Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image...'"

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” (Genesis 1:26)

Comment:

There is no clear explanation, and several possible interpretations, for the use of the plural form in this passage from the first story of creation in Genesis. (This is the seven-days story; the Adam and Eve story begins at Genesis 2:4.) It could be that God is addressing Wisdom, who was often seen as the female consort of the divine. Or he could be addressing the royal court with whom God is depicted in many prophetic visions (Isaiah 6, for example, or Revelation 2.) Or it could be an early use of the royal we, as in Queen Victoria’s famous statement, “We are not amused.” 

Metaphysically, we understand this first version of the story of creation, written as a priestly version sometime after the return from Babylonian exile, as a description of the birth of the creative process itself—the emergence from the chaos of infinity of a structured process by which the infinite potential can be claimed, imagined, defined and experienced. The second creation story concerns the ways in which we use and misuse the process.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed