Studies of the Narratives in the Book of Genesis

By Martin Sicker

The stories in the book of Genesis have been studied intensely for more than two millennia, providing a virtual mountain of commentary on every aspect of the narratives contained therein. Viewed from a traditional perspective, the stories related in Genesis are essentially graphic philosophical and theological narratives designed to convey profound ideas and insights that would otherwise be found only in tomes designed for students of philosophy and theology. A close substantive examination of these narratives, as presented in the Masoretic text but often lost in translation where the subtleties of the Hebrew wording are glossed over, will reveal a treasure trove of insights into the fundamental issues of religious belief, the divine-human relationship, freewill and determinism, the complex nature of humankind, and theodicy, to name a few of the issues dealt with in the narratives. The present work contains four “deep dive” studies of key interrelated narratives in the first twenty-two chapters of Genesis that address the questions of the nature of man and his relationship to God and, most critically, the distinction between divine justice and human justice.

It is the hope and expectation of the author of these studies that the reader will come away from them with even more questions about the biblical texts than they had before. As will be seen, there has always been little consensus over the centuries about the meanings of these essentially right-brained texts, primarily because they are constructed and written in a manner that tends to challenge left-brained analysis. Nonetheless, they remain intellectually important because the topics they deal with are of great pertinence to contemporary society.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984563873

Martin Sicker

Dr. Martin Sicker is a writer and lecturer on the Middle East and Jewish history and religion. His is the author of 42 previous books including Reading Genesis Politically; The Trials of Abraham; The Ordeals of Isaac and Jacob; Aspects of Jewish Metarational Thought; The Exodus and the Reluctant Prophet; The Convocation at Sinai; The Theopolitical Discourses of Moses; and Pondering the Imponderable.

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Copyright © 2018 by Martin Sicker.

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Contents

Preface

Imago Dei and Imitatio Dei

1. Man in the Image of God

2. Man in the Likeness

Between Cain and Abel

1. The Early Years

2. Competing for Divine Favor

3. Cain Confronts Abel

4. The Aftermath

Between Divine Justice and Human Justice

1. The Decline of Civilization from Adam to Noah

2. The Deluge and Aftermath

3. Sodom and Gomorrah

Between Faith and Reason: Abraham’s Ultimate Trial

1. Introduction

2. The Purpose of the Trial

3. The Trial Begins

4. The Trial Concludes

5. Epilogue and Aftermath

References

Notes

Preface

The stories in the Book of Genesis have been studied intensely for more than two millennia, providing a virtual mountain of commentary on every aspect of the narratives contained therein. In the modern era, an enormous amount of ink has been spent on critical analysis of the language, comparison with the literature of other ancient cultures, and seemingly endless and largely repetitive and inconclusive theorizing about the composition of the biblical texts from various original sources. These academic studies of the biblical texts have produced interesting insights, some of which were already suggested by various medieval scholars. What few of these works address is what the texts as we have them are attempting to convey to their readers.

Viewed from a traditional perspective, the stories related in Genesis are essentially graphic philosophical and theological narratives designed to convey to convey profound ideas and insights that would otherwise be found only in tomes designed for students of philosophy and theology. A close substantive examination of these narratives, as presented in the Masoretic text, but often lost in translation where the subtleties of the Hebrew wording are glossed over, will reveal a treasure trove of insights into the fundamental issues of religious belief, the divine-human relationship, free will and determinism, the complex nature of humankind, and theodicy, to name a few of the issues dealt with in the narratives.

The work that follows contains four ‘deep dive’ studies of key interrelated narratives in the first twenty-two chapters of Genesis that address the questions of the nature of man and his relationship to the Creator, and most critically the distinction between divine justice and human justice. The first of these, Imago Dei and Imitatio Dei, deals with the implications of the story of the creation of man, created in the image and likeness of God. The second, Between Cain and Abel, deals with the implications of the birth of Cainite civilization and its ultimate decline into a dysfunctional society. The third, Between Divine and Human Justice, deals with the reasons for the Deluge in the time of Noah and the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The fourth, Between Faith and Reason: Abraham’s Ultimate Trial, deals with the story of Abraham’s reaction to the divine instruction to sacrifice his son Isaac, which is intimately linked to issue of the distinctions between divine and human justice.

It is the hope and expectation of the author of these studies that the reader will come away from them with even more questions about the biblical texts than they had before. As will be seen there has always been little consensus over the centuries about the meanings of these essentially ‘right brain’ texts, because they are constructed and written in a manner that tends to challenge ‘left brain’ analysis. Nonetheless, they remain intellectually important because the topics they deal with are of great pertinence to contemporary society.

Imago Dei and Imitatio Dei

1

Man in the Image of God

On the sixth and final day of creation, as depicted in the opening chapter of the book of Genesis, the culminating act of creation took place and human life was brought into existence. And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them (1:26-27).

Notwithstanding the mass of commentary regarding the intent of the text, there is a primary question that is generally ignored by the narrator, possibly if not probably, deliberately. Why is the text written in a manner that could not but produce the mass of inconclusive commentary on it, much of which will be summarized in the following examination of the text? It has been pointed out that the usual procedure is for a narrator to introduce the unknown in a manner that the reader can relate to it by what is known to him. In the present text the narrator is doing the opposite, calling on the reader who has knowledge, in varying degrees, about man to relate to something about which he has no knowledge whatsoever, the image of God.¹ It would seem that the answer to the question of why the biblical text is in numerous instances written in such an obscure manner may well be the one given to the writer by his seminary teacher when he raised that question as a twelve year-old. The answer he received was, It is written that way so you should ask. The intelligent study of the Torah demands struggling with the meaning and implications of the text, and as the following discussions will indicate, struggling with the texts under consideration in this study has been going on for more than two millennia.

To begin with, the manner in which the story of the creation of man is described in the biblical text appears to reflect a clearly anthropocentric view of the universe, in which man plays the central role in the divine scheme of things, the rest of existence being only of contributory importance. This perspective seems to be clearly suggested by the sequential nature of the creative process; man enters the scene only after a complex physical environment in which he can survive and thrive has been prepared for him in anticipation of his arrival. By describing the emergence of man in this manner, the biblical text may be and has been understood by many to be intimating that all other created beings and things are intended to be subordinate to the inherent and evolving needs of man. Man thus enters into a world that is constructed and made ready for his occupation and habitation, the divine involvement being, as one commentator put it, like a person who builds a palace and, after having furnished and decorated it, brings its owner into it.² However, it was also observed: He is made last of all the creatures of the six days as the noblest, but also as the most needy of all; for he is in need of all the creatures that precede him, without their being in need of him.³ Because of this, as the text will suggest, man must be endowed with attributes that will enable him to overcome this natural disability. It has been suggested that the singular attribute that distinguishes man from all other creatures is his unique intellectual capacity and ability to apprehend the existence of God, which places him on a much higher plane than the rest of creation.⁴

A number of commentaries on the biblical text have suggested that this specification of his relative position in the sequence of creation is also intended to emphasize man’s uniqueness and his special role among the products of divine creativity. That is, by being brought into existence last, man is presented as the capstone of creation, its final and highest stage, transcending in cosmic importance everything in the order of nature that preceded his emergence. As one commentator put it, Man is man because something divine is at stake in his existence. He is not an innocent bystander in the cosmic drama.⁵ This thoroughly anthropocentric reading of the biblical text may also be seen reflected in a number of classical rabbinic teachings: R. Eleazar says: The Holy One, blessed be He, says: The whole world was created for his [man’s] sake only. R. Abba ben Kahana says: He [man] is equal in value to the whole world.⁶ R. Simeon ben Azzai says: The whole world was created as a satellite for him.⁷

It is noteworthy that some, considering the creation narrative in the broader context of the Genesis narrative, the primary focus of which is the origins of the children of Israel, went so far as to assert that the Holy one, blessed be He, would not have created His heaven and His earth had it not been for Abraham, the progenitor of the people.⁸ Another, making the same point even more sharply, applied the esoteric technique of discovering hidden meaning by the arcane method of gematria. He added up the numerical values of the Hebrew letters in the phrase betzelem Elohim or in the image of God, and found they were identical to the value of the Hebrew letters in the name Abraham.⁹

Considered from the biblical perspective, without man to exploit it, the physical universe is devoid of intrinsic significance, as becomes quite clear in the later narrative of the great Deluge. Perhaps nowhere in the literature is this view stated more explicitly and expansively than in an early medieval work of uncertain authorship.

It is incumbent upon man to gaze upon the Creator’s works, and the heaven and the earth and all their host, and to know that all were created for the sake of man. He should gaze upon the sun and the moon and the stars, and he should know that these were created only to provide light for man … He should consider every plant, and the fowl and the animals of the earth, and the sheep and the cattle, and he should know that all were created in order to provide for man, for his benefit and enjoyment, both as food and as medicine.¹⁰

It should be noted, however, that this anthropocentric approach to understanding the world and man’s place in it was not universally accepted as valid by later Judaic thinkers. Some major rabbinic thinkers saw in such an approach the potential for fostering an unbridled and counterproductive egocentricity in man, and rejected such blatant anthropocentrism and cautioned: It should not be believed that all the beings exist for the sake of the existence of man.¹¹ Elaborating on this adjuration, it was argued: The earth was given to man and created as his habitation. But we may not conclude from this fact that the earth has no self-sufficient value. When God decided to wipe man from the face of the earth, He did not include the earth itself in the decree of destruction. Everything that God created, besides serving as a means, has a self-subsistent reason for its existence, beyond and above its functional character.¹² Nonetheless, the overwhelming weight of subsequent rabbinic opinion appears to favor the more traditional interpretive approach, one that seeks to give the greatest possible force to the idea of the centrality of man in the divine scheme of things. This latter notion was reaffirmed and further rationalized in modern times by the assertion: The center of the creation is Godhood, but since the idea of Godhood rests with man, and to the best of our knowledge only with man, we therefore consider man to be the center of the creation.¹³ It therefore should come as no surprise that the narrative concerning the creation of man is very different in character from everything described prior to that event.

The proposition regarding the centrality of man in the divinely created universe is of great moral consequence. It asserts that although man is physiologically and chemically a part of nature, by virtue of the unique manner of his creation he is at the same time radically different from all other created beings. To emphasize this point, the biblical text takes great pains to highlight the distinctiveness of man among the creatures of the earth. All previous acts of creation are described as the direct consequence of straightforward and impersonal divine imperatives such as, Let there be light (1:3), Let there be a firmament (1:6), and Let the earth bring forth the living creature (1:24). In all these instances, the utterance of the divine word itself constitutes the act of creation, although, as is evident from the last citation, the act may be merely the initiation of an evolutionary process. The divine involvement is detached and remote, as might be expected of a transcendent God. This, however, is not the case with regard to man, where the biblical author does not record a comparable divine imperative, such as, ‘Let the earth bring forth man!’

In dramatic contrast to the pattern followed with regard to the rest of creation, the emergence of man is heralded in a uniquely personal manner in advance of his actually being brought into existence. And God said: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness … And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them (Gen. 1:26-27). With this obvious change in narrative style, the text draws our attention to God’s direct and more complex engagement with the substance of what is to be created. Only the human being is conceived as having been created directly by and ostensibly in the image and likeness of God, something that radically distinguishes mankind from the rest of nature’s creatures. Indeed, bearing in mind that all the land animals were created earlier that same day, the making of man after our likeness emphasizes that although man may have certain physiological similarities to other warm-bodied animals, he was not created ‘after their likeness’ in any other respects.¹⁴

It should be noted from the outset that to make sense of the use of terms such as image and likeness in the present text, they need to be read as metaphors rather than literally.¹⁵ Indeed, the meaning of the biblical text is further confused by its use in a rabbinic blessing for a bridegroom which refers to God who has created man in his image, and in the image of the likeness of his form.¹⁶ As will be seen, understanding those terms literally causes a range of insoluble problems.

It has been observed that there is a paradox in the notion of man being created in the image of God. "If there is one thing emphasized time and again in the Torah, it is that God has no image. Hence the prohibition against making images of God. For God is beyond all representation, all categorization … ‘Image,’ then, must refer to something quite different than the possession of a specific form. The fundamental point of Genesis 1 is that God transcends nature. Therefore, He is free, unbounded by nature’s laws. By creating human beings ‘in His image,’ God gave us a similar freedom, thus creating the one being capable itself of being creative."¹⁷ It has been noted that in each instance of divine creativity, the text asserts that God viewed His creation and assessed it as being good, the term not bearing any moral connotation, but being good in the sense that it conformed in actuality to what was intended. However, no such assessment is made with regard to the creation of man. The reason for this, it has been suggested is that because man is created in the image of God, he is endowed with free will, and he may choose whether or not to conform to the divine desiderata. Since his choice cannot be known with certainty, it is premature to assert that his creation was good in the same sense as the rest of creation.¹⁸

It has been argued that the phrase, Let us make man in our image, if taken at face value, would constitute a denial of the fundamentals of Judaism, and must therefore be understood metaphorically. For one thing, the phrase Let us, taken literally would suggest that God is appealing for assistance from some other entity to do what He cannot do alone. For another, in our image suggests that the incorporeal God can somehow be replicated in corporeal man. Notwithstanding that some of the grossness of the text, taken literally, is ameliorated by the subsequent assertion that God created man in His own image (1:27), omitting any suggestion of a divine partner in the process, as well as the omission of the phrase after our likeness, which nonetheless reappears later in the text, In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He them (5:1), which will be discussed later on in this study. However, the present text remains problematic because the phrase in our image, taken literally, does not comport with a basic tenet of biblical religion.¹⁹

It is noteworthy that, possibly sensitive to the problems alluded to above, some early translators of the text into diverse languages rendered the text in a manner to assuage those concerns to some extent. Thus, Symmachus, a second-century translator of the Hebrew into Greek, rendered the first clause of the text commonly translated as God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, as ‘God created man in his [man’s] own image.’ That reading of the text was later adopted by some traditional commentators.²⁰ That is, in the view of some, he was created in man’s own unique image as the one creature that normally stands erect. With regard to the second clause, the Hebrew states, betzelem Elohim bara oto, usually translated as in the image of God created He him. However, the clause could also be rendered as ‘in the image, God created him.’ That is, in man’s unique image.²¹ This approach also appears to have been adopted by the classic Aramaic Targum attributed to the sage Jonathan ben Uziel.²²

Viewed from a historical perspective, the notion that man was created in the image of God is nothing short of revolutionary. In the ancient Near East, as well as elsewhere, the ruling monarch was considered a designated representative of the gods, governing on their behalf and partaking in varying degrees in their divinity. But, it has been suggested, Genesis 1 democratizes this royal image so that all humanity belongs to this sphere.²³ In this regard it has been argued that the Torah’s assertion that every human being is created in the image of God is a repudiation of the idea, so common in the ancient world, that some people are simply meant to rule over others. If everyone is royalty, then on some level, when it comes to the interpersonal and political spheres, no one is.²⁴ Because of this, from Moses onward throughout the course of the history of the nation, no Israelite ruler was ever able to claim divine status or sovereignty since Scripture tells us that before God, who is creator and sovereign of the universe, he is merely another human temporarily entrusted with power and the authority to govern on behalf of his divine master, a trust that may be revoked at will.

In considering this extraordinary text, it is important to note that the divine proclamation is not, ‘Let us create man in our image,’ but rather, Let us make man in our image. There is a significant distinction between create and make. It has been asserted that the meaning of create, when the term is used in the biblical writings, is bringing into existence an essence, something that only God is capable of doing.²⁵ Man is not created as an independent essence in the image of God; he is not intended to be a clone of God. This point is made clear by the deliberate employment of the verb make instead of create in the first part of this first text relating to man, even though later texts will speak of the divine creation of man.

It has been suggested that the term created is not used here because of the introductory phrase Let us, which evidently refers to involving the participation of other unspecified entities in the process. The use of the phrase Let us make, instead of Let there be, seems to make it clear that the act of creation itself, as opposed to the act of making something in conjunction with others, is an exclusively divine project.²⁶ Does it implicitly suggest that ‘creation,’ as used in this text, means creation ex nihilo, creating from nothing, whereas ‘making’ involves the use of already existing matter?

The employment of Let us in this text also raises the questions of who or what those others are, and why the Creator solely chose to include ‘others’ in the bringing of humankind into existence. It has been suggested that, taken literally rather than metaphorically, the extraordinary use of the first person plural evokes the image of a heavenly court in which God is surrounded by His angelic host … This is the Israelite version of the polytheistic assemblies of pantheon—monotheized and depaganized.²⁷

The question of to whom the us in this text refers, was one that troubled the sages of the Talmudic period, who struggled to find a credible answer, and occasionally allowed their imaginations free reign. With whom did He take counsel? R. Joshua b. Levi said: He took counsel with the works of heaven and earth, like a king who had two advisers without whose knowledge he did nothing whatsoever. R. Samuel b. Nahman said: He took counsel with the works of each day, like a king who had an associate without whose knowledge he did nothing.²⁸ Building upon the latter suggestion, a later commentator proposed that the us referred to the Creator and the elements of the already created natural world; mankind’s physical existence will be composed of the elements of nature, and his spiritual existence will derive directly from on high.²⁹

This understanding appears to be corroborated by the later biblical text: Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (2:7). In a variation on this theme, it has been pointed out that just prior to the creation of man we are told: And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind (1:24). Since the earth was already made capable of producing living creatures, the phrase nishmat hayyim, translated literally as the breath of life, would appear to be redundant, given that the earth already had the ability to bring forth the living creature. Accordingly, it was suggested that the phrase nishmat hayyim not be taken literally but rather understood as referring to the divine infusion into man of a higher order of attribute, the ability to reason, an attribute with which man alone is divinely gifted.³⁰

The search for an alternative answer to the question of who are the us in the biblical text also led some to conclude that there was a deeper meaning imbedded in the biblical text, opening the field of interpretation to a variety of interpretations, homiletic as well as metarational. With regard to homiletic interpretation, presumably because some conceived of the Torah not only as the blueprint of creation but also as the constitutional guide for the creation of an ultimately moral and just civilization, it is suggested that God was speaking to the Torah, consulting with it for didactic purposes, when He said, Let us make. Thus, it was proposed that God took counsel with the Torah, which He had with him, to set an example for the world [by analogy] so that even though man has it in his power to do as he wishes, he will not act until he consults with his colleague. In making his point, the author cites a popular saying, If your wife is short, bend down and hear her whisper.³¹ That is, take the trouble to consult her, even if it is inconvenient for you, before taking an action.³² The lesson being taught is that man should emulate God in this manner.

In the realm of metarational thought, one popular suggestion has been that the us refers to the host of heaven, the angels, despite the fact that they are not mentioned at all in the biblical creation narrative texts. Nonetheless, some of the sages maintained, on the basis of their exegeses of the biblical texts, that the angels were created no earlier than the second day, others suggesting that they were created as late as the fifth day.³³ Thus, according to the Targum attributed to Jonathan ben Uziel, the expression Let us make was directed by God to His ministering angels: And the Lord said to the angels who ministered before Him … Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.³⁴ But, it might rightly be objected, the biblical text says nothing about the creation of the angels! However, it has been argued that we should not be surprised or overly concerned about the biblical failure to note or explain the creation of the angels, because Moses not only omitted angels from the creation narrative but also other matters that fall within the realm of the esoteric, limiting his description of creation primarily to those things visible to the naked human eye.³⁵ In other words, although the text itself does not depart from its simple meaning, this does not mean that one may not infer subtexts that go beyond the straightforward meaning of the text. Accordingly, one is free to speculate on the hidden implications of the written words.

But why, one might ask, would the Creator involve His angels in the decision to create man? According to one sage, while Moses was recording the story of creation as it was being divinely revealed to him, he voiced his concern that the phrase Let us make might be misinterpreted as suggesting that it was not the Creator alone who created man. Moses, said the Lord to him, this man that I have created—do I not cause men both great and small to spring from him? Now if a great man comes to obtain permission [for a proposed action] from one that is less than he, he may say, ‘Why should I ask permission from my inferior!’ Then they will answer him, ‘Learn from thy Creator, who created all that is above and below, yet when He came to create man He took counsel with the ministering angels.’³⁶ In other words, the sage is arguing that the lesson in appropriate behavior that will lead to social harmony that may be inferred from the verse about the creation of man outweighs any concern about its possible theological misinterpretation. However, despite the practical wisdom of the homiletic point made by the sage, the explanation is not entirely satisfactory because one may ask further why such divine collegiality is not displayed with regard to any of the other aspects of creation, which are all clearly unilateral.

A response to this challenge pointed out that, although everything was created at the divine command, the living creatures of the waters came into being through the participation of the water, as it states, Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures (1:20), and the creatures of the land through the earth, as it states, Let the earth bring forth the living creature (1:24). However, when it came to the creation of man, "God said to the angels Let us make man, that is, let us be involved with it, and not the water or the earth."³⁷ Presumably, the purpose of this change in procedure was to differentiate sharply the creation of man from that of the other species.

It has been suggested that the reason for consulting with the ministering angels only with regard to the creation of man is because it was the divine intent to make man in the likeness of the angels, and that they would be jealous of him for that reason.³⁸ This notion of angelic jealousy of man, who was to be a lower form of being, is based on numerous references to such in the midrashic literature. Thus, one midrash describes at length the vehement reaction of two successive cohorts of angels to the proposed creation of man, and their subsequent destruction by the Creator because of their unwillingness to cooperate in this regard.

He then called Boël and his company, and said to them: ‘Let us make man in our image.’ At which Boël said to his associates: ‘See what has happened to those who said, What is man that Thou shouldst remember him? They were all destroyed. If we repeat what they have said, He will do the same to us, and in the end He will perform His will. It is therefore better that we comply with His wish.’ They therefore immediately answered, and said: ‘Lord of the world, it is well that Thou hast thought to create man; do Thou create him according to Thy will, and we shall act as attendants and servants upon him, and reveal unto him all our secrets.’ God then said to Boël: ‘From this day henceforth thy name shall not be called Boël, but Raphael, because, through thy counsel, thou hast saved all thy host, so that they were not consumed like the other companies.’³⁹

It seems reasonable to infer that this approach was adopted on the assumption that it was the divine intention to create man in the likeness of the angels from the fact that although God says Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, in the very next verse it states, And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him. From this it presumably was inferred that the text intended to make clear that man is created in the image of God alone, but not in His likeness; hence the notion that man was to be created in the likeness of the angels, which would account for the deity’s consultation with them, in anticipation of their jealousy. The problem with this, of course, is that the biblical text states later: In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him (Gen. 5:1). In the latter passage, there is no mention of the image of God, which would seem to make it difficult to see how to reconcile the obvious discrepancies.

An alternate but related explanation of why Let us make man refers to the involvement of the angels suggests that it was because the angels became very proud when God created the birds and fish on the fifth day. The angels said, ‘We are better than they all are.’ In order to deflate their pride, God said, ‘Let us make man.’ What He was saying was, ‘Let each of us make a man, and let us see who is truly great.’ God wanted to show the angels that they have no reason to be proud, since they cannot create anything. The very next verse says, ‘And God created man.’ This indicates that the angels were not able to create anything.⁴⁰

An alternate ancient popular reading of the text suggested that the Lord said to the angels who ministered before Him, who had been created in the second day of the creation of the world, Let us make man in Our image, in Our likeness.⁴¹ This urges the question of why the Creator was so solicitous of what the sages of the Talmud referred to as the pamalia shel maalah or the ‘heavenly household,’ that was itself one of His creations. It has been suggested He was concerned that the angels would look upon man, who would be endowed with attributes denied to them, with disdain, and He wanted to assure that He would not have to constantly protect man from members of the ‘heavenly household.’⁴²

It is noteworthy, however, that a critical voice among medieval commentators dismisses such explanations as misconstruing the message of the biblical text. He points out that "our Law does not deny the fact that He, may He be exalted, governs that which exists here through the intermediation of the angels," and presents a number of instances where God speaks, including Let us make man in our image. But, he argues: In all these texts the intention is not, as is thought by the ignorant, to assert that there is speech on the part of [God], may He be exalted, or deliberation or sight or consultation and recourse for help to the opinion of someone else. For how could the Creator seek help from that which He has created? Rather do all these texts state plainly that all this—including the various parts of that which exists and even the creation of the limbs of animals as they are—has been brought about through the intermediation of angels. For all forces are angels. Accordingly, he points out, "every force appertaining to the bodily forces is an angel—all the more, the forces distributed in the world—and that every force has only one particular activity proper to it." ⁴³

Commentators who discount the notion of any angelic involvement in the creative process take an entirely different approach to explaining the troublesome wording of the text. Thus it has been argued that the wording let us make is employed to allude to a profound as well as essential idea:

The existence of the celestials indicates that they are caused by a being who has the ability and the power to endow individual things with permanent existence, as in the case of the celestial beings. The existence of the terrestrial beings shows that they are caused by a being who has power to perpetuate species but not individuals. This might give rise to the erroneous opinion that there are two creative Powers … Hence the text reads, let us make man in our image, as if the two Powers who gave existence to the two different kinds of beings, the celestial and the terrestrial, said, ‘let us make man,’ meaning that they agreed to make a single creature, man, in which shall be united the two powers … This single being would from his combined nature make it clear to all that all existences, celestial as well as terrestrial, are the product of one being who possesses all powers. …God (Elohim), who has all powers, general and particular, united the two in agreement, and made man in whom are combined the two qualities, general and particular permanence, general, die to matter; particular, due to soul.⁴⁴

Alternatively, it has been suggested that according to the second description of the creation of man, the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul (2:7), the human being is compounded out of a combination of previously created material elements and the divine spirit. Basing his argument on this verse, it was proposed that the troublesome pluralism involved in the earlier passage Let us make man refers to God and the earth from which man was to be fashioned.⁴⁵ That is, in this view the text should be understood as suggesting, in effect, that it is the Creator and the earth working in tandem that bring man into existence. Put another way, the earth may be conceived as the maternal element in the process of the birth of man, the mother from whom man emerges. This notion seems to be reflected in the lament of Job: Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither (Job 1:21).

In this regard it has been argued that this implicit reference to the role of the earth in the creation of man was already indicated by the earlier divine command Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind (1:24), which included man, albeit not in a completed state. That is, although the earth had the capacity to provide for the material aspects of human existence, it required further divine intervention to transform the living creature known as man into a creature capable of speech, that which critically distinguishes man from other animate creatures. He argued further that this notion is implicit in the statement of a sage to the effect that the phrase "living creature means the soul [ruah] of Adam."⁴⁶ The sage’s teaching, it was suggested, is based on the consideration that the phrase living creature would otherwise be superfluous since the same text specifies cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind, as the specific types of living creature that the earth is to bring forth in final form. It is therefore to man that the phrase refers, prior to his completion at the divine hand.⁴⁷

It also was suggested that this also explains what is meant by the seemingly redundant in our image, after our likeness; the first phrase, in our image, referring to the image of God who infuses man with His spirit, and after our likeness referring to the likeness of the earthly elements that will constitute his physical being, thus effectively accounting for the following verse, which states: And Elohim created man in His own image (1:27), a verse in which the term likeness is conspicuously absent.⁴⁸ Similarly, it has been argued that the text employs the term created only with regard to the divine image, which refers to the soul, which is the non-material dimension of man.