearance of God with a human form to Moses and the tribal leaders in Exodus 24:9-12, it's clear that even as late as the stories about Moses were written that there was a strong tendency towards portraying him as a male. Of course, with multiple writers that got morphed into "you can't see my face and live" though they clearly had. They later wanted to distance themselves from idols.

 

"Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou studied theology at Oxford, where she was also awarded her doctorate. She is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter, UK."

[walterpthefirst]

And this is why Fuego, when I do as some Christian apologists do and treat the bible as an integrated whole, I can't do it without discovering contradictions.

 

Because, as you say, over time multiple writers "guided by the holy spirit" have changed the unchanging and changeless god of the bible.

 

It's all an invention of the human mind, complete with all the errors, fudges and slip ups that the human mind is prone to.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.