Notes
Notes
Chapter 1: Living inside the text: canon and creation
. Niccol 2002.
. See Stevens 1998 for an extended cultural argument about the decline of the written word and the ascendancy of the image in the last two centuries.
. Lints 2000: 91–110.
. Karl Barth’s (1975) discussion is often cited as the locus for this renaissance of relational or trinitarian discussions of personhood. Grenz (2001) offers a nice summary of this and its impact upon theological questions of personhood. From a popular cultural vantage point with roughly corresponding consequences see Brooks 2012.
. A contemporary philosopher of mind in the Islamic tradition (Fatoorchi 2008: 29) writes in a similar vein, ‘Consciousness is at once the most obvious feature of our mental life and the most mysterious.’
. The old dictum ‘Talk to yourself; don’t just listen to yourself ’ captures this dynamic of self-identity.
. Berger (1967: 3) writes, ‘Every individual biography is an episode within the history of society, which both precedes and survives it. Society was there before the individual was born and it will be there after they have died. What is more, it is within society, and as a result of social processes, that the individual becomes a person, that he attains and holds onto an identity, and that he carries out the various projects that constitute his life. Persons cannot exist apart from society. The two statements that society is the product of persons and that persons are the product of society, are not contradictory.’
. Ward 2002.
. T. Hart 2000: 334–337.
. This is not to say that there are not significant background clues to the use of ṣlem ’ĕlōhîm in Gen. 1:26–27. Rather it is to say that there is a paucity of uses across the canon that would inform the use of the ṣelem ’ĕlōhîm in Gen. 1. below spells this out at greater length. For a very fine-grained analysis of the background clues to ṣelem ’ĕlōhîm see Beckerleg 2009.
. I take this to be Kelsey’s (2006: 139–158) point in reverse when he argues that the imago Dei is substantially insignificant in providing details of a Christian account of human nature.
. Theological anthropology has tended to think more about human nature than human identity, and as a result has misinterpreted the imago Dei as constituted by a set of human attributes. Undoubtedly much can be said and should be said about human attributes, but not on the basis of the limited exegetical grounds of the imago Dei.
. I am here combining two arguments made by Wolterstorff (2004: 217–232). The authorization argument is made most fully in his Divine Discourse (1995).
. Bartholomew and Goheen 2004a.
. Vanhoozer 2005.
. Lints 1993.
. For a helpful introduction to the hermeneutical significance of covenants in Scripture see Horton 2006.
. Cf. Vos 1948 for a thoughtful analysis of the covenantal threads that tie the Bible together as a whole and their interconnections.
. Cf. Hugenberger 1994 for an extended argument to this effect.
. A helpful essay that both defends and clarifies this claim at greater length is Bartholomew and Goheen 2004b.
. Notable examples in addition to Vanhoozer 2005 of theological works employing the dramatic motif include von Balthasar 1988, Horton 2002 and Wright 1992.
. Lints 2013.
. Lints 2011.
. Being ‘absorbed’ is a term borrowed from many within the so-called Yale School (Hans Frei and George Lindbeck most particularly). It was once called the New Yale School, but since all the major players have retired or passed on and the framework is no longer the cohesive vision at Yale Divinity School it seems appropriate to refer to it as the Old Yale School. The fullest articulation of the absorption principle can be found in Frei 1974. The clearest summary of the principle can be found in Marshall 1990: 69–102.
. Volf 1996.
. W. Barrett 1986. Putnam’s (2001) work charts this pendulum swing.
. The now classic Putnam 2001 amply testifies the enduring strength of individualism in contemporary consumer cultures.
. Some of what follows finds its genesis in the work of Meredith G. Kline (1980), and then in turn from Henri Blocher (1984).
. By most reckoning, the language of ‘image’ (ṣelem) in the Gen. 1 account is rooted in the ancient construct of a concrete form representing an invisible deity. See the related articles under ‘Image’, in NIDNTT 2, 284–293.
. Grenz (2001: 267–303) provides a paradigmatic hermeneutical discussion of the imago Dei – moving from Genesis to the remainder of the canon and then returning from the end to the beginning.
. C. Plantinga (1995: 10) argues that ‘sin’ is conceptually messy. So idolatry is never merely ‘one sort of practice’. Rather it is a large umbrella of concepts, all of which subvert the original relationship between image and original.
. Beale’s (2008: 16) work on idolatry has paid particular attention to the exegetical basis of this conceptual claim. He takes his initial clues from Isaiah’s witness to idolatry and summarizes the claim, ‘what you revere you will resemble’. He has painstakingly followed the textual clues about the role of idolatry in Israel’s sojourn after their entrance into the Promised Land. I am indebted to many of his exegetical insights, particularly in the major prophets, as below bears out.
. Batnitzky 2000: 11.
Chapter 2: A strange bridge: connecting the image and the idol
. Cited from an article commenting on Karl Barth’s charge of idolatry against Nazi socialism.
. This is a controversial claim given the language of Gen. 1:2 with the affirmation that the earth was ‘without form and void’ (tōhû wābōhû). It is often asserted that the presence of evil as represented by the earth’s formlessness and void is an indication of a primeval conflict between good and evil, mirroring the conflict imagery of other ANE creation myths. See Westermann 1984: 73–84 for the review of this argument. However, the absence of ‘conflict imagery’ from Gen. 1:1 – 2:3 is striking if in fact a grand cosmological battle is taking place. Re-examining Gen. 1:2 in the light of its immediate context and its canonical context suggests no conflict is in view. Wābōhû occurs only three times in all of the Hebrew Scriptures (Gen. 1:2; Jer. 4:23; Isa. 34:11), and in every case it appears together with tōhû and appears as a repetition of emphasis. Tōhû makes sixteen solo appearances in the Old Testament, and by all accounts appears to refer simply to a lack of something positive. This would argue that in Gen. 1:2 the account of creation is framed by the claim that anything creation possesses positively God has made it thus. Cf. Samuelson 1992: 15–17. See Clifford 1994 for an extended argument against the conflict model.
. Assman (1997: 8) refers to the uniqueness of the biblical distinction of Creator and creation as ‘the most fundamental of all distinctions’ for the Judeo-Christian tradition. The absoluteness of this distinction stands in contrast to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian blurring of the distinction such that Creator and creation stand on a relatively equal ontological footing in their creation stories.
. This is underscored by noticing that the Hebrew verb ‘to create’ (bārā’) is uniquely an action of God. It serves to distinguish this divine activity from every other creaturely power or ability.
. Some of the general framework that follows finds its genesis in the work of Kline (1980) and in turn from Blocher (1984).
. See I. Hart 1995: 315–336 for the beginnings of this argument linking the themes of Gen. 1 to the rest of the canon.
. The prepositions in Gen. 1:26 ‘in our image’ and ‘after our likeness’ contrast with the absence of the prepositions in 2 Cor. 4:4 and Col. 1:15, where Jesus ‘is the image’.
. Clines (1998: 447–497) argues that the primary purpose of the ‘image’ language is to exalt humankind and only secondarily to humble it. He does, however, not shy away from seeing both aspects in the Gen. 1 account of the imago Dei. Brueggemann (1982: 29–31) also notes the dialectical consequences of the language of ṣelem (image) – to exalt and humble.
. McFague 1982.
. It is hard to make sense of the recent controversy over definitions of marriage apart from this controversy about divinely ordained categories of understanding in creation. Helpful Old Testament background to this claim, though not in the context of the recent marriage controversies, is Ortlund 1996.
. Cf. Berkhof 1939; Hodge 1986; Strong 1886.
. McGuckin 2004 is instructive for certain theologians of the early church, while Wilken 2005 is important as regards the intellectual traditions of the early church.
. Helpful summaries of some of the most important findings of natural science that lend towards a religious orientation are Collins 2006 and McGrath 2009.
. Levenson 1988: 12.
. This is the argument of and below.
. Halbertal 1992.
. Cf. Beale 2004.
. In the ANE there is good evidence to demonstrate that the physical idol included both representation and manifestation in the mind of the idol-maker. The idol represented the god and also made that god manifest. Beckerleg (2009) argues that the ancients had no problem conceiving the idol as both an ‘image’ and as ‘true god’ even after it was carved as an image into stone or wood. The idol represented the god and was the god manifest in concrete form.
. Peirce (1991: 141–144) writes of three kinds of representation: similarity, causality and convention. I am adapting Peirce’s analysis into a different context, but find his categories helpful in distinguishing the different ways objects or words can point at other objects.
. Halbertal 1992: 260. Eire (1986) also hears this sort of criticism frequently in the writings of the Protestant Reformers.
. The use of these phrases throughout the Psalms is numerous: Pss 16:11; 17:7; 18:35; 20:6; 21:8; 44:3; 45:4; 60:5; 74:11; 78:54; 80:15; 89:13; 97:1; 110:1; 118:15; 137:5; 139:10.
. Beale (2004: 20) in his biblical theology of idolatry notes of these rare occurrences, ‘These appear to be legitimate exceptions to the rule, especially since these are living appearances sovereignly initiated by God himself and not lifeless images in an artistic way to depict the parts of the creation, as long as these representations were not thought to represent God.’
. Halbertal 1992: 5. Halbertal goes on to argue that idolatry is related to marital metaphors of infidelity, and only in the Middle Ages does it begin to connote ‘wrong belief ’ or heresy.
. Even ‘good’ desires may become idolatrous when they become ends in themselves rather than means pointing to a greater end. Keller (2009: 24) writes, ‘Making an idol out of love may mean allowing the lover to exploit and abuse you.’
. Helm 1995: 420.
. Seeskin (1995: 15) writes, ‘If there is only one God, there is only one thing in the universe worthy of worship; everything else is part of the created order and subject to the will of God. In fact, the division between God and creation is so decisive that not only are heavenly bodies, mortal creatures and sea monsters not divine, they cannot even serve as images of the divine.’
. Cf. C. Plantinga (1995) for a lengthy description of the correspondence between sin and addiction. This correspondence argues not for denying human responsibility but rather for a thicker theological description of sin than is found in the popular literature. The following comparison of idolatry and addiction is deeply influenced by Plantinga’s treatment.
. Batnitzky 2000.
. See below.
. Feuerbach 1957; Nietzsche 1987. Karl Barth wrote an introductory preface to Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (1957: xi) and tellingly says, ‘His principal aim was to change the friends of God into the friends of man, believers into thinkers, worshippers into workers, candidates for the other world into students of this world, Christians, who on their own confession are half-animal and half-angel into men – whole men.’
. Keller 2009.
. Most often these traditions were grounded in the claim that God’s transcendence is always dangerously compromised by any positive construal of his nature and being. See Williams 2000 for a helpful introduction to the tradition of ‘negative theology’ in the early church. In a recent collection of essays, Davies and Turner (2002) explore the insights of the apophatic traditions without fully embracing absolute transcendence.
. Blocher (1984) argues that the Second Commandment, ‘You shall not make any graven images’, is intended to protect the sanctity of the original image of Gen. 1:26 as much as it is intended to protect the worship of the one and only true God.
Chapter 3: The liturgy of creation in the cosmic temple
. Part of the interpretative controversy regarding the relationship of the two tables concerns where the first table ends and the second begins. In particular should 2:4 be divided or not? A sizeable number of commentators in the twentieth century have placed all of v. 4 in the second table. The tôlĕdôt formula (‘These are the generations of ’) at the beginning of v. 4 is viewed by the majority as a colophon marking out the genealogical material to follow. The primary grounds are semantic. Everywhere else the formula tôlĕdôt is used it is connected only to material that follows. See Hamilton 1990 for a summary and defence of this viewpoint. See also Wenham 1987, Levenson 1988 and Stordalen 2000. By contrast the others have supposed that 2:4 ought to be divided, the first half of the verse (with its tôlĕdôt formula) summarizes the first table and forms an inclusio with 1:1. The latter half of v. 4 (‘In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens’) introduces the material to follow. In its favour is the awkward transition of the tôlĕdôt formula of v. 4 if taken as a whole. The first half of the verse uses the word order ‘the heavens and the earth’, while the latter half of the verse switches the order and omits the definite pronouns ‘the earth and the heavens’. (Cont.) There is no parallel in any of the other tôlĕdôt formula for this. See van Wolde 1996 for a defence of this view, along with Brueggemann 1974 and Beckerleg 2009.
. Westermann (1992) and Hamilton (1990) each offer helpful summary treatments of this historical-critical interpretative tradition of the two tables of Gen. 1 – 3 in the twentieth century.
. McBride 2000: 3–41.
. Mendenhall (1955), the most influential of Old Testament scholars emphasizing ancient treaty covenants, noticed the similarity between Israelite covenant texts and a group of Hittite state treaties, the so-called suzerainty treaties. He argued that the structure of Israel’s covenant with YHWH found its origin in ANE treaties of the Hittites, most particularly in their historical prologues.
. An older work that offers a fine summary of this ‘covenantal treaty’ framework as a fruitful lens through which to view Pentateuchal material is Kline 1963.
. Gunkel (1910) effectively framed the discussion of Genesis throughout the twentieth century as a portrayal of a ‘saga’. Also see von Rad 1972. Gunkel’s most important interpreter until the mid-century accepted the language of ‘saga’ as an appropriate designation but asked how it fit with the language of ‘faith’ that so permeated the account. At mid-century Vos (1948) suggested this (saga/faith) was the relationship between a covenant people and their peculiar covenant history.
. The phrase is found in Gen. 2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10; 11:27; 25:19; and 36:1. It is also found, interestingly, in Exod. 1:6 at the beginning of the ‘Moses Story’. Mathews (1996) offers a helpful summary of approaches to the tôlĕdôt structure of Genesis.
. Cassuto (1961–4: 45–50) offers interesting internal evidence to consider the tôlĕdôt of Gen. 2:4 as belonging to the second table rather than the first. He notes that the paragraph descriptive of the seventh day is replete with repetitions or multiples of seven. This pattern falls out altogether if 2:4 is counted as belonging to the preceding verses.
. Taking 2:4a as part of the first table may not be obvious, but it safeguards this literary signal, often missing in the traditions that take all of 2:4 to belong to the second table. For a spirited defence of the unity of 2:4, but that sees it as a literary signal of transition, see Cassuto 1961–4. He (1961–4: 99) summarizes the purpose of 2:4, ‘It serves to connect the narrative of the first section to that of the second; and its meaning is; [sic] These – these events described in the previous portion – constituted the history of the heavens and the earth, when they were created that, when the Lord God made them, and now I shall tell you in detail what happened at the conclusion of this Divine work.’
. The recent work by Horton (2002) exploits the metaphor of ‘drama’ as an illuminating theme for a theological description of the covenant relationship between God and his people. In drawing attention to the metaphor of drama I am intending to mark out Gen. 1 as an introduction to the drama rather than as a chapter in the drama itself.
. So Cross (1998: 83) remarks, ‘The [first] creation account is a prologue attached to an epic account of the call of the fathers, the victory of the Divine Warrior in the exodus and conquest, and the creation of the covenantal political order at Sinai.’
. The repetition of the themes of creation at Sinai are an indication that this founding event in Israel’s history is itself interpreted (at least in part) as a ‘new creation’. This is manifest in the grounds offered for the second commandment in Exod. 20:4 prohibiting the making of graven images, namely by appeal to ‘heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth’. The grounds call to mind the initial theatre of creation as framed by Gen. 1. Interestingly these are virtually the same grounds offered in support of the fourth commandment to honour the Sabbath, namely calling to mind Gen. 1 but now noting the initial rhythm of creation – work and then rest.
. There has rightly been scepticism recently about viewing Gen. 1:1 as a claim about the beginning of time. The Hebrew word translated ‘In the beginning’ (bĕrē’šît) is an ambiguously tensed word with respect to time. Unfortunately this has led some in turn to cast doubt on the grounds that Genesis nowhere has in view what actually happened at the beginning of time. However, the overwhelming impression of Gen. 1 is that God alone creates and that he creates everything. These two convictions by themselves would strongly incline one to see creatio ex nihilo as a straightforward consequence of the first table of creation. One should also keep in view that the three-tiered creation (heaven above, seas below and earth in the middle) may seem mythologically antiquated, but to the Hebrew mind it was a primary way to signify all that is. In other words if God created the heavens and the seas and the earth, then he created all that is. It is this claim that Augustine (1991) referred to as creatio ex nihilo.
. Vos 1948. The second table is not a straightforward historical narrative by any means. This is evident in the sacramental signs and symbols serving largely typological functions at the outset of the canon. The tree of life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the serpent each in turn resist being read on strictly theological terms.
. McBride 2000: 8.
. Anderson (1977: 151) remarks, ‘the story [of Gen. 1] is a meticulously wrought composition in which form and content are indissolubly linked’. See also Brown 1993 for another detailed analysis of the ‘dense structure’ of the first table.
. The most prominent example of repetition noticed by early Judaism was the tenfold repetition of ‘then God said’ (wayyōmer ’ĕlōhîm), corresponding to the ten commandments of the Decalogue. See Blocher 1984 and McBride 2000: 10.
. So Weinfeld (1981: 510) writes, ‘The recurring formulas: “And he saw that it was good”, “and it was evening and it was morning”, are a type of refrain which imparts to the chapter a liturgical character.’
. It is no accident that Israel viewed Gen. 1 as a primary ground for viewing their week as well as their general calendar in liturgical terms. So e.g. the Exod. 20 account of the Decalogue lists the grounds for keeping the Sabbath day as reflecting God’s rest in Gen. 1. The routine of commandments six and one is also echoed in Sabbath years (when debts were to be cancelled, Deut. 15) and in jubilee years (seven sevens of years, Lev. 25).
. The ‘days’ of creation have tempted many commentators to see a chronology being defended explicitly in the first table. Even some commentators not concerned with the chronological debates about creationism versus evolution in the early chapters of Genesis nonetheless have argued for a chronological pattern to creation as narrative. So van Wolde (1996) interprets Gen. 1:1 – 2:4a as a story with temporal sequence. God does certain things before he does other things. Though van Wolde does not argue for a strict chronology in the story of creation, she does see the unit narratively structured and therefore sequenced in chronological fashion. I am arguing rather that the literary unit is not narrative in tone, but lyric or hymnic. This ought not to suggest that the first table has no historical or chronological consequences, but simply that it is not a narrative account whose central structure is chronology.
. This is in part Levenson’s (1988) argument, in which he claims Gen. 1 is centrally about God’s sustaining order in the face of potential chaos. Levenson leaves open the possibility that there is a primeval chaos suggested in Gen. 1:2 with its language of tōhû wābōhû, ‘formless and void’. However, I take Gen. 1:2 to imply rather a lack of any structure (positive or negative) prior to God’s command. For further argument to this effect see Samuelson 1992.
. The imperatives pĕrû (be fruitful), rĕbû (increase) and mil’û (fill) in Gen. 1:22 are repeated together three other times in Gen. 1:28; 9:1 and 9:7.
. There are analogies in other ANE contexts where gods involved in creation are said to fill the creation as they fill their temples. See Levenson 1984: 139–158.
. On the connection between filling and temple see 2 Chr. 5:11 – 6:3. On the connection between filling and covenant see Gen. 17:6 and 35:11. It is interesting to note that in both of these contexts (temple and covenant) there are royal overtones. The building of the temple is presided over by the king (Solomon) and the promise of descendants to fill the earth is also accompanied by the promise that some of those descendants will be kings.
. It is also noticeable that day three leads naturally into the second half of the sextuplet of creating days. On day three there is the divine creation not only of dry land, but also the first hints of life with the creation of vegetation.
. Both Westermann (1984) and McBride (2000) draw considerable attention to the manner in which creation occurs from the top down. Notice also the summary of creation in Neh. 9:6: ‘You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.’ The principle of ‘filling’ here, as in Gen. 2:1, is expressed in terms of there being ‘hosts’ of heaven.
. Most commentators have seen that God’s ‘rest’ was not to recuperate from fatigue, but to celebrate the completion of his creation of a royal dwelling, to enjoy, as it were, his own enthronement. The temple imagery is extended in the second table in Genesis with God’s command to Adam to protect the temple-garden from the presence of evil. See Vos 1948, Kline 2006 and Weinfeld 1981.
. The significance of the Sabbath in the first table of Genesis echoes throughout the remainder of the canon. Suffice it to say here that the Sabbath appears as a principle linking creation, redemption and consummation. The argument of Heb. 4 makes this clear. See Dumbrell 1989: 137–156 and Bacchiocchi 1998.
. Westermann (1984: 90) writes of day seven, ‘the celebration of the holy gives unity to the whole’.
. Cassuto (1961–4: 12) notes of these numerical patterns, ‘The structure of this section is based on a system of numerical harmony. Not only is the number seven fundamental to its main theme, but it also serves to determine many of its details. Both to the Israelites and to the Gentiles, in the East and also in the West – but especially in the East – it was the number of perfection and the basis of ordered arrangement.’ Levenson (1988: 68) remarks on Cassuto’s argument, ‘What do the heptadic structures [in Gen. 1] prove? For Cassuto, it proves the compositional homogeneity of the passage: no text with so many heptads subtly threaded in from beginning to end could possibly have been stitched together from preexistent documents. This is a point that scholars would be well advised to concede to Cassuto.’
. Fisher 1963: 34–41. Fisher argues that Ugaritic temples built in honour of Baal in 2100 BC were constructed intentionally in sections of seven.
. Levenson 1988: 79–80.
. These verses read, ‘For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; / and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. / But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; / for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. / I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; / no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.’
. Levenson 1984: 280–282.
. McBride 2000: 15.
. Weinfeld 1981: 503.
. The analogy with Israel’s experience at Sinai is instructive. God’s presence is uniquely located on the mountain. There is a waiting period prior to Moses’ ascent of the mountain. The people are strictly warned not to come close lest they see God and die. The dark cloud and quaking thunder signal the coming of God onto the mountain. Even on the summit his appointed mediator, Moses, is hidden in the cleft of the rock so that he does not directly see God. All of this points to the chasm between divine holiness and the unholiness present in and among the people. No such chasm of holiness is narrated in the first table of Gen. 1. On this see Cassuto 1967.
. Hurwitz 1992.
. McBride 2000: 14.
Chapter 4: The image of God on the temple walls
. See Berkouwer 1962: 67–118 for further elaboration of this hermeneutical point.
. From different quarters see both Clines 1998 and Kelsey 2006.
. Kutsko 1998: 55.
. Westermann 1984: 155.
. Clines (1998: 448) writes, ‘The resemblance of humans to God is precisely what is not shared by anything else in creation and therefore its significance cannot be over exaggerated.’
. This was the language used of the vegetation also in Gen. 1:11–12.
. See Ridderbos 1957: 221–234.
. Sample references include the Pentateuch (Gen. 1; 14:22; Exod. 20:11; Deut. 5:8; 10:14), Wisdom (Pss 33:6–9; 90:2), Prophets (Isa. 40:26–27; Jer. 10:12–13; Amos 4:13), Gospels (Matt. 19:4; John 1:3), Epistles (Rom. 1:25; 1 Cor. 11:9; Col. 1:16), Revelation (4:11; 10:6).
. Sample references include the Pentateuch (Gen. 2:1–3; Exod. 16:29; 20:10–11; Lev. 25), History (2 Chr. 36:21; Neh. 9:14), Prophets (Isa. 56; Jer. 17; Ezek. 46), Gospels (Matt. 12; Mark 2; Luke 6; John 5), Epistles (Heb. 4), Revelation (21:1–4).
. Sample references include 1 Kgs 6; 2 Chr. 2 – 7; Ezra 3; Pss 11; 27; 65; Ezek. 40 – 43; Luke 19:45 – 20:18; John 1 – 2; Rev. 21 – 22.
. Some of what follows finds its genesis in Blocher 1984.
. Ibid. 87.
. Clines (1998: 445) offers the most exhaustive and definitive treatment of the grammatical arguments in favour of this position.
. C. Plantinga (1995) argues that ‘sin’ is as conceptually interesting and diverse as righteousness is. It should not be construed as a thin construct. Sin is deep and requires us to pay attention carefully to its multiple faces.
. Van Wolde (1996: 19) notes that the heavenly bodies of Gen. 1 do not propagate themselves. In this manner they are viewed as permanent and thereby establish ‘order and time on the earth’.
. Wolterstorff (1995) defends the claim that God speaks not by virtue of having vocal cords, but rather by authorizing discourse as his own. In Gen. 1 God does not physically speak, but rather creates words (written and verbal) and in a peculiar way authorizes them as his own.
. Grenz’s (2001) discussion of the Barthian contention that the imago Dei is constituted by the male or female claim is most helpful. He both affirms the importance of the male or female claim and also places it in the larger construct of the ‘community’ themes present in the canon.
. Barth (1958: 195) wrote, ‘Could anything be more obvious than to conclude from this clear indication that the image and likeness of the being created by God signifies existence in confrontation, in the juxtaposition and conjunction of man and woman which is that of male and female?’
. So argues Hughes (1989: 18–20). Hughes supposes that Barth has read 1:27 as constitutive of the image, rather than its being an additional comment on the humans God has created. What Barth takes as the obvious existential import of the conjunction of 1:26 and 27 Hughes sees as merely two conjoined but different statements. Hughes sees the male or female construct as more nearly connected to the mandate to ‘Be fruitful and multiply’ of Gen. 1:28. The Hebrew construction of Gen. 1:27 argues against this, however. The primary location of male or female is as that which describes the bārā’ (create) activity of God, rather than the consequent reproductive activities of humankind. So also does the parallelism of v. 27 suppose that male or female is intimately connected to the ṣelem ’ĕlōhîm rather than being merely an extraneous additional comment about humankind.
. See Hugenberger 1994 for a biblical-theological argument grounding marriage as constituted by its covenantal framework. Though Hugenberger’s specific concern is Malachi, his argument is much wider in scope and draws attention to the echoes across the Old Testament canon.
. Cassuto 1967: 48.
. Jónsson (1988) offers a helpful summary of the alternatives.
. See Cassuto 1961–4, Levenson 1988 and Samuelson 1992.
. See Louth 2001 and Harrison 2002: 347–364.
. Though some commentators have suggested the plural of v. 26 need not suppose a partner, the overwhelming majority of commentators (both Jewish and Christian) have seen an implicit partner as required by the context. The two most favoured by interpreters are the angelic court and some partner within God himself. A novel suggestion by Norbert Samuelson (1992) is that God’s partner is the earth, since the context of day six is the production of life on the earth, and the second table affirms that God’s breath is conjoined with the dust (earth) to make human life. The close linguistic connection between ‘humankind’ (’ādām) and ‘earth’ (’ădāmâ) also suggests some role being given to the earth in the creation of humankind. However, the close connection between the earth and humankind, which clearly ought to be affirmed in context, does not lead to the conclusion that the earth is a divine partner, for nowhere else is there a reference to the earth as a divine partner in creation in Genesis, nor is there any indication that the earth stands in a personal relationship to Elohim.
. This is defended by Clines (1998: 447–497).
. Barth (1958) hangs the whole argument for a duality in God on the reference of ‘male and female’ in v. 27. The problem for Barth is that the duality in God does not appear to be a sexual duality as implied by ‘male and female’. However, the duality Barth infers from ‘male and female’ may well be the prior construct of which ‘male and female’ is but one kind of expression.
. See Hasel 1974 and Hamilton 1990.
. Westermann (1984) cites ‘royal representation’ as the majority view in explicating the language of the image in Gen. 1. This is not an argument that thereby confines the image language in Gen. 1 to dominion, but by virtue of the presence of dominion motifs in the liturgy of creation it is imperative to keep this connection in view when explicating the theological significance of the ṣelem ’ĕlōhîm in Gen. 1. The lack of any mention of royal authority in Gen. 9:6 when the language of ṣelem ’ĕlōhîm is repeated suggests that royal dominion is not essential to it. Von Rad (1972: 57) remarks, ‘This commission to rule is not considered as belonging to the definition of God’s image; but it is its consequence, i.e. that for which man is capable because of it.’ Bray (1991: 195–225) also correctly argues that the concept of dominion is an important dimension of ṣelem but does not constitute its essence.
. Brueggemann 1982: 39.
. Mathews 1996: 169.
. Wilderberger, as cited by Levenson (1988: 114). Mathews (1996: 169) cites an Egyptian text, The Instruction for King Merikare (2200 BC), as saying of Re’s creation of human beings, ‘He made the breath of life for their nostrils. They who have issued from his body are his images.’
. Levenson (1988: 105–110) argues that the recreation of the temple city in postexilic Israel was in part conceived as a re-enthronement of YHWH after a long period in which his palace lay in ruins, and his faithful subjects seemed abandoned and helpless. The rebuilding of the temple was a cosmic act by God to refashion his image, Israel, in the world.
. Ibid. 112.
. Brueggemann (1982: 32) probably overstates these limitations on human rule, but wisely emphasizes the connection to God’s character in expounding the nature of human rule in Gen. 1: ‘The image of God in the human person is a mandate of power and responsibility’ (emphasis mine).
. McBride 2000: 16.
. Levenson 1988: 116.
. It would also be the case that according to Gen. 1 the whole human person represents God’s royal rule, without any intended emphasis on the spiritual or physical aspects of human identity carrying on this role.
. There is no mention of royal dominion in Gen. 9 either. Maxwell (1972: 290–304) cites Gen. 9 as a primary reason to reject royal dominion as essential to the ṣelem ’ĕlōhîm construct. However, implicit references to kingly authority are present in Gen. 9:2 when humankind is told that ‘The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the air, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered.’
. Von Rad (1972: 57) remarks, ‘This commission to rule is not considered as belonging to the definition of God’s image; but it is its consequence, i.e. that for which man is capable because of it.’ Maxwell (1972) suggests that constructs of royal dominion in the ANE would have come far too close to idolatry to be used interchangeably with the Israelites. Bray (1991: 195–225) also correctly argues that royal dominion is an important dimension of ṣelem but does not constitute its essence.
. The fact that the word order is reversed in Gen. 5:1 from Gen. 1:26 (‘likeness’, then ‘image’) is the primary exegetical argument for the interchangeability of these two terms.
. In this regard it is significant that in the genealogy at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, Adam is called the ‘son of God’, as Seth is called the ‘son of Adam’ (Luke 3:38). This genealogy is unique among ancient genealogies for its inclusion of God in the list.
. Again it is important to keep in mind the democratizing tendencies inherent in Gen. 1. It is not merely males who bear the image of God, but humankind as male and female (v. 27) were and are the image of God.
. The echoes of this special bond are present at critical junctures throughout Genesis. The promise to Eve of judgment upon the serpent contains the promise of a future child. The promise to Noah has consequences for all his descendants. The promise to Abraham is a promise of a son, but also a promise of future generations. Certain sins are visited even to the third and fourth generations.
. In the second table of creation (Gen. 2:4 – 3:24) when sin is introduced, God’s presence becomes a threat to Adam and Eve and the serpent. The ‘cool of the day’ of standard translations of Gen. 3:8 might be better rendered ‘in the wind of the storm’ (Niehaus 1995: 155–159). God’s presence in the face of unholiness is rarely ever a calm event. The threatening character of the divine presence is further emphasized in the judgments that befall Adam and Eve in the narrative, the climactic judgment being their removal from the presence of God. They are cast out of the garden. The flaming swords guarding the garden are the reminders that they will not return to God’s presence except through judgment. Cain is further punished for his sin, by for ever losing a home, always to be a pilgrim on a journey, removed from the divine presence though not the divine protection.
. With Israel’s exile the crisis loomed large as to how the divine presence should be approached seeing that the temple was no longer standing.
. Brueggemann (1997: 451) brings this point out forcefully.
. The garden of Gen. 2:4 – 3:24 has strong analogies to Israel’s later temple, where the presence of God is manifested at the centre of the temple structure even as the tree of life stands in the middle of the garden. See I. Hart 1995: 332. Likewise the protections accorded the divine presence in the temple bear strong resemblance to the protections around the garden as the means to keep the original couple from the tree of life in the middle of the garden.
. This is Barr’s contention (1968: 11–26).
. Samuelson 1992: 121–122.
. Sawyer 1974: 418–426.
. Clines 1998: 475.
. Jack Miles (1995: 21) overstates the point but nonetheless is headed in the right direction when he writes, ‘the plot begins with God’s desire for a self-image. It thickens when God’s self-image becomes a maker of self-images and God resents it.’
Chapter 5: Turning the imago dei upside down: idolatry and the prophetic stance
. Berkhouwer 1962: 67.
. It is important to remember that Scripture rarely ought to be interpreted as spelling out a general philosophical theory on anything. It may provide constraints on general theories of a philosophical sort, but the very genres represented in the canon strongly suggest that the Bible is not a textbook of large philosophical theories. This point is made nicely by Wolterstorff (1984).
. This important claim assumes that the canon functions theologically as a covenant document and thus it is important to understand the interpretative horizons across the canon in which any context is embedded. See Horton 2002 and Lints 1993.
. As C. Plantinga (1995) argues, sin should be construed as a large umbrella of terms rather than only one sort of behaviour. The predominant terms suggest a defacing or destroying of that which is positive and constructive. In this sense sin is conceptually a parasite on righteousness.
. Berkouwer is one of the few theologians in the twentieth century who has drawn the connection between the imago Dei and idolatry. His treatment is insightful and influential in what follows. See Berkouwer 1962.
. See Cross 1998: 3–21 for a detailed defence of the familial qualities to the covenants of Israel. Also see Hugenberger 1994 for an extensive development of the claim that marriage is the archetype of the covenant between YHWH and Israel.
. Halbertal 1992: 23.
. This term is borrowed from Lasch 1986. Gergen (1990) makes many of the same points but speaks rather of the self, which is so filled with desires that it cannot any longer see the possibility of being ‘fulfilled’.
. Hendrix (1990: 211–217) suggests that the episode has a clear chiastic structure revolving around Moses’ question to the people ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’ in 32:26. The parallels in the narrative before and after that climactic question are very intriguing.
. The narrative portrayal of the encounter between Moses and the divine presence remains as the abiding validation of Mosaic authority.
. There is some difficulty in the translation of ’ĕlōhîm in 32:1, when the people cry out, ‘Up, make us gods [’ĕlōhîm] who shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt’, and again in 32:4 after the golden calf has been made, the people proclaim, ‘These are your gods [’ĕlōhîm], O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ The term ’ĕlōhîm, which normally refers to God, has twice earlier in the book of Exodus (4:16; 7:1) referred to Moses as leader (’ĕlōhîm). That has led some to suppose that the sin of the golden calf is not an attempt by the people to replace YHWH but rather to replace Moses. The passage, however, does not point in this direction, since the divine displeasure is overtly about the people’s rebellion against YHWH. However, it should be said that the mediatorial role of Moses foreshadowing the mediatorial of Christ does not allow for an absolute division between the leadership of YHWH and that of Moses. As the story of Miriam (Num. 12) manifests, to speak a word against Moses on some occasions was to speak a word against YHWH.
. A helpful analysis of the narrative of the calf idol and its Egyptian background can be found in Childs 1974: 558–567.
. A generation ago there emerged a view in minority sections of historical-critical scholarship that the golden calf was made as a pedestal for Israel’s God, rather than as an alien deity. This was not an uncommon practice among Egyptians (or Babylonians depending on whether the Exodus text was pre-exilic or post-exilic). On this rendering the making of the golden calf should not be seen as a rejection of YHWH, but rather as a harmless religious practice carried over by the Israelites from their days in the land of Egypt. This view came under sharp criticism from exegetes who considered the final form of the text, for the text itself portrays the divine displeasure with the golden calf as straightforward and without any hint of considering the act as harmless. For an early rejection of the pedestal interpretation see L. R. Bailey 1971: 97–115.
. Looking through the eyes of Moses, the text seems to suggest that he wins the case and God reluctantly changes his mind, influenced by the powerful rhetoric of Moses.
. Moses refers to the stone tablets as the ‘tablets of the covenant’ in Deut. 9:11.
. Cf. Keyes 1992.
. Cf. Ellul 1985: 86–96.
. See Brueggemann 1988 for an extended discussion of the relationship of idolatry and the public identity of Israel in the ANE.
. A parallel account is found in 2 Chr. 23:17.
. Though the idol is but a concrete representation of deity, Isaiah claims there is such a close identity between the sign (idol) and thing signified (god) that no real separation exists between them. The idol is fully invested with the sacred presence of the god.
. The exegetical trajectory linking idolatry conceptually with adultery probably begins with the original placing of imago Dei together with the male or female reference in Gen. 1:27.
. It is important to note that though idolatry is illuminated by adultery, it is not the case that the two should be seen as identical, nor should the prevalence of the marriage metaphor be mistaken for considering it more dangerous than idolatry itself. The church has often reflected more upon the danger of corrupt sexual relations than corrupted relations of idolatry. Adultery has too often assumed larger proportions in a Christian ethic than idolatry, whereas in the Scriptures it is the reverse. Cf. Geller 1997: 117–122.
. See Ortlund 1996 for an extended treatment of these themes.
. The linking of prostitution and idolatry is forcefully portrayed in Exod. 34 in the aftermath of the golden calf episode.
Chapter 6: Inverting the inversion: idols and the perfect image in the New Testament
. However, James (3:9) does use the term ‘likeness of God’ as a reference to humankind. It seems to function in a manner similar to Gen. 1:26 and James probably intends the phrase as a canonical echo of Gen. 1:26.
. ‘Image’ (eikōn) has the semantic range to signify that which is not the shadow but the reality: ‘For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form [eikōn] of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near’ (Heb. 10:1).
. The deeply aniconic traditions of Israel, which eschewed any and all concrete images of God, found a ready home within early Christianity as well. The diatribes against idolatry found in Exodus and Isaiah, for example, would have been readily accepted by early Christians. See Achtemeier 1999: 43–61.
. Barton (2007: 152–154) notes the numerous citations from Roman sites of the first century that regarded Jewish and Christian abstention from the temple cults as amounting to a hatred of humankind and a detestation of the Roman Empire.
. On this point see ibid. 142.
. Marcus 2006: 152–164.
. On the historical background to the imperial cult see Price 1984. For the issues surrounding Christianity’s interaction with the imperial cult see Klauck 2000.
. For illustrative differences over the relative dating of the book of Revelation, based on difference as to the dating of the growth of the imperial cult, see Biguzzi 1998: 276–290 and Warden 1991: 203–212.
. There is some conjecture whether the issue of idolatry is raised at the trial of Jesus as recorded in Mark 14. There are witnesses at the trial who accuse Jesus of saying that he will destroy the temple made with hands. The expression ‘made with hands’ (v. 58) might well have evoked the biblical expression for an idol, since that was a central difference between an idol and the true and living God. Cf. Barton 2007.
. The parallel accounts can be found in Matt. 22:15–22 and Luke 20:19–26.
. The background to this issue of tribute paid to Caesar can be found in Hengel 1989: 100–105. Hengel notes there were riots in AD 26 when Pontius Pilate introduced the coins into Jerusalem with Caesar’s image on them.
. Marcus 2006: 157.
. Ibid. 163.
. Barton (2007: 143) comments on the regularity of New Testament depictions of idolatry in Gentile contexts, ‘The reason is not hard to find. The ever increasing range and intensity of engagement with Gentiles – traditionally understood within Judaism as. . . idolatrous – necessarily demanded attention to the rules of purity, since these rules constituted the principal means of guarding against disqualification from participating in God’s holiness as God’s chosen ones.’
. Rosner 1991: 21–30.
. The language of ‘covenant’ is more often circumscribed in Scripture to include Israel in the Old Testament or the church in the New Testament. However, it should not be forgotten that covenant descriptions are also used with respect to God’s relationship to all humankind and to all of creation. This would suggest that breaking covenant with God is not only something that Israel and/or the church commit, but also of which humankind in general are prone. See Horton 2006.
. Similar connections between idolatry, sexual immorality and certain kinds of food can be found in Rom. 2:2; 1 Cor. 5, 8; and Gal. 5.
. Marcus 2006: 152.
. On this question of the practice of resistance and accommodation by the early Christians to idolatry see Bonnington 2007: 107–119.
. See Rosner 2009 for a thoughtful and nuanced treatment of greed in the New Testament.
. Achtemeier (1999: 46) refers to three New Testament arguments against idolatry: ‘first, the inadequacy of material objects to serve as divinities or their representations; second, the inadequacy of any figuration to serve as a representation of the Creator of all reality; and third, the impossibility of tolerating any other deity than the one God, of whom no representation can be made’. I’ve combined Achtemeier’s first two arguments into one. Whereas his third argument calls to mind the spiritual adultery arguments of Hosea, I’ve highlighted the echoes of Isaiah’s argument in 1 Cor. 10 – the idols represent gods that do not exist. These arguments obviously do not conflict with each other.
. Rowe (2005: 289–312) argues that Paul’s reference to all these classes of objects is intentional. Hooker (1960) argues that the only referent of ‘image’ in Rom. 1:23 is ‘man’, and Paul mentions the other objects only incidentally. The reason is that the apostle is building up to an Adam–Christ argument in Romans and therefore only ‘man’ is in view in Rom. 1:23. I think Paul has Genesis in view in the background of Rom. 1, though contrary to Hooker, I take Paul’s interest in Rom. 1:23 to be more generic and less specific to the later Adam–Christ typology of Rom. 5.
. In the background may be a reference to the entirety of the cosmos, since birds, animals and reptiles are used as representatives of all three parts of the Genesis cosmology: heavens, earth and seas. Rather than being an account of the natural order, the threefold schema represents the totality of the cosmos. See Kline 2006 for an elaboration of the cosmic order of Genesis.
. Although it may have ontological consequences, the assertion of human fallenness is primarily a moral disorder. This means also that idolatry is a moral defect rather than merely an alternative cultural account of worship. Likewise the language of ‘image’ carries strong moral overtones. On the moral character of the imago Dei see Horton 2006: 101.
. The Old Testament background to Paul’s charge of futility points in many cases at idolatry. See in this respect especially Ps. 94 and Jer. 2.
. Karl Barth (1958) refers to the irrationality of Adam and Eve’s choice to eat of the fruit for the very reasons Paul alludes to in Rom. 1.
. Paul reverses this contrast in 1 Cor. 1, where redemption is referred to as foolishness in the eyes of the world.
. There are echoes of this same argument in Rev. 9:20, where the idols are described as those that cannot see, hear or walk. In other words they are lifeless.
. Cf. also Acts 19:26, where Paul rehearses this same familiar argument from the prophets against idolatry.
. Achtemeier 1999: 56.
. Halbertal (1998: 166) cites Gamaliel in a similar spirit: ‘what is treated as a god is forbidden, but what is not treated as a god is permitted’.
. James Sweeney (2002: 185–210) argues rightly that Stephen’s speech is a defence of Jesus as the fulfilment of the temple rather than a criticism of the temple as such. Sweeney’s treatment is the best biblical-theological treatment of this passage in the contemporary literature.
. Cf. Wright 2008: 108–109 for a helpful summary of the precedents for Stephen’s defence of himself by recasting the history of Israel in a new light.
. Dahl 1966: 139–158.
. Cf. Ps. 29 for background on the title ‘God of glory’.
. Bruce (1988: 143) draws attention to the significance of ‘made with hands’ in Stephen’s speech. In particular he notes the importance of the phrase in the Psalms where ‘the idols of the nations are described as silver and gold, the work of men’s hands’ (Acts 6:41).
. Witherington (1998: 262–266) argues correctly that Stephen’s defence is not an instance of anti-temple polemic. I concur with Witherington but on different grounds. He cautions against any anti-temple polemic in Luke-Acts since the temple plays a relatively positive role throughout the corpus, and further the language of ‘made with human hands’ need not be interpreted in unduly negative tones.
. Evans and Sanders (1993: 198) note the connection between the idolatry of the golden calf and the control of the temple by the Sanhedrin: ‘Nothing is wrong with the temple nor with building it, but it is wrong to believe that it (and perhaps it alone) is the habitation of God. Moreover, allegiance to a temple built with human hands could place Israel in danger of repeating its earlier wilderness sin, for the gold calf had also been made by “their hands”.’
. Phillips (2003: 159) reaches beyond Exod. 32 and connects the rebellion of the Sanhedrin in Acts 7 to Cain’s rebellion in Gen. 4. Broadly speaking, both do represent paradigms of sin against kinsmen. There are undoubtedly theological patterns of rebellion that the two accounts share in common. It may well be that the closer parallel for Acts 7 in the early chapters of Genesis is Adam’s eating of the fruit as the fulfilment of the promise that when he eats of it, he will be as God.
. Bruce 1988: 145.
. Pelikan (2005: 105) draws attention to the similarity between Acts 7 and 17 in the characterization of idolatry as being ‘made with human hands’. Idolatry is a pattern of false worship inside as well as outside God’s covenant community.
. It is a common theme in critical scholarship on Acts 7 to see Hellenistic bias against Judaism or a Samaritan bias against Jerusalem in Stephen’s speech. Donaldson (1981: 27–52) shows why it is highly unlikely that any Hellenistic or Samaritan bias is at work in Luke’s account. The problem is not Judaism or Jerusalem as such in Stephen’s speech. Rather it is the rebelliousness of the ruling authorities that is the focus of Luke’s account. On the alleged Samaritan background to Stephen’s speech see also Mare (1971: 1–21).
. Witherington (1998: 274) concurs: ‘In short the real issue is who is in control and gets to define the terms, nature and location of God’s presence – God or the people, in particular the temple hierarchy?’
. Helpful historical background to the city of Athens the apostle Paul would have experienced in the first century can be found in Bruce 1988: 328–334. He writes (333) of Paul’s speech, ‘Probably no ten verses in Acts have formed the text for such an abundance of commentary as has gathered around Paul’s Areopagus speech.’ Countless sermons have also drawn attention to the similarity of contexts between Athens and present-day Western culture. Representatively see Davis 2003: 64–68 and Dunham 2006: 202–206.
. Cf. Zanker 1998 and Moxnes 1995: 107–132.
. There is some dispute as to whether there were such altars in Athens to ‘unknown gods’. Witherington (1998: 521–523) summarizes the issues well, and persuasively argues that these altars would have been present in first-century Athens.
. The poets cited are Epimenides and Aratus. Both were probably referring to Zeus as the supreme being of Greek philosophy. Bruce (1988: 339) rightly notes that Paul’s citation of these lines does not equate Zeus with YHWH, but points at some recognition in the philosophical tradition of the true nature of God.
. The religious tradition at Athens often supposed that the Creator god was a bare cause of the world, and little attention was given to his possible personal character. The gods of the Greek pantheon were very personal and thereby deeply flawed in peculiar ways. Paul’s claim that the Creator God was both the cause of the world and personal would have been a strange idea to the Athenians. Cf. R. Bailey 1990: 481–485.
. C. K. Barrett (1974: 69–77) rightly notes that Paul’s argument shares some sympathies with the Epicureans and Stoics in their attack on the overt superstitions of popular religion focused around the temple cults.
. Witherington (1998: 530) notes that Paul’s argument in v. 28 assumes a common belief with the Epicureans that there is some form of kinship between God and humans. However, Paul inverts this common belief by claiming that because humans come from God, he is the one who must give purpose and meaning to them.
. Pelikan 2005: 191.
. Cf. Cloy 1997: 21–39 for a helpful reconstruction of philosophical beliefs that form the context towards which Paul’s speech is aimed.
. Wilson (1973: 207–209) points to the citation from Aratus in Acts 17:28 as evidence that Paul is concerned with the fundamental assumptions behind the logic of idolatry rather than the popular practice of idolatry.
. Willimon (2010: 144) poignantly writes in reflection on this passage, ‘Idolatry is not necessarily the pastime of the ignorant and the simple. Intellectuals play the game quite well. The God whom Paul proclaims is not just another option for human devotion, not an accommodating God content to be one among many. The God who sent the Christ is still the Holy One of Israel, a jealous deity without rivals, an exclusive lover who tolerates no competition – money, sex, philosophical ideals, institutions – who fiercely judges all idols made by hands or minds of men.’
. Gaffin 1987.
. In similar fashion the apostle John in Rev. 1 represents Jesus as the Alpha and Omega who is also the visible representation of the invisible God. The author of Hebrews (ch. 1) portrays Jesus as the exact representation (charaktēr) of God and the one in whom the beginning and end hold together.
. Grenz’s (2001: 223–266) reminder that the image has a significant eschatological component to it, though not explored here, is exactly right and here begs for a fuller treatment.
. Kline (1980:61) writes, ‘In redemptive history the reproduction of the image of God in the new mankind takes place through the mediatorial agency of Jesus Christ, in whom the divine Glory became incarnate. He is the paradigm of the Glory image and he is the mediator of the Spirit in the process of replicating the divine likeness.’
. The language of idolatry is used in 1 Cor. 12 and 2 Cor. 6 as a way to describe the former state of those who have now come to confess Jesus as Lord.
. Horton (2005: 108) rightly notes that this act of recreation is historical and eschatological rather than ontological or metaphysical. It effects a reconciliation between estranged parties by means of fulfilling the just requirements of the covenant. It does not effect a substantive change in the human attributes of Jesus, nor in his divine communicable attributes.
. In most modern translations eikōn in Rom. 1:23 is rendered as ‘image’ rather than ‘idol’, though the context clearly views it pejoratively.
. Luke’s account of the temptation narrative of Jesus (Luke 4:1–12) is particularly relevant since Luke’s genealogy of Jesus immediately preceding the temptation narrative places Jesus in the line of Adam (Luke 3:38).
. The fact that Jesus cites from Deut. 6 and 8 also strongly suggests that Israel’s testing in the Sinai serves as a narrative link between Adam and Jesus. Both of these chapters narrate Israel’s tests in the wilderness. Israel fails the test in the wilderness as did Adam in the garden. Adam is both banished from the garden and from the divine protections after his disobedience. The generation of Israel that disobeys in the desert is analogously refused entrance to the Promised Land, even as the divine Presence is taken away from them in the aftermath of the golden calf episode.
. Calvin (1960: 1.15.4) writes, ‘if we are conformed to Christ’s image, we are so restored that with true piety, righteousness, purity and intelligence we bear God’s image’.
. Rowe (2005: 303) points at the striking difference between Paul’s (negative) use of eikōn in Rom. 1 and his (positive) use of it in Rom. 8. He rightly suggests the difference is the object imaged in these diverse contexts. In the former instance it is the gods that do not exist. In the latter it is the living Christ.
. Grenz 2004: 617–628.
. Kline (1980: 54) notes, ‘in the midst of the description of Revelation 22:4 of the glorified covenant community, renewed after the image of the Lord, it is said “they will see his face and his name will be in their foreheads.” To say that the overcomers in the New Jerusalem bear the name of Christ on their forehead is to say that they reflect the glory of Christ which is to say that they bear the image of the glorified Christ.’
. The church is the fundamental context in which the image of Christ is manifested on this side of eternity. It is the community of God’s people who, in their fidelity to Christ and to each other, bear the imprint of Christ. In a highly democratized environment such as the present, this stands as a necessary corrective to the temptations towards forms of piety that are strikingly individualistic. In different cultural settings where communal hierarchies are in place the temptations towards passive pieties may well be stronger. But the greater temptations today veer undoubtedly towards the privacy and convenience of each individual as the centre of all choices.
. So Horton (2005: 112) writes, ‘The glorification already partly realized in the possession of the Holy Spirit as a down payment, will be the full investiture of each believer “male and female” as royal “son”. This may be why Paul (Rom. 8:18–25) puts an eschatological spin on adoption, deferring its full accomplishment until the whole creation is able to participate with redeemed humanity in the Sabbath enthronement of God.’
. Marcus 2006: 152–164.
Chapter 7: The rise of suspicion: the religious criticism of religion
. Griffin (1989a: 1–8; 29–62) suggests that the heart of the Enlightenment lay in its claim that the supernatural God, the God of traditional Western (Augustinian) Christian theology, has died. The rejection of the fundamental authority of God then entails the rejection of other institutional forms of authority such as the church and the king.
. See the generally critical account of the ‘subjective turn’ in Stout 1981. An interpretative essay with a concern for the larger social implications is May 1976. Standard histories of philosophy normally see the ‘subjective turn’ as the explanatory key for understanding modern philosophy, starting with René Descartes in the sixteenth century. See Copleston 1993a. See also the highly influential set of essays gathered in the collection Rorty 1967, which charts the extension of the ‘subjective turn’ in the twentieth century in the form of a ‘linguistic turn’.
. The rise of logical positivism in the 1920s was a major turning point in the English-speaking world in switching the burden of proof from atheism to theism. Two recent sympathetic histories are Stadler 2001 and Friedman 1999.
. Recent revisionist histories of Kant strongly suggest that his primary intention was not merely to salvage some limited space for religious belief in the era of early modern science but to make religious faith more credible as the very means that could give transcendental coherence to the project of science in the first place. See Ameriks 2012 and Hare 2009.
. A helpful survey of recent Hegel scholarship can be found in Moyer and Quante 2011.
. Earlier generations might have referred to the Absolute Mind as God, but Hegel (1807) believed that granting Absolute Mind a name reduced the metaphysical ground of all being merely to a humanized deity.
. Lewis 2011: 192–209.
. Thoughts on Death and Immortality (1981) was published anonymously by Feuerbach, and effectively ended his academic career because of its biting satire and vitriol articulated against the history of Christianity. Though it seems incredible today that an atheist would lose an academic post because of such criticism, the pervasive Pietism in the German universities of the early nineteenth century simply could not tolerate the intensity of Feuerbach’s anti-Christian rhetoric.
. Barth 1957: X.
. Feuerbach 1957: 24.
. Apart from the fact that Feuerbach’s historical argument had no evidence in its favour, his contention did have a kind of simple elegance in its explanatory power. It was this ‘alternative explanatory framework’ that provided justification for greater freedom for secularists from ecclesiastical control. This note of liberation had been sounded in the Enlightenment, and continued unabated among the secular prophets of the nineteenth century. See Harvey 1995.
. Feuerbach 1957: 236.
. This phrase is borrowed from Westphal in one of the best treatments of Marx’s critique of religion (1994).
. In a thoughtful but far too brief account Sproul (1974) turned the tables on the cultured despisers of nineteenth-century religion in just this manner.
. Nietzsche 1974: 128.
. Nietzsche 1987: 32.
Chapter 8: Significance and security in a new key
. It is not my central concern to enter into the theological discussion of the Trinity, which is quite naturally where these themes would need much greater elaboration.
. To use other words, the economic Trinity and the immanent Trinity are both theologically significant grounds of a fuller conception of the imago Dei. It is the ontological weight of the immanent Trinity that underlies the relational significance of the economic Trinity for a doctrine of human personhood. This would suggest that collapsing of the immanent Trinity into the economic Trinity in Rahner (and Barth) is flawed. The consensus of the church prior to the twentieth century would also suggest this.
. Deut. 6:4: ‘The LORD our God, the LORD is one.’ The prophet Malachi asks rhetorically, ‘Has not one God created us?’ (Mal. 2:10). The epistle of Romans affirms, ‘since God is one – who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith’ (Rom. 3:30).
. This is Berger’s point when he writes, ‘It is within society, and as a result of social processes, that the individual becomes a person, that he attains and holds onto an identity, and that he carries out the various projects that constitute his life. The person cannot exist apart from society’ (Berger 1967: 3).
. Cf. Craig Gay (1998) for helpful insights into the character of modernity as a technological kind of institution that reshapes human desire in its own image. Gay’s final chapter, ‘Toward a Theology of Personhood’, suggests the danger of idolatry in the context of the modern world though he underscores the tendency towards reductionism whenever idolatry is highlighted as theologically significant.
. It is intriguing that the secular prophets of the nineteenth century (Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, etc.) levelled the charge of idolatry against Christianity itself, supposing that the God of Christianity had been created in the church’s own image as a means to further its own interests. An intended trajectory of Westphal 1994 is the comparison of the Old Testament prophet’s use of the language of idolatry and the secular prophet’s usage of the same.
. Buber (1970: 110) writes, ‘Whoever has been converted by substitution, now “has” a phantom that he calls God. God, however, the eternal presence, cannot be had. Woe unto the possessed who fancy they possess God.’
. A lengthy secondary literature arose from Goffman’s (1959) sociological study, owing in some measure to Goffman’s provocative insight that human identity in the modern era was accompanied by the pressure to manage an image. ‘Image management’ became an increasingly fruitful construct to speak about the postmodern extension of the modern turn to the subject. It is not difficult to coordinate the preceding canonical account of the imago Dei to Goffman’s insights about the ‘art of impression management’. The best analysis of Goffman’s legacy can be found in Tseelon 1992: 115–128.
. From a different angle Clapp (1997) captures this central cultural impulse in evangelical perspective.
. Our present cultural context may aptly be referred to as modernity. Its central characteristics are industrial processes, technological innovations, urbanization and consumer capitalism. By contrast the term modernism refers to the ideologies that accompanied the rise of these cultural structures, and whose central figures are associated with the eighteenth-century movement known as the Enlightenment.
. Borgmann 2003.
. I recall one of the opening lines in the classic film of the 1960s The Graduate, when a neighbour tells the young directionless college student (played by Dustin Hoffman) that ‘the future is plastic’. This was an era-defining statement about the shallowness of modern life embedded in the pervasive and technologically inspired affluence of the post-war economic boom.
. I (2000: 91–110) have earlier referred to this phenomenon as a ‘vinyl narrative’.
. Fjellman 1992: 204.
. To use Lindbeck’s (1984) categories, it was a cultural-linguistic system of the very profoundest sort.
. Berger 1967.
. Elshtain 1993: 12.
. This argument is laid out most clearly in Berger 1979.
. The abortion debate is cast in these terms, as is the contemporary controversy over sexual preferences. Choice becomes the operative mental category in modern life.
. Fjellman 1992: 247.
. On this note see Nash 1994 and the perceptive analysis of evangelicals in the business community.
. Berger 1967: 133.
. This has not happened because there was some grand intellectual conspiracy in the last century or our own that determined for ever the course of the gospel’s identity. No, rather the confluence of very complex factors, some ideological and some not very ideological at all, created the context in which it seemed only ‘natural’ that all narratives should in the end prove to be no more than arbitrary and self-determining. The historical and philosophical precedents to this transforming narrative have been told elsewhere. Let me suggest Rorty’s (1981) sympathetic treatment of these matters. Believing that Nietzsche was the patriarch of this conceptual framework, one could also fruitfully peruse Westphal (1994) for the same story. Michael Horton (2002) tells the story in great detail and very much in sympathy with the line of argument I am following.
. I am indebted to a former colleague, T. David Gordon, for the following line of argument. This is most clearly spelled out in his unpublished paper ‘The Hidden Assumptions of Small Group Bible Study’.
. This same point is argued for briefly in Johnson 1990: 17–22.
. Elsewhere I (1993) have referred to this simply as a theological vision.
. ‘Oomph’ is a technical term common among linguistically challenged theologians.
. Bolsinger 2004.
. It is that connectedness of time that evangelicalism so desperately needs. Evangelicals live fragmented lives because they have cut themselves off from time and the one who created it.
. The radio phone-in, where everyone gets to voice their opinion regardless of its validity, is the characteristic genre of this narrative in our time.
. See A. Plantinga (1986: 16–93) for an extended explanation of self-referential incoherence.
. I take this to be Berger’s (1969) central argument. Reading classical literature all too often reminds us of this truth. I may add this is one reason why reading is such an endangered activity in our time. Cf. Birkerts 1994.