Did you know you’re a monarch?
We’ve just kicked off a brand new discussion series for our Thursday night gatherings: Origin Stories, a study of Genesis 1–11. Last week we read and discussed the first creation account in Genesis, the poetic one that walks through each day of creation, culminating in God’s assessment that all of creation together is very good (or, as we considered, very beautiful).
What we skipped over—due to time limitations and the fact that we’ve talked about it at Harbor before—was the notion that humans were created in God’s image (“in our image, according to our likeness,” says God in Genesis 1:26). This is a rich idea, possibly relating to people’s dignity, agency, spiritual lives, artistry, philosophy. Many people have pondered exactly what it means for human beings to bear the Divine image, the imago Dei.
One interesting interpretation of this verse comes from the Ancient Near Eastern context of the Bible’s creation. A lot of evidence, from linguistic considerations to poems and artwork from Egypt and Mesopotamia, points to a widespread belief in that region at that time that royal people (and only royal people) were representatives of the gods. A king or queen or Pharaoh had the right, responsibility, and authority to make decisions for the people precisely because their title meant they were an image of divinity among humans. (And of course iterations of this belief occurred in the West all the way until the Enlightenment finally more or less put the nail in the coffin of “the divine right of kings” in England and France.)
They were tasked with bringing not only order but divine order.
Keeping this in mind really changes the stakes of Genesis 1:26. If the known world at that time said that only the most powerful ruler bears God’s image and then here comes this creation myth saying ALL HUMANS bear God’s image, think of the implications! We don’t just sit around and wait for some powerful person to fix problems and make things better. We don’t concentrate all power in one place. We are all responsible for taking care of creation. We are all responsible to each other. It is the job of all of us to work together so that all may flourish.
I’ll give the last words to rabbi Shai Held, who wrote about this passage years ago in the Christian Century:
In these days, rankest forms of racism, misogyny, and xenophobia prevail in the very highest reaches of our nation’s government. “Racial resentment” (a polite term for racism) is everywhere afoot. And like the false prophets of old, many religious leaders seek to bless and protect the powerful in their disdain for the weak and marginalized. In such a time it is easy to lose hope.
But Genesis 1 still beckons. Or perhaps I should say, the God of Genesis 1 still beckons. The only question is whether we have the faith and the courage to respond.
