This reflection on Genesis 1 was written by Elliott Rabin for 929 and can also be found here
To grasp the way the Bible portrays its heroes, one must start by understanding the place of humanity within the wide canvas of Creation:
When I behold Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
the moon and stars that You set in place,
what is man that You have been mindful of him,
mortal man that You have taken note of him,
that You have made him little less than God,
and adorned him with glory and majesty? (Ps. 8:4-6)
The psalmist projects astonishment in two directions. When he looks in the heavens, he appreciates the enormousness of the universe—all, in his eyes, the work of God’s hands. On this cosmic scale, human existence seems insignificant, a mere pittance. Yet at the same time, on the terrestrial level, people are “adorned in glory and majesty,” granted power like a god on earth. From the first perspective, humankind is impossibly distant from God; from the second perspective, humankind is so close, “a little less than God.” These two perspectives form the warp and woof from which biblical stories are woven.
The Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish presents humanity’s mission in far less glorious terms, emphasizing the contrast between people and gods. Marduk, the chief god, creates humankind as servants of the gods. People are to do the hard work so that the gods can live a life of leisure.
The Bible’s Creation story does not present humanity’s role as being in service to God. Instead, the Bible’s opening chapters emphasize the psalmist’s “little less.” When God rests on the seventh day, the text does not say that people step in to serve God; rather, God establishes a rhythm of work and rest that (we discover in Exodus 31) is given to people as well. The Bible thus underscores the resemblance between humanity and God.
Etymology powerfully reveals this resemblance. The Hebrew word for image in Genesis 1:26, tzelem, comes from the Akkadian word tzalmu, referring to a physical, man-made object, often a statue or figurine of a king in which a divinity chooses to reside. There is something of God within all people, “male and female”; no person is created with more or less of God’s image. The Bible conceives of human creatureliness in radically democratic terms.
As the Bible has it, a gap extends between God and people. Sometimes, this gap appears small, merely a “little less,”; while at other times, the gulf seems enormous, unbridgeable. Either way, according to the Bible, all people reside together on the other side of this gap. No special individuals—no heroes—can jump over to God’s side.
The Bible’s emphasis on the essential distance between people and God deeply colors the way it portrays all characters. The biblical narrator ensures that the reader is always cognizant that human heroes are not, and can never become, divine. Compared to heroes that readers encounter from other cultures, then, biblical heroes begin with a profound handicap.
Adapted from The Biblical Hero: Portraits in Nobility and Fallibility by Elliott Rabin by permission of the Jewish Publication Society. ©2020 by Elliott Rabin.
Elliott Rabin is Director of Thought Leadership at Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools.
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