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Anthropomorphic Features of God in Genesis 1:1–2:4a

Apart from the verb לברוא’ to create’ every verb with God as the subject in this passage is a common verb used to describe human behavior. Scholars who stress the importance of P’s use of לברוא as a sign of its depiction of God as transcendent rarely note that the J author also uses לברוא in Gen 6:7 to describe the creation of humans. Other sources have actions that God does that humans do not (for example, give rain) if not specific verbs used only for God. Also, while God may create on analogy with a potter, the mere fact of creating life (without sexual reproduction) sets that act apart from human action (cf. Gen 4:1, 25). There is no indication in the Hebrew Bible that all anthropomorphisms should be read metaphorically (Aaron, Biblical Ambiguities, esp. pp. 11, 30).

So, divine anthropomorphisms are problematic because they use descriptions “that properly belong to the human sphere.” But most biblical authors do not show any recognition of this problem; rather, they apply to God the same descriptions that are typically found in the human sphere Certainly, Yhwh is a god and as such is not a human and is not bound by the same limitations as humans. And yet, Yhwh is not “wholly other.” The P author of Gen 1:1–2:4a comfortably conceives of God in human terms, while maintaining difference from humans.

The claim that all statements about God in the Hebrew Bible are metaphorical is, ultimately, a theological claim, based on the presupposition that God is imperfectly comprehensible through human terms. We must ask ourselves, then, is there any indication in Gen 1:1–2:4a that its author shared this presupposition? This argument is weakened by the parallel use of the verb לעשות’ to make’ to describe God’s creative acts; לברוא is used 7 times and לעשות is used 9 times (and twice in vv. 11–12 for trees). They are directly parallel in Gen 1:26 and 1:27.

Biblical God places value:

An anthropomorphic trait ascribed to God in Gen 1:1–2:4a is the repeated statement, “And God saw that it was good [טוב כי אלהים וירא]” (Gen 1.4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). The adjective good does not carry a moral valence in the Priestly compositions. The adjective good does not carry a moral valence in the Priestly compositions. The implication of the refrain, then, is that God looks with approval on his creations, thereby exhibiting human-like emotion (anthropopathism). On a basic level, there is no distinction made between these acts of God and those of Joshua and Caleb in Num 14:7. His actions and emotions are not fundamentally different than those of a human. “The procedure in itself is quite clear: a craftsman has completed a work, he looks at it and finds that it is a success or judges that it is good” (Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 113).

God acts like a king:

Though never explicitly called a king in the P creation story, God is analogized to a ruler. In particular, God issues commands and heads a court. The verb ותּצְל’ to command’ is not used in Gen 1:1–2:4a, but God’s statements follow a similar pattern of command and performance found elsewhere in the P source. M. Brettler argues that P conceives of God as a king, “P drew a close analogy of God to the king, and as a result developed a God who could not be approached directly. . . . Other groups in Israel did not extend the kingship metaphor to the same extent as P, thereby creating a less royal but much more approachable God” (Brettler, God Is King, 95). He sees in the P creation story a possible topos of God as a master builder, a popular attribution to ancient Near Eastern kings (ibid., 116–18). Haran connects P’s later description of the tabernacle with royal imagery: “there can be no doubt that P’s two cherubim—like the two large cherubim of Solomon’s temple and the four cherubim of Ezekiel’s vision—represent nothing less than a throne for God” (Temples and Temple Service, 251). See also A. Moore, Moving beyond Symbol and Myth: Understanding the Kingship of God of the Hebrew Bible through Metaphor (Studies in Biblical Literature 99; New York: Peter Lang, 2009).

God as an active being is implied in distinction to the luminaries and the vault in 1:17:

Perhaps the most descriptive moment in the story is the moment God places the luminaries in the vault, Gen 1:17 “God put them in the vault of the heavens [השמים ברקיע אלהים אתם ויתן[. “In this short description, we have a glimpse into the assumptions of the author—God is physically present at creation, interacting with his creations. The image of God hanging the stars in the sky is not unlike Marduk in Enūma eliš. “He made the position(s) for the great gods, He established (in) constellations the stars, their likenesses. . . . He fixed the position of Neberu” (COS 1:399). Recently, Baruch Halpern has argued that the luminaries in Gen 1:14–18 are not independent bodies but holes in the vault that separates the waters above and below (“The Assyrian Astronomy of Genesis 1 and the Birth of Milesian Philosophy,” ErIsr 27 [1999] 76*). Significantly, the Priestly source uses this same syntax in Gen 9:13, “I have put my bow in the clouds [נתתי קשתי את בענן[. “Here too, God physically hangs an object in the sky”. “The motif of the Divine Bow encountered in the Priestly stratum of the Pentateuch (Gen 9:13ff.) also illustrates P’s corporeal conception of the Deity” (Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 205). The tradition that God physically placed the astral bodies in the skies is found with slightly different language in Ps 8:4.

God speaks directly to the human in 1:28:

In Gen 1.28, there is a similarly descriptive statement that implies God is speaking in the presence of the humans, “And God blessed them and God said to them [להם ויאמר אלהים[. “The narration at this point assumes an audience for God’s commands, besides the implied reader. Nahum Sarna notes the unexpected inclusion of this detail in the narrative, “The difference between the formulation here and God’s blessing to the fish in v. 22 is subtle and meaningful. Here God directly addresses man and woman. The transcendent God of Creation transforms himself into the immanent God, the personal God, who enters into unmediated communion with human beings (Sarna, Genesis, 13). Geller makes a similar argument (“God, Humanity and Nature,” 432). There are indications from P’s creation account and the rest of its primeval history, though, that suggest that P, like J, imagines that God initially created a single, human couple, from whom all humans descended. The implication is that the divine speech in 1:28 can be considered realistic; spoken directly to the first human couple, representing direct, proximate interaction with God. First, while P lacks J’s claim that Eve was “the mother of all life” (3:20), P’s genealogy of Adam in Genesis 5 presumes humanity descended from a single couple. Second, in 1:28 God is addressing a single species. In contrast, in 1:22 the divine blessing is addressed to multiple species: all creatures that live in water or that fly (1:20–21). Thus, even if God created only two of each species (male and female) in 1:20–21, he could not realistically speak to them all at once because they would presumably be too numerable. Third, the interpretation that each species, humans included, originated from a single male-female pair is supported by P’s flood account. P’s flood account represents a reversal of the order of creation and its subsequent reordering.102 Noah saves each species of animal to start creation anew after the flood. To do so, Noah brings only two of each animal on the ark, by God’s command (a female and male, Gen 6:18–20). We may retroject this situation back into Genesis 1 and presume that there too God initially created two of each species, including a single male and female human couple. The comparison between Gen 1:28–30 and 9:1–7 further supports the interpretation of Gen 1:28 as realistic, direct speech. Just as God spoke to Noah and his sons after the flood, he spoke directly to the first couple after their creation.

YHWH has an image and likeness, which he shares with humans (1:26–27):

• God first announces the plans to create humanity in the plural, “God said, ‘Let us make humanity in our image and according to our likeness.’” But, the narrative description in 1:27 of the act switches into masculine, singular, “God created humanity in his image, in the image of God he created it.” If we take the plural literally, as referring to multiple entities besides God, then the human body is similar in form to the deity and his retinue.

• Gen 1:26 would seem cognizant of and comfortable with the tradition of Yhwh at the head of divine court of beings that share a physical form with humans. The next verse would then confirm that humans share this form with God in particular. “The author of the text must have been aware that if he uses the respective formulation, the statement is open for a ‘polytheistic’ interpretation. He would not have chosen the formulation if he judged the idea of the royal household incompatible with his own theological perception” (Hutzli, “Gen 1,” 11).

• God’s act of creating humanity in the divine likeness is continued by Adam’s first act of creation; begetting a child in his likeness and image. The divine-human analogy includes naming, which follows creation, just as in Gen 1:1–2:4a.

• “God and Adam each create אדם תולדת in a manner that is appropriate to their nature. God ‘creates’ the human race (Gen 5:1–2); Adam ‘fathers’ a son (v. 3); and, afterwards, ‘likeness’ is a mechanical, genealogical, and selfperpetuating inheritance” (Garr, In His Own Image, 197).

1. A list of types of divine anthropomorphisms present in Gen 1:1–2:4a:
   • 1. physical
     2. 2. emotional
     3. 3. animated
     4. 4. characteristic
     5. 5. social