Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

On Sep 6, 2005, at 5:20 AM, Peter Kirk wrote:

Well, the ancient theological tradition is that the "image of God" was 
not physical but moral and spiritual. It is hard to be sure how ancient 
that understanding is. It could well be as old as the text, especially 
if that text is rather late as many hold. I accept that an alternative 
is that an ancient more anthropomorphic sense was reinterpreted by later

biblical authors.



Peter, could you be a little more specific/clear about what you mean by
"ancient theological tradition"? There is certainly no such "tradition"
in the Tanakh itself, which refers to the "image of God" concept quite
infrequently, and almost exclusively in Genesis 1-11. To what "ancient
theological tradition" are you referring, and where may it be discerned?

Thank you,

Chris

--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Seaver Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
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