imago dei & fall

In the "Dick Fischer's 'historical basis' ..." thread several people have referred to the issue of interpreting the "image of God" concept in connection with the Fall. It might help to bear in mind that the two ideas occur in different strands of the biblical tradition. The statement that humanity was created in the image & likeness of God is from the 1st creation story while the story of the 1st sin is part of the sequel to the 2d creation story. (Most biblical scholars would designate the 1st as part of P & the 2d part of J, but I don't especially care about the labels here.) This does not mean that, at a higher canonical level, & even more at a developed theological level, the 2 concepts should have nothing to do with one another. But the fact that they do come from 2 different writers, who speak of humanity in rather different ways, is of some importance.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
Received on Tue Nov 16 17:28:35 2004