Scholars have wrestled for many years to try to explain the familiar expression ‘the image of God’. From the middle of the last century, for example, Near-Eastern studies drew heavily on Mesopotamian parallels in which Babylonian kings were commonly described as God’s ‘image’. As a result Biblical studies gravitated – not always helpfully as we shall see – towards an interpretation of Genesis 1 in terms of ‘status’ rather than ‘structure’. Human beings, it was argued, are God’s representatives on earth like the Mesopotamian kings. They are God’s image because they are delegated rulers.
Ranald Macaulay
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