Made in the Image vs. Made as the Image

Rob and I have been reading a book together by Henri Blocher called In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis. Last night we read through a section on mankind being made in the image of God vs. being made as an image of God. It was an incredibly interesting bit of reading. Blocher argues that the article b^e, as opposed to k^e, would better be translated "as" than "in." (I don't know Hebrew and I couldn't find either preposition when I used BlueLetterBible. So I've got to trust him on this. The NIV and several other translations roll with "in".)

Blocher uses a verse from Paul's writing to support his argument (1 Corinthians 11:7), "man is the image and glory of God." Blocher says, "If man is the image, the emphasis falls on his situation." (emphasis his) And later, "Mankind is to be the created representation of his Creator, and here on earth, as it were, the images of the divine Glory, that Glory which mankind both reflects and beholds."

Rob and I talked quite a bit about the distinction between "in" and "as." The way I see it, it's similar to the difference between being an ambassador vs. being a photograph of an important person. A picture/icon is often elevated as if it, in it's own right, is important because of the image it bears. But an ambassador is considered important only because of the person being represented. The real value is in the person being represented, not in the person who is doing the representing. It's a subtle distinction brought out in only one little teeny word, but I think it's an important distinction to mark. We are not made in God's image in the sense that we are important because we are little gods. We are made as God's image and are important only because of who we represent, and it is he who bears the true importance.

Blocher continues on to say, "If mankind is the image, does not the prohibition of making images of God appear in a new light? God himself has placed his image in his cosmic sanctuary, and he wishes due homage to be paid to it by the service of mankind, the neighbour created in his image. And Christ joins the first and great commandment with the second which 'is like it' -- 'You shall love the Lord your God... you shall love your neighbour...'; surely the logic behind that is the likeness between God and his image."

And then Blocher blows my mind away with what follows, "We can go even further. There is perhaps a polemical thrust to the Genesis declaration, not only against idols of wood, stone or metal, but also against the limitation to certain men of the privilege of the image of God; it is all mankind and everyman, not the king, whom God has made in his image." Wow! Caesar thought he bore the image of a god. So did Pharoah. But the Hebrew God shatters the idea of only royalty bearing God's image. Every person on the planet does. Every person. That is completely revolutionary!

I think the reformation made common the idea of individuals being important. The Catholic Church, for whatever reason, liked the idea of a divine order. First there was God, then kings and the pope (or was it the pope and then kings? Can't decide. Why don't you fight about it and see who's left standing?), then the nobility, then the twerps at the bottom of the ladder. But God says that there is no divine order except this: God - people. That's it. Mankind was made to be the image of God. Each of us.

Let Us Make Man...

Isn't it interesting that God made man on the same day that he created animals? He didn't throw animals into the 5th day with the birds and fish. Instead he made animals first, then humans, on the same day. And he follows that first with a blessing (that looks like it's primarily aimed at the humans, though God had also blessed the birds and fish already on day 5) and then a gift that is to both the animals and the humans (every green plant for food).

The animals and humans have been grouped together. They're different from fish and birds and plants. But they're similar enough to be made on the same day. This definitely gives a sense of the close connection between people and animals.

Meat and Vegetables - Genesis 1

This is what's wrong with the King James version of the Bible:

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat." (Genesis 1:29)

I don't know a single carnivore that would call plants, trees, or seeds "meat."

The First Creation Story - with colors

I'm still thinking on the first creation story in the Bible. I've typed it up into a spreadsheet with the text in order, but color coded to help me see parallels and repetitions. I suspect I could pull a few more out if I kept working on it, but this is what I have so far. I'll attach a pdf copy at the end. (Grrrr. I tried to insert a table here and Blogger kept rewriting the table out of the page. So I'm just posting a jpg and attaching the pdf....  OK, tried to upload a pdf only to find out that you can't do that on Blogger without a 3rd party assist. So I'm just posting the jpg. Deal with it.)

Tohu wa Bohu

Rob and I have been reading through the book "In the Beginning," by Henri Blocher. The book works through several interpretations of the first few chapters of the book of Genesis, giving various reasons why one interpretation makes more sense than another. It's been an interesting read so far, though it does get a bit academic (in the big words, long sentences, complicated ideas sense of the term). It was in Blocher's book that I first came across the terms tohu and bohu. A search online, however, has revealed that tohuwabohu (or variations on that transliteration) are common in many European languages (an interesting reflection upon the Jewish influence upon Europe despite the Europeans many attempts to eradicate that influence).

Tohu means formlessness, chaos, confusion.
Bohu is generally only found right next to Tohu and is generally taken to mean empty or void.

Pic from RuneSoup with thanks to Terry Pratchett

Tohu and bohu show up in Genesis 1:2. "And the earth was without form, and void..." (King James Version) "Now the earth was formless and empty..." (New International Version) "The earth was unformed and void..." (Complete Jewish Bible).

I find the words, at the very beginning of the creation story, to be a total conundrum. Does "formless and void" have substance? Can you see it? Feel it? Experience it? And if everything is unformed and empty, then how is it that there's water in the second half of that verse? "... and the Spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water." (CJB) Doesn't that imply that there was a watery part and a non-watery part such that God's spirit could hover in the one and over the other? And if that's the case, doesn't that indicate some pattern or "form" to things?

And what is the tohu and the bohu doing there? Is it the stuff, the medium, that God used to create everything out of? If so, then when he spoke did that shape the tohuwabohu? Or did speaking create things from nothing? And where did the tohuwabohu come from in the first place?

If you were sitting down to write a story, and you thought it was a really important story that you wanted people to grasp, don't you think you'd make it more understandable than this second verse of Genesis? Even the Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation story, makes more sense in the beginning than this second verse of Genesis 1. The Enuma Elish starts like this:

"When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being..." - sacred-texts.com

They've got chaos in there, and earth and water. There's a lot of similarities. But the story makes sense! You know what's going on. There are only so many ways you can interpret "And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name." But calling something formless and void when there was nothing there yet except that there was something there and it wasn't formless and if it was there then it wasn't void either.... 

All I can say is at least it rhymes. You've gotta admit, that's a nice touch. 

If, in reading through Blocher's book, I reach a higher level of enlightenment besides the joy of rhyming, I'll let you know. 

Gospel Made Visible

"Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible, but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible (see John 13:34-35). The church is the gospel made visible." -- Mark Dever in his book entitled The Church.

In the Beginning

Rob and I started reading a new book together called, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Gensis, by Henri Blocher. We're only at the beginning of the second chapter, so we're not real deeply into it yet, but I like what I've read so far. 

The first chapter is essentially explaining how he believes Genesis should be approached --> Scripture should be the overarching authority, illuminating other sources of information (and not the other way around). He gets into the discussions of "Who wrote scripture?" "What place does science have in this discussion?" and "What is the relationship between the two descriptions of creation in the Bible?"

The second chapter begins addressing commonly held beliefs/theories among Christians on how the universe was created. 

• Literal Interpretation: The days in Genesis 1 are 24 hour days.
• Reconstruction Theory: (Which I had always heard called the Gap theory.) God created the universe over a very long period of time (Genesis 1:1), then he destroyed it (vs. 2), and remade it in 7 literal days. 
• Concordist Theory: The days in Genesis 1 are really ages or geological eras. 
• He didn't name this one. The stinker. But the fourth view is that the description of the 7 days in Genesis 1 is a literary device. 

We still have to get into the nitty gritty of it all. But I thought I'd post the four views that he lays out in case anyone was interested. I've previously posted 6 views that were presented to us by my geology teacher when I was in 9th grade. It looks like Blocher is leaving out the diluvialist theory (unless he's merging that with Gap) which is interesting because I've heard Christians mention the diluvialist theory as something they believe as recently as within the past decade. 

Since I haven't included any nitty gritty here, let's not get into any of that just yet. But if you have thoughts on his 4 main theories/beliefs, feel free to pipe up. 

Election quote by Mark Driscoll

"That is election. Where the father in love, pursues foolish, obstinant and disobedient children who have chosen death, and he decrees that more important than their will is his love." -- Mark Driscoll

Let My People Go and Go and Go and Go, by Abraham Malamat

http://cojs.org/cojswiki/Let_My_People_Go_and_Go_and_Go_and_Go,_Abraham_Malamat,_BAR_24:01,_Jan/Feb_1998.
This is an interesting article describing several archeological references that sound similar to the story of Exodus (though not in the same scale). Here's the introductory paragraph:

"Nothing in the archaeological record of Egypt directly substantiates the Biblical story of the Exodus. Yet a considerable body of Egyptian material provides such close analogies to the Biblical account that it may, in part, serve as indirect proof for the Israelite episode."

"Will you forgive me?" -- Asking for forgiveness

Where does the Bible say that we should "ask for forgiveness" from someone we have wronged? I know that the Bible says that we should forgive others. And I know that if we confess our sins to God, he will forgive us. And I know that we have wronged another we should go and seek reconciliation. But it seems to me that going to someone that you have wronged and then asking them to forgive you is adding burden to them rather than taking it away. 

Let's say John injures Tom in some way and Tom is hurt. Then John goes to Tom and says, "I'm sorry, will you forgive me." I'd say that John is doing a good thing in admitting his culpability when it comes to having hurt Tom. But then he follows that quick admission up with an added encumbrance for Tom, that of having to forgive on demand. 

Asking for forgiveness and giving forgiveness are two very different things. The latter involves consciously being willing to let go of the argument or the emotional hurt in order to renew the relationship. The former is a request. Some treat it even as a demand -- the moment that I ask you for forgiveness for something I have done is the moment you need to make that conscious decision to give up on your side of the argument or your side of the emotional hurt. I have known people who used it as a means of ending an argument with the upper hand. You admit that you're wrong, but then force the other person into a position of loss by dictating that the argument is now over and your feelings toward me must now be restored since I said "sorry." And if you can't do that, then the problem is definitely with you and not me. 

So I'm curious. Can you think of a passage in the Bible that says that when we have wronged someone we should ask for their forgiveness? Certainly we should try to restore the relationship and certainly we should admit to our guilt in our part of damaging the relationship. But does the Bible say we should then vocally put the onus of forgiveness upon the other party? 

What is the difference between a theist and a deist?

Over thinking the brand

I know this is a bit of a leap, but I'm going to make it anyway. I feel like sometimes churches (or perhaps I should say "church staff") over think what they're all about. They try to turn church into something that sounds really, really great, even though you can't really pin down what they mean by most of what they're saying. The church is "authentic." What does that really mean and how does it fit in with the fact that most of the people on stage are paid staff/professionals? Or the word "covenant" is throw in before all the important words to emphasize how important they are, even if they don't really have anything in particular to do with the covenant. 

Here's a clip of Stephen Colbert sharing a sponsortunity he was given by Wheat Thins... with an overly thought out information sheet attached. 

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Grrrr, the video plays in edit mode, but not once I submit. So if this isn't working, click here to see the video. 

The only hermeneutic of the gospel...

I haven't read the book. In fact, I don't think I'd even heard of the author until yesterday. But to the extent that I understand what he's saying, I agree whole heartedly. If the world cannot see the gospel embodied in the church, then how can our story speak with authority or effectiveness?

The following is directly copied from Tolle Lege where I found the quote.

“I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. How is it possible that the gospel should be credible, that people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross?

I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the gospel, is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course, not denying the importance of the many activities by which we seek to challenge public life with the gospel– evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences, and even books such as this one.

But I am saying that these are all secondary, and that they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community.”

–Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 227.

To yield like air in matters of musical styles (specifically "praise music")

The topic of "praise music" vs. hymns came up in our Bible study this week. In fact, I was the one that brought it up. We're studying the book of James and were specifically talking about James 3:17 where it mentions not showing partiality and not being hypocritical. Our Bible study book had a great quote on this: 

He "will yield like air in matters of personal feeling or interest," but "will stand like rock in respect of moral principle." -- C. G. Moule

One of the gals in the study piped up, "But now-a-days everyone is expected to be tolerant" as if it were automatically a bad thing. So I replied, "Yes, there are definitely times when tolerance is important." Everyone seemed to look at me like I'd sprouted a third eye and one person asked, "What do you mean? Can you give an example?" I gave a few, but the one I finally landed on was the preference some people have for praise music and the alternate preference that others have for hymns sung with their traditional tunes. 

I was rather taken aback when this led to an immediate response about how bad praise music is (We do sing a fair bit of praise music in our congregation, by the way.) and how it often involves singing the same line over and over again, such as "God is awesome, God is awesome." I said (oh yes, I did), "you mean like when the angels sing 'Holy, Holy, Holy?"

I won't get into the rest of our conversation here. That's just hashing over a rather discordant and painful time. But I would like to take on the topic itself. I did a quick search of R.C. Sproul's thoughts on praise music (since he was referred to by the person who was so against it) and I found an article that wasn't actually written by R.C. but by a guy named Gene Edward Veith. I found a couple of debatable points in his essay, which you can read on the Ligonier website, but I'd like to zero in on one specific paragraph, just in the interests of trying to focus on the topic and not nitpick on the tangential particulars. He said;

The question is not whether or not we should make use of contemporary music in church, but whether we should make use of pop music. By its nature, pop music is catchy, entertaining, and thus “likeable.” It cannot have much content, much less complexity or depth. If it did, it would cease to be pop art. The art of the folk culture, with its traditions and communal experience, has such things, as does the consciously-crafted art of the high culture, with its challenging content.

I'm not sure how all praise music got condensed down into being pop music, or along the lines of pop music, but I'm going to roll with that. I also don't agree that all pop music is catchy and therefore "likeable" but again, I'll slide past that to get to the next two sentences. "It cannot have much content, much less complexity or depth. If it did, it would cease to be pop art." ... Really? Is that true? 

So I ask you, is pop art a veritable wasteland in the realm of art/music? Can you think of any pop music (or perhaps just a contemporary "praise song") that has any depth at all? And how would you evaluate depth anyway? Thoughts?