The Gift of Prophecy

Genesis 1:26, 27: Imago Dei

At the very beginning of the Bible one encounters the description of Adam and Eve being made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26, 27). In Ellen White’s commentary on this Creation account, she writes that “man was to bear God’s image, both in outward resemblance and in character.” ⁵ There has been much discussion regarding the imago Dei, or “image of God.” ⁶ Genesis 1:27 states the divine deliberation: “Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.”⁷ In my examination of the Hebrew text of Genesis 1:27, ⁸ I have found that the two words translated “image” (tselem) and “likeness” (demut), while overlapping in semantic range, tend to emphasize different aspects. A study of the use of these two terms in Scripture reveals that tselem, “image,” emphasizes the external, concrete form,⁹ whereas demut, “likeness,” emphasizes the inward, abstract character qualities, ¹⁰ and when juxtaposed, as in Genesis 1:27, the two terms denote both external form and inward characteristics. ¹¹ Ellen White had no training in biblical Hebrew, and yet she was on the mark when she wrote that the image of God consisted of both “outward resemblance and character.” This reading of Ellen White is remarkable because in the nineteenth century biblical scholars were virtually unanimous in viewing God along the lines of Greek dualism as “timeless”—beyond space and time—and thus not having an outward form, and therefore any interpretation of the imago Dei that included “outward resemblance” was rejected out of hand. ¹² GOP 157.2