Tag: Genesis

Does man make God in his own image?

Genesis 1:27 proclaims that God created man in His own image.  For reasons discussed in other posts on this blog (such as this one), I don’t automatically assume any statement is true just because it appears in Genesis, but in this case I think the text alludes to a great truth.

My purpose with this post, however, is not to dig into the text of Genesis specifically.  Rather, I wish to discuss the question of whether God made man in His image, or vice versa, without presupposing Continue reading “Does man make God in his own image?”

Last updated on August 23rd, 2024

Did God order the Israelites to commit genocide?

The Old Testament contains many passages that are difficult to believe.  There are of course problems with scientific, geographical, or historical details, the most famous of these being the six-day creation.  These issues do not present severe difficulty except to the fundamentalist who insists on taking every word literally.  Allegorical interpretations of the Genesis story have been part of mainstream Christian thought since long before the scientific age.

The more serious concerns with the Old Testament come from passages where either the “moral of the story” itself, or the life lesson that a believer could be expected to draw from a passage, or the depiction of the character of God, strikes us as terribly wrong.  For example, in Numbers 5:11-29, we read that Continue reading “Did God order the Israelites to commit genocide?”