The most natural and most widely accepted explanation is that God is here represented as taking counsel with divine beings other than Himself, viz. the angels or host of heaven: cf. 322 117, Is. 68, 1 Ki. 2219-22 (so Philo, Ra. IEz. De. Ho. Gu. Ben. al.). Di. objects to this interpretation, first, that it ascribes to angels some share in the creation of man, which is contrary to scriptural doctrine;[1] and, second, that the very existence of angels is nowhere alluded to by P at all. There is force in these considerations; and probably the ultimate explanation has to be sought in a pre-Israelite stage of the tradition (such as is represented by the Babylonian account: see below, p. 46), where a polytheistic view of man's origin found expression. This would naturally be replaced in a Heb. recension by the idea of a heavenly council of angels, as in 1 Ki. 22, Jb. 1, 387, Dn. 414 710 etc. That P retained the idea in spite of his silence as to the existence of angels is due to the fact that it was decidedly less anthropomorphic than the statement that man was made in the image of the one incomparable Deity.—in our image, according to our likeness] The general idea of likeness between God and man frequently occurs in classical literature, and sometimes the very term of this v. (εἰκών, ad imaginem) is employed. To speak of it, therefore, as "the distinctive feature of the Bible doctrine concerning man" is an exaggeration; although it is true that such expressions on the plane of heathenism import much less than in the religion of Israel (Di.). The idea in this precise form is in the OT peculiar to P (51. 3 96); the conception, but not the expression, appears in Ps. 86: later biblical examples are Sir. 173ff., WS. 223 (where the 'image' is equivalent to immortality), 1 Co. 117, Col. 310, Eph. 424, Ja. 39.
The origin of the conception is probably to be found in the Babylonian
mythology. Before proceeding to the creation of Ea-bani,
Aruru forms a mental image (zikru: see Jen. KIB, vi. 1, 401 f.) of
the God Anu (ib. 120, l. 33); and similarly, in the Descent of Ištar,
- ↑ Comp. Calvin: "Minimam vero tam præclari operis partem Angelis adscribere abominandum sacrilegium est."
