The image of man in the creation narratives of the Bible

Abstract

How self-images, the perceptions of others, and caricatures can fundamentally shape human existence and what role the image of man plays in the Bible are discussed by the author with her examination of the two creation narratives in Gen 1,1-2,4a and Gen 2,4b-3,24. After a brief introduction to the origins and the differences between the Priestly and Jahwist accounts of creation, she first analyzes the Priestly account, which focuses on the creation of the world as a whole. The idea expressed here of the human being as an ›image of God‹, which includes women and men equally, initially paints an exceedingly positive picture of people and the world, so that the author asks herself whether ultimately this story doesn’t seem almost naive, since there is no evil in it at all and everything is given the predicate ›good‹. With this question she goes into the analysis of the second account of creation, which focuses more on the creation of man and describes him as a kind of »in-between being made of divine breath and matter«. Here it becomes clear that it is man who gives existence to evil by reaching for the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil without authority, obeying the voice of Satan more than that of God. This turns his salvific state into an unsalvific one, which according to this idea continues to this day. Divided into a before and after, the author examines this biblical account of ›the Fall‹ in detail in order to summarize subsequently what constructive and destructive meanings can be read out of these two accounts of creation for our present image of man.