According to Gen 9:6, anyone who kills another should himself be killed by a human agent (See Exod 21:22–25; Lev 24:17–22; Deut 19:16–21). The reason given for this is that humans were made in God’s image (kî bəṣelem ʾĕlōhîm ʾāśāh ʾeṯ hāʾāḏām). What is it about the nature of humankind as God’s image that requires the death penalty for murder?

1. Why is the murder of a human being considered, at some level, an attack on God? The answer is suggested by the idea, which will be developed below, that in Gen 1:26–27 and Gen 2:5–3:24 Yahweh is portrayed as the father of humanity. Thus, because murder was understood as an attack on one’s entire family, this would, according to Genesis 1, include God who is the divine paterfamilias.
2. The abstract noun dəmût, derived from the verb dmh, “to resemble, be like,” appears 25 times in the Hebrew Bible.40 It expresses similarity, likeness or correspondence of one item to another, whether literal similarity, such as that of a model of an altar to its original, as in 2 Kgs 16:10, or metaphorical likeness, as in Ps 58:5, where the speech of the wicked is compared to a serpent’s venom. In the LXX, it is rendered most frequently by homoíōma, “likeness, form, appearance,” or the related homoíōsis, “likeness, resemblance.”41 However, in Gen 5 dəmût is translated with eikōn (5:1) “image, likeness”42 and idéa, “appearance, form” (5:3). Nearly two-thirds of its appearances are concentrated in the book of Ezekiel, where the prophet uses dəmût to describe the contents of his visions. In the middle of an object resembling gleaming metal (kəʿên haḥašmal in 1:4) was “the likeness of four living beings” (dəmût ʾarbaʿ ḥayyôt) whose form was like that of man (dəmût ʿāḏām; 1:5). The likeness of their faces (dəmût pənêhem pənê ʿāḏām) resembled human faces (1:10).

1. Humans Resemble God in Their Mental and Spiritual Capacity
2. Philo was the first to develop fully the notion that image and likeness could not refer to man’s physical body because God does not have a human form, nor is the human form godlike. Rather, “image” must refer to man’s mental and spiritual capacity (See Jónsson, The Image of God, 11). This was the prevailing view during the first two centuries c.e. and continued in popularity with Augustine, who claimed that human likeness to God was reflected in their memory, understanding, free will, and ability to know and love God (The Trinity, 10.12, in Jónsson, The Image of God, 13 n. 21).

1. Humans Resemble God in Their Corporeal Form
2. A similar view was shared by H. Gunkel, T. Nöldeke, B. Duhm, and J. Skinner (H. Gunkel, Genesis (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), 113–14. T. Nöldeke, “Ṣelem und ṣalmaweṯ,” ZAW 17 (1897): 183–87. B. Duhm, Die Psalmen (Frieburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1899), 28. J. Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910). He concluded that ṣelem refers to a physical representation, as in Gen 5:3, and that this is its meaning in Gen 1:27 (Nöldeke, “Ṣelem und ṣalmaweṯ”). Gunkel also based his understanding of ṣelem and dəmût in Gen 1:26–27 on the parallel in Gen 5:1–3. He comments: “God created Adam in his image; Adam begot Seth in his image. The second statement is very clear: the son looks like the father; he resembles him in form and appearance. The first statement is to be interpreted accordingly: the first human resembles God in form and appearance” (Gunkel, Genesis, 113). Based on a thorough study of the terms ṣelem and dəmût, he concluded that human likeness to God does not lie in intellectual, moral, nor spiritual abilities, but, rather, in their physical resemblance (Ibid., 157).

1. Genesis 1:11–27: Humans as God’s “Kind”?
2. In Gen 1:11–12, God creates vegetation, plants, and fruit trees, all of which reproduce “each according to its kind” (ləmînô, ləmînēhû). Three times in these two verses alone, the phrase “according to its kind” is used to describe the correspondence between the plants and fruit trees that God created and the next generation of plants and fruit produced by the vegetation and trees themselves. God also created the sea creatures and birds “according to their kind” (ləmînēhem in Gen 1:21). He saw that it was good and he commanded them to be fruitful and multiply in their respective domains, each according to their own kind.85 God then made all the living creatures inhabit the earth, each “according to its kind” (vv. 23–25 ləmînāh, ləmînēhû), and he saw that this, too, was good. In total, the phrase “according to its/their kind” is repeated 10 times in these 7 verses alone (Gen 1:11–12 and 1:21–25). Clearly, the author is emphasizing the creation and reproduction of each species according to its own distinctive type or class.