Genesis 1-3 as Source for the Anthropology of Origen

2008 ◽  
Vol 62 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Lund Jacobsen
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Clear Picture ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Image Of God

AbstractAccording to Origen Genesis 1-3 is an anthropological key-text. The account of man's creation in Gen. 1,26f deals with the creation of the inner non-material man in the image of God, whereas Gen. 2,7 deals with the creation of the human body, the outer man, which is not created in the image of God. Some later critics claim that according to Origen Gen. 2,7 is about the creation of a non-material luminous body. In Origen's opinion only the inner man can reach perfection. The outer man can never be perfect, but will be destroyed. To deepen our understanding of, how Origen understands the mortality of the human body, some short sayings about the meaning of Gen. 3,21 are interpreted. In the few places where Origen refers explicitly to Gen. 3,21 there is no clear picture of how he interprets this verse. The most precise observation we can make is that in his view the skin coats denote the mortal corporality that surrounds the inner man.

Patristic Divergences about the Image of God in Man

2007 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Stuart George Hall
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
The Church

The pathologically pious heresy-hunter Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis from 365 to 403, might be reckoned a champion of uniformity in the Church. Notoriously he promoted the campaign against Origen in Palestine, and in his Panarion attacks Origen’s theology at length. Never the brightest of the Fathers, he was confused by the question of the image of God in man. He comes to it when considering the sect of Audians, who were anthropomorphites; that is, they held God to have a bodily form which the human body replicates. According to Genesis 1: 26–7, God made man, male and female, in (after, according to) the image and likeness of God When Epiphanius gets to the detail of the Audian argument, it is plain that they argued from the use in Scripture of bodily language about God’s eyes, hand, feet, and other organs, and from the Lord’s appearances to Moses and the prophets, to demonstrate his bodily shape. Epiphanius can refute this in detail, but is aware of other suggestions about wherein what is ‘in the image’ consists, and regards none as wholly coherent with orthodox faith and Scripture. He mentions the theories that it is the soul that is in the image, or that it is virtue, or that it is the grace received in baptism, or that it applied to Adam only before his sin.

scholarly journals Made in the Image of God: The Creation of אדם, the Commissioning of the King and the Chaoskampf of Yhwh

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.L. Crouch
Keyword(s):  
Image Of God ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Made In

This article suggests that Genesis 1 and Psalms 8, 18 and 89 reflect a mythological tradition which described the creation of the human king as Yhwh’s counterpart in the divine battle against chaos. The residual royal features of the narrative of the creation of אדם in Genesis 1—the creation of the אדם in the image of god, to exercise dominion—appear in a context of a polemical revision of Yhwh’s Chaoskampf and are suggestive of the older tradition’s inclusion of the king’s commissioning as Yhwh’s representative and earthly counterpart in these activities. Psalm 8 similarly associates the creation of a royal figure with the exertion of authority and dominion over chaos, using the same image of god language as Genesis 1 to describe this figure and to articulate his special relationship with Yhwh. Psalm 18 and especially Psalm 89 affirm the location of the king’s Chaoskampf commission in the midst of Yhwh’s own Chaoskampf activities, with the latter’s use of parental language echoing the image of god language in Genesis 1.

scholarly journals A Meatless Dominion: Genesis 1 and the Ideal of Vegetarianism

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 144-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Patrick Mclaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Moral Ideal ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Unique Manner ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Enuma Elish ◽  
The Ideal

I argue that a strand of biblical tradition, represented in Genesis 1:26–29, depicts a nonviolent relationship between humans and nonhumans—indicated by the practice of vegetarianism—as a moral ideal that represents the divine intention for the Earth community. This argument is supported by four claims. First, the cultural context of Genesis 1 suggests that the “image of God” entails a democratized royal charge of all humans to make God present in a unique manner in the created order. Second, this functional role must be understood in light of the unique deity (Elohim) in Genesis 1, a deity whose peaceful and other-affirming creative act is distinctive from violent creative acts of deities in other ancient Near Eastern cosmologies such as the Enuma Elish. Third, Genesis 1 provides an exegesis of humanity's dominion over animals in verse 29, which limits humanity's food to vegetation. Finally, juxtaposing Genesis 1 with Genesis 9 reveals a nefarious shift from human dominion, which is meant to be peaceful and other-affirming, to something altogether different—a relationship that is built upon terror.

scholarly journals Response to Melissa Raphael

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 23-25
Author(s):  
Ruth Illman
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Jewish Art ◽  
Contemporary Issue ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Image Of God ◽  
Ethical Demand

A response to Melissa Raphael’s article ‘The creation of beauty by its destruction: the idoloclastic aesthetic in modern and contemporary Jewish art’. Key themes discussed include the notion of human beings as created in the image of God, Levinas’s understanding of the face and its ethical demand as well as the contemporary issue of the commodification of the human face in digital media.

‘What Am I in a Boundless Creation?’

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-50
Author(s):  
Hilary Marlow
Keyword(s):  
Life Forms ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Environmental Pressures ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Image Of God

Drawing on insights from the field of ‘ecocriticism’ within literary studies, this article examines the creation poem of Ben Sira (16.26-17.14) from an ecological perspective. The text is significant for such a purpose because of its reuse of the Genesis creation accounts, in particular the notion of human beings as the image of God and with dominion over creation, which has caused some critics to label the biblical accounts as exploitatively anthropocentric. Preceding sections of Sirach include discussion of human significance ‘in a boundless creation’ and human free will and moral responsibility, and these themes are developed in the poem itself. The poem’s description of the creation of humankind suggests both human finitude, a characteristic shared with other life forms, and the uniqueness of the divine image in human beings. These characteristics are set within the context of the cosmos as a stable and ordered whole, obedient to God, and of the responsibilities stipulated in the Torah to deal rightly with one’s neighbour. Reading this text from an ecological perspective invites recognition of the ambiguity of human place in the world, transient yet earth-changing, and of the ethical challenges in caring for global neighbours in the face of growing environmental pressures.


scholarly journals Karl Barth’s male-female order: A kingpin of dogmatic disparity

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yolanda Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
Gender Disparity ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Gender Perspective ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Genesis 1 ◽  
Gender Perspectives ◽  
The Image Of God

Karl Barth’s gender perspective is often analysed with reference to his so-called “theoethics” or “creational theology”. This perspective perpetuates an asymmetry in gender relations that was prevalent in Biblical times, throughout Christianity and to some extent still is visible today. He based his view on the subordination of women on an exegesis of Genesis 1:27 as “intertext” of Ephesians 5:22-23. Barth’s asymmetrical gender perspective is a product of his embedment in Western Christian tradition which in turn, is rooted in early Christian patriarchal theology. The aim of this article is to focus on Barth’s ontological reframing of the traditional understanding of the Biblical notion of human beings as created in the “image of God”. The article consists of four sections: (a) Luther’s and Calvin’s gender perspectives; (b) the Enlightenment failure to achieve emancipation; (c) gender disparity in Reformed theology; and (d) a feminist alternative.

Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations

2011 ◽  
Vol 104 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-505
Keyword(s):  
Integral Relation ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Human Subjectivity ◽  
Theological Discourse ◽  
In Christ ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Doctoral Dissertations ◽  
The Image Of God

THOU ART is an interdisciplinary and christological aesthetics that theorizes an integral relation among Christ, representation, and the formation of human subjectivity. Through a critical poetics it addresses the space of difference between a theological discourse on the creation of human being in the image of God—understood as creation in Christ, Word (logos) incarnate—and a philosophical discourse on the constitution of human subjectivity.

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