Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kevin Barney <klbarney AT yahoo.com>]

I have a friend who is arguing that the inseparable
beth in Gen. 1:26 does not mean "in" (IE man was
created *in* the image of God), but rather "as" (IE
man was created *as* the image of God).  The parallel
suggested for this usage is Exod. 6:3, where the
preposition does indeed appear to have this type of a
connotation.

(The point of this argument is to say that God doesn't
have an image of his own, and he created man to be his
image, as a representation of him, or something like
that.)

His proposal strikes me as an unnatural reading, but I
am curious what people here think.  So,

Does the preposition *be* sometimes mean "as" (in a
representational sense)?

Is that its likely meaning in Gen. 1:26?  Why or why
not?

If that were the intended meaning of the text, is
there a more natural way to say it in Hebrew than with
a beth preposition?

(BTW, I have checked a bunch of translations, and I
cannot find this idea attested in the English
translational tradition.)

Thanks in advance for your help.

Kevin Barney
Hoffman Estates, Illinois
klbarney AT yahoo.com



=====
Kevin L. Barney
Hoffman Estates, Illinois
klbarney AT yahoo.com

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