National Jewish Scholars Project
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Christianity in Jewish TermsThe Image:
Religious Anthropology in Judaism and ChristianityTikva Frymer-Kensky
When Jews think about Christianity, they are often struck by ideas and images fundamentally different from Jewish traditions. Icons, statues, incense, crucifixes, and even crosses create a physical environment radically different from Jewish worship; notions of trinity and incarnation form a mental universe equally bizarre to traditional Jewish concepts. It is with some degree of relief that Jews often turn to Christian ideas of humanity and society, finding common ground with Christianity precisely on the common ground of earth and human beings. The nature of human beings and of the human relationship with God affords at least a common theological language with which to think about the issues of human existence, the language of tselem elohim and imago dei: the image of God.
The Image of God: A History
The "Image" in the Hebrew Bible
This language of the "image of God" has its source in the Hebrew Bible, in the first chapter of Genesis "God created humanity in his own image; in the image of God he created him" (1:27). Genesis 1 does not spell out the implications of the "image"; possibly there is a connection here with God's blessing, with fertility, and with "dominion" over the earth. In Mesopotamia and Egypt, kings erected statues of themselves at the farthest reaches of their empires to represent their dominion. In Akkadian, the word for statue is tsalmu, the same as Hebrew tselem (image). Furthermore, Assyrian texts describe the king himself as tsalam ili, "image of the god," the representative of God on earth. In the same way, says Genesis, humans are to act for God on this earth, administrating and performing other acts of "dominion."
Genesis 5:1-3 develops the concept of "image" further as it begins the genealogies with a recapitulation that God created humanity in God's likeness (demut elohim); the passage then specifies that "God created them male and female, blessed them and called them 'Adam.'" The next verse makes the meaning of the term "likeness" clear, for Adam "begat in his image as his likeness" and called his name "Seth." God created us to be like God, and even though God is beyond gender, it is the nexus of male and female that is the likeness and creates the likeness. As we create children, we take on the God-like role of creator. Moreover, we create children who look like us, and we, and they, look like God. The use of the word demut in these two sentences makes the physicality of our likeness to God apparent.
A completely different aspect of the concept of "image of God" emerges in the more legally oriented passage of Genesis 9:1-8, the reinstitution of humanity after the flood. Here a fundamental difference between humanity and the animals is reinforced: human beings can kill and eat animals (with some restrictions), but no one, not even an animal, can kill a human. Whoever kills a human being forfeits his life, because "in the image of God he made humanity." Here, the concept of "image" determines not how we should act, but how others should act toward us. Each human is to be treated as the representative of God. In this way, the concept of "image of God" creates a sense of the inviolability and sacredness of human life.
These Genesis passages form the basis for a religious anthropology that concentrates on the divine aspects of human form and function. Both the New Testament and early Jewish sources found this concept of tselem very attractive, maybe because the Greco-Roman world knew images and statues, surrounded as it was by rules concerning the treatment of the statues of Roman emperors. In this cultural milieu, it was perhaps inevitable that the relationship of humanity and God, described already in the Hebrew Bible as one of image to source, should be explored in terms of the image of God.
The Rabbinic and New Testament "Image"
The rabbis of this period emphasize the connection between humanity and God. To them, our physical resemblance is a sign of a connection so deep that injury to a human being injures God. They understand the deep paradox underlying Genesis 9, which proclaims the sanctity of human life even as it announces that this sanctity will be safeguarded by the death of a human being. Rabbi Meir tells a parable about a king whose twin brother was an outlaw. The king crucified him, but as he was hanging on the cross the passersby saw (they thought) that the king had been hung. The implication is clear: what is done to human beings reflects on God. In the same spirit, Rabbi Akiba declared that "whoever sheds blood cancels the image," a sentiment expressed also by the Mechilta, which relates a parable about a king who enters a state, puts up statues and impresses coins, only to have the statues broken and the coins invalidated: "so too, one who spills blood is one who lessens the king's image." This way of thinking about human beings had great legal implications; as Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarphon declared, "if we were in the Sanhedrin, no one would ever be killed" (M. Mak. 1:10).
The rabbinic notion of image is concrete: it relates to people's looks, to their face and form, which are like God's, and not to some concept of mind, soul, spirit, or intellect. The bodily resemblance leads Hillel to declare that we have an obligation to care for our body as the image of God. Moreover, since each individual person is the image of God, we have an obligation to maximize the image of God both by creating more people and by not killing people: "whoever does not engage in procreation has diminished the divine image"; "whoever spills blood cancels the image." Acts that "lessen the divine image" and that harm the image have a major impact on God in the world and, in a more mystical sense, on the very self of God.
The physical resemblance between humans and God is also a factor in New Testament teaching, particularly in relationship to the appearance of Jesus, who was a perfect representation of God. John reports Jesus' response to Philip's request to see the father: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the father" (Jn. 14:8-9). Similarly, some of the Epistles stress that Christ is the "image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15; cf. 2 Cor. 4:4), "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Heb. 1:3). Jesus may be the most perfect image (a position that some Jewish sources ascribe to Jacob), but all of the rest of us are also in the image of God. Like the Jewish sources, James, asking how we can praise God and also curse men who have been made in God's likeness, understands that the "image" concept should determine how we treat each other (Jam. 3:9). This practical consequence of seeing people in God's image is also expressed by "Pseudo-Clementine," an author writing in the first half of the second century who was possibly Jewish-Christian. Clementine picks up Genesis's idea of dominion, declaring that the purpose for which humans are "impressed as with the greatest seal in his form" is so that he will rule over all and all will serve him." Moreover, declares Clementine, "whoever wants to worship Him will honor His image."
Paul introduces a new element into the concept of the image, a dynamic and relative sense: "we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). The new self of the faithful is being renewed in the image. When the rabbis talk about "lessening the image," they are referring to the quantity of humans in the world, for all of us are the image. Paul, on the other hand, speaks about quality, for each of us can be more the image.
Original Sin and the Fall of the "Image"
Becoming more of the image can also mean that we can be less of the image. Christian sources speak often about "the Fall" of Adam and Eve, a fall that damaged the very nature of humanity. There are some similar Jewish traditions, clustered around the idea of adam ha-rishon, the first Adam, but these traditions are nowhere near as common as the Christian discussion of "the Fall" or "original sin." The second-century theologian Irenaeus distinguished between the "image" and the "likeness." The likeness was lost in the Fall, but the image remained, and the likeness was restored when God became his image at the incarnation. For a long time, Christian writers incorporated the notion of the Fall of humanity into their concept of humans as an essential part of the idea of the image of God. Humanity was born in the full image and likeness. After the Fall, in some way this image was lessened, disfigured, or destroyed, and humans could no longer be full images of God. God's redemption, which began with the incarnation, served to remedy this flaw in humanity, and it is belief in this redemption, expressed concretely through baptism, that enables people to be restored in God's eyes.
"The Fall" and "original sin" are difficult concepts for Jews. Even though Jewish tradition speaks of Adam's sin and punishment, the idea that we are still somehow involved in this very ancient sin and punishment offends basic Jewish ideas of justice. One of the stories basic to Jewish spiritual formation, Abraham's argument with God over the fate of Sodom, rejects the notion of collective punishment: "God forbid that you should do such a thing, to kill the righteous with the wicked, that the righteous should be like the wicked" (Gen. 18:25). Punishing anybody but the perpetrator offends Abraham's (and our) sense of justice: "God forbid, should the judge of the world not do justice?" (Gen. 18:25) Jews also find the "verticality," the transgenerational nature, of the punishment problematic. It is true that the Ten Commandments contain God's promise to "visit the sins of the fathers upon the sons," but this punishment does not carry past the third or fourth generation; only the good deeds are to resonate to thousands of generations. The Hebrew Bible ultimately rejects even the idea that God can punish to the fourth generation, as the prophet Ezekiel proclaims a new moral order after the Babylonian exile in which God would not punish any child for the sin of the parents (Ezek. 18). Given this clear teaching of individual responsibility, it is hard for Jews to follow language that speaks of a sin or punishment inherited from Adam.
Jewish eyes also have problems with the remedy for this sin. Rabbinic tradition concentrates on commandments that have to be performed, actions of both moral and ritual valence. These commandments describe the life that one is to live in order to please God. One of the earliest Jewish traditions, attributed to Antiochos of Socho, declares, "Do not be like servants who serve their master expecting to receive a reward; be rather like servants who serve their master unconditionally, with no thought of reward" (M. Avot 1:3). Despite this ideal, the rabbis developed an elaborate conception of reward and punishment and, in fact, declared belief in reward and punishment to be one of the core essential beliefs. A doctrine that considers human beings to be incapable of right action and makes salvation dependent upon a specific belief in the salvific life and death of Jesus seems to go against the very basis of the Jewish system of mitsvot.
On closer examination, of course, the difference between the Christian and Jewish notions of salvation is not that enormous. A recurrent motif of the High Holiday liturgy proclaims the importance of remembering the virtues of the patriarchs, and above all Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac. The merit of this act accrues to all future Jews, and is a "trump card" that they play in the drama of sin, repentance, and atonement. If Abraham's act can reverberate throughout the eons, one can understand that Jesus' sacrifice can have a transformative impact. Nor is the requirement of belief entirely unknown in Judaism. The Mishnah speaks of those who "have no share in the world to come": those who do not believe that the resurrection is a biblical doctrine, and those who say that the Torah was not revealed (M. Sanh. 11:1). The legend of Elisha ben Abuya underscores the importance of such beliefs for rabbinic Judaism.
Elisha was one of the four great sages who took a mystical voyage to heaven. While he was there, he saw the angel Metatron sitting and writing the merits of Israel in a book. Elisha was surprised to see Metatron sitting, since he knew that angels do not get tired and therefore should not need to sit. As a result, Elisha deduced that perhaps there might be two powers in heaven. This momentary loss of total faith in the absolute unity of God was enough to remove him entirely from the Jewish system. He became "the other" (aher), and even God, when calling for his "wandering children" to return, adds, "except for aher."
The Jerusalem Talmud's version of the "otherizing" of Elisha ben Abuya also indicates the extreme importance of certain essentials of rabbinic belief. The Jerusalem Talmud relates two stories in which Elisha lost faith that God rewards actions with their just rewards or punishments. In one story, Elisha saw a boy fall out of a tree as he was in the act of performing the mitzvah of returning a fallen egg to its nest. If God rewarded good and punished evil, certainly the boy would not have died while performing a righteous act! In the other story, Elisha saw the tongue of a great martyred Torah sage and no longer believed that the great righteous act of Torah study had just rewards.
Once Elisha lost his faith he stepped outside the Jewish system. And even though he remained physically in the Jewish community and continued to teach Rabbi Meir, he was no longer part of the community in his own eyes, in the eyes of the community, or (according to the stories) in the eyes of God. Belief, then, at least in certain key precepts, was as crucial as the performance of the commandments. The Christian idea that belief in the savior is necessary for salvation should not seem so strange in the light of these Jewish traditions. On the other hand, the notion of the advent and pervasiveness of original sin, so important in Paul and classical Christianity, finds little counterpart in Jewish thought.
The Philosophical "Image"
Another key difference between Christian and Jewish ideas developed as Christianity adopted the language of Greek philosophy. The New Testament, like the Hebrew Bible, considered the human being indivisible: a person was an indissoluble mix of body, mind, soul, and spirit. The image and likeness of God, therefore, referred to the whole package. The use of the metaphor of the impressions on a coin to express the idea of the image underscores the physical likeness of humans to God, and it is the body that bears this physical likeness. A tradition about Hillel makes the bodily nature of the image explicit. Hillel declared that he performed God's commandment in the act of going to the bathroom or bathhouse, for he was rendering his obligation to the body in the image (Avot de Rabbi Natan B 30). As Christianity became more hellenized, it began to adopt the Greek mind/body dichotomy, distinguishing between the "lower" and "higher" aspects of a human being. In this vein, Irenaeus locates the image of God in human rationality and freedom of will. The "likeness" of God was the "robe of sanctity" the Holy Spirit gave Adam. This spirit was lost in the Fall and restored in redemption. In effect, Irenaeus sees the human being as triune, made up of body, soul, and spirit. The image is the rational soul, possessed by all; the likeness, possessed only by believers, is the spirit, a kind of added gift. The body does not figure in to this mode of thought at all.
The body undergoes an even greater fall in Gregory of Nyssa, who holds that only when one has ridded oneself of creaturely passions can one behold the image of the divine nature "in their own inner beauty." Rather than use the metaphor of impressing coins, he chooses the sculptor's technique of "lost wax," cire perdu: "For God has stamped the image of the good properties of his own essence in your makeup, as when a sculptor carves in wax the image of a sculpture he intends to cast." Sin, which is congenital, overlays this image, and since our lives are permeated with passion, the image is permeated with evil. To Gregory, the cure lies in the precepts that the Lord taught, as in the Sermon on the Mount. The divine image is stamped on a virtuous life, the demonic on the sinful one, and one must strive to become pure by virtuous life so that the divine image can be formed in us by pure conduct. The divine image is thus an inner potential that we must attain.
The concern with governing the passions that was so prevalent in the Greco-Roman world is part of the reason that the body was eclipsed in classical Christian conceptions of the image of God. A quintessentially Greek notion, this concern also takes root in Judaism--for instance in the classic formulation "who is a hero: the one who conquers his urges" and in the valorization of Joseph "the righteous" (ha-tsadik) for his resistance to the temptation of Potiphar's wife (Gen. 39). The worries about temptation, particularly sexual temptation, permeate Hellenistic Judaism and play their role in the elimination of women from Jewish public life.
The Anthropomorphic Dilemma
In Judaism, there is even a further reason for the interiorization and decorporalization of the "image and likeness of God." A physical understanding of "the image" limits God to the human form. The many powerful metaphors of God in human form--as a young warrior, an old sage, a loving mother--can create a mental "graven image" that can easily become idolatrous in its restriction of God to the human body. Religious unease with the depictions of God as human (what we call "anthropomorphisms") develops early in Jewish tradition, and the targums (the various Aramaic translations of the Bible) employ numerous circumlocutions to eradicate the human language with which God is depicted in the Hebrew Bible.
In Christianity, the presence of God on earth, incarnate in human flesh and form, would seem to finesse the anthropomorphic dilemma, for the incarnate God, who is the exact representation of God, provides a template in whose image the rest of humanity can be described. But the problem is only deflected, not eliminated. A corporeal sense of "image" could be understood to mean that this human-form existence constitutes the totality of the divine essence. Moreover, the historical Jesus was a male. Even more specifically, Jesus was a young, circumcised male. Might one deduce that humans of different ages, skin tones, gender, or foreskin are somehow less in the image of God? Christianity quickly made it clear that the age, skin tone, and foreskin of Jesus were historical circumstances, not essential parts of the image of God. Christianity, however, has had a harder time ridding itself of the notion that gender is more significant than age, and that women are somewhat less the divine image than men.
Perhaps because of this inherent problem of anthropomorphism and limitation in image language, the divine-like aspect of humanity has sometimes been expressed in other language, in terms, for instance, of the presence of sparks of divinity or of the Spirit (the Shechinah) within human beings. Another solution has been to interiorize the meaning of "image," as Gregory does, or to intellectualize it, to define the image of God in humanity as the human intellect. This interpretation ultimately derives from Greek philosophers, notably Plato and Aristotle, whose idea of God was intellect and who believed that the human intellect was the divine element in humans. Such conceptions came into both Judaism and Christianity with the growth of the philosophical traditions, espoused in Judaism by Maimonides (1135-1204) and in Christianity by Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274). To Aquinas, the image was the intellect. All humans have a natural aptitude for understanding and knowing God; those who know God ("the just") have the image "by conformity of grace"; those who know and love God perfectly ("the blessed") have the image "by likeness of glory." In these different manifestations, the image can be faint, dim, or disfigured--or bright and beautiful. Maimonides shares both the identification of the image as intellect and its limitation to a few individuals, for only those people whose intellect is in its most perfect state are really the image of God.
A less philosophically driven but no less noncorporeal seat of the image is the "soul." Perhaps in reaction to the changing sense of "intellect" from the Renaissance on, John Calvin (1509-1564) speaks of the image in the soul, although the body still has some sparks, and at the final restoration the image will be restored to the body. More recent Christian thinkers have gotten away from ontological descriptions of the image. Karl Barth (1886-1968) defines humanity's relational quality, which he calls its "existence in confrontation," as the image of God. An individual's ability to have an I-thou relationship with others and with God is the essential meaning of "image of God." Furthermore, the creation of humanity as "male and female" allows for an I-thou confrontation between man and woman, and for the same kind of confrontation between man and God. Emil Brunner (1889-1966) argues on similar grounds that the "image" resides in relationship and responsibility and expresses the notion of a creature who can respond to a call of love with responsive love.
Alongside these different interpretations of the image of God have come different understandings of the Christian concepts of "the Fall" and "original sin," so important to Paul and early Christian thinkers, so essential to Augustine, and so strange to Jewish ways of thinking. Aquinas places far less emphasis on the loss of the image in a fall than many earlier writers. Nevertheless, he, too, believes that human beings were deprived of something at the Fall: "the gift of supernatural grace" that helps us control our passions. To Irenaeus, it was the likeness-bearing spirit that was lost. By contrast, the Fall was far more significant to John Calvin, who considered fallen humanity to be depraved and afflicted with a perverted nature, a pessimistic view of humanity also held by Martin Luther. Calvin held that there are some remaining traces (notas) of the image of God, but it is frightfully deformed, and both reason and will have been weakened.
"Fall" language has become far less pervasive in modern Christian discourse. For more modern thinkers like Barth and Brunner, the Fall has ceased to be a historic fact. Human beings are the image of God, it is their nature. The image is essentially fixed, inherent, and cannot be lost.
The Image of God: An Evaluation
The image of God means many things to different Christians, as it does to different Jews. In more metaphysical circles, it depicts the relationship of the persons of the Trinity. In more mystical circles, it can point to an essential connection between humanity and God. In Jewish tradition it has sometimes been used to support the imperative for procreation to make more images. Today it is most often used to say something about human beings, though what exactly the image is used to say varies widely. At rock bottom, however, the notion that humans are created in the image of God forms the basis of a religious anthropology that stresses the God-like aspects of human existence. Even in the past, when the concept of "the image" was invoked in connection with the Fall in order to state that the image had been obscured, deprived, or depraved, it nevertheless expressed a belief that beyond all that, humans still have something special, that before matters deteriorated, humanity was God-like, and what we had once, we can have again.
We can no more pin down the exact nature of this God-like quality than we can pin down the nature of God. Often, the two depend on each other. Those who would define God as the World Intellect define the "image" as intellect; those who would define God as "love" locate the image in the human capacity to love; those who would define God as process or relationship define the image in the same way. Whatever God is, as God's image, humans share in the divine.
Three Important Aspects of the "Image"
The first appearance of image talk, in Genesis, has three key features that demonstrate the value of the concept of "image" despite its elusiveness and indeterminacy. First, humans are created through joint activity, as God interrupts the pattern of the creative word to state "we will make in our image." The use of the plural "we" indicates intentionality and cooperation in the creation of humanity, regardless of whether the "we" implies cooperation between the persons of the Trinity (as many Christians have suggested), among all the elements of the divine world (as some Jewish thinkers have said), or between God and the world (as other Jewish thinkers have offered). Whatever the precise interpretation, the plural nature of the creation of humanity applies both to the creator ("we") and to the creature ("he created them male and female"). Social relationship is an indispensable part of both human nature and human purpose, and there can be no utterly single human being.
The second aspect of the image that emerges from Genesis is that humans are given dominion over the rest of creation. Dominion is also part of human nature and purpose, for as the representative, or avatar, of God on earth, humanity cannot not be in charge. Whether we define our "dominion" as the right of conquest or the demand of stewardship, whether we embrace control or run from it, humans have power in and over the world. Everything we have done, from the day we invented our first tool, has modified and changed our environment. Humans have a major impact on the world. Deuteronomy expresses some of this human impact as it declares the dependence of fertility on God's reaction to human action (Deut. 11:13-17). Genesis1 expresses our impact on the world by noting our God-like agency and dominion. Human dominion is part of the created order; we cannot escape it and should not ignore it or try to deny it. The language of the "image of God" can enable us to embrace the responsibility. It is not hubris to acknowledge that we have such power. On the contrary, admitting it and accepting it as our nature can help us assume responsibility and accountability for this undeniable facet of human existence.
A third aspect of the "image of God" emerges from the socially and legally oriented passage of Genesis 9, which expresses some of the fundamental aspects of humans living in society. This passage extends the God-like nature of human action depicted in Genesis 1. Genesis 1 alluded to the human impact on the earth; Genesis 9 speaks explicitly of human control of animals. This text grants humanity the right of life-or-death over animals. The primacy of human over animal life was already implicit in God's clothing Adam and Eve in animal skins, but Genesis 9 gives a stamp of approval to humanity's right to kill animals and also acknowledges humanity's carnivorous nature. It permits humanity's violence toward animals even as it sets controls by declaring blood inviolate. Genesis 9 also makes it clear that nobody, animals or humans, can kill a human being. Turning from the subject to the object of action (from what the image does to how the image should be treated), this command extends the implications of the concept of "image." Humans may be God-like in their right to kill animals, but not in their right to kill each other.
The Universality of the "Image"
An essential part of the "image of God" is that it is shared among all humans. Each human being lives among other humans, who are also the "image of God." Each human being has the right to be treated as a stand-in for God in all circumstances. Legal formulations, from Genesis 9 through rabbinic writings, have concerned themselves with the necessity of making this right concrete in a way that assures that human beings, God's representatives, are treated in a godly fashion. Human beings should not be murdered, says Genesis 9; they should not be executed, say Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarphon; they should not be cursed, says James. Even Calvin, who emphasized the depraved and deformed nature of the fallen human being, nevertheless admonished people to look at the image of God in all humans, to look beyond their worthlessness and to see the image of God.
The essential importance of "image of God" is that it stands alone and eternal, independent of any qualities a human being might possess. Nobody can be more of the image of God than anyone else. There can be no moral qualification: no matter what kind of a life someone has led, no matter how much evil that person may manifest, he or she is no less an image of God than the greatest saint, and cannot be treated as any less God's image. There can also be no qualification or distinction among individual human beings according to class, race, gender, or age, and there can be no distinction between people on the basis of personal merit. The "image of God" is a universal quality of human beings, not limited to a few just or wise people.
There can also be no distinction among nations or other organizations. No group or nation is more the "image of God" than any other. It doesn't matter whether people are believers or nonbelievers in Christ and Christianity, whether people are part of Israel or the nations, whether people consider themselves the image of God or even deny that there is God or that there is any special worth to humanity. Nobody is "other" to the image of God, and no one can be treated in ways that do not recognize this divine quality. The "image of God" is an essential aspect of human nature, shared by all, and the treatment of all human beings must be mindful of this "imagehood." All people, without fail, are equally to be treated as one would treat God.
In practical terms, "imagehood" means that human beings can have dominion only over the earth and over animals. No person can have full dominion over another human being. This imperative has often been ignored in the past, as the subordination of individuals and of nations was claimed as the right of the powerful. But the idea of humanity as "image of God" makes no sense if it does not limit the ability of one human or one group of humans to exert their will over another. This is a bedrock concept in Judaism and Christianity.
Today, in an age of increasing respect for a diversity of cultures and social organization, this "image of God" view of human beings should set limits to how much we embrace and respect other mores. All human life is sacred. The genuine need for all of us to respect each other's culture should not induce us to accept the right of men to murder their wives, sisters, or daughters, as is done with horrifying frequency in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Afghanistan, to name only a few of the places in which such murders are culturally approved and even applauded. No amount of pluralism and tolerance should stop us from protesting the killing of widows or the more frequent burning of brides for dowries (as is happening in India) or the exposure of infant daughters (as in China). No ideas of social diversity and no euphemisms of "female circumcision" should make us ignore the suffering of women because of genital mutilation in parts of Africa. No belief in cultural autonomy should let us close our eyes to the use of genocide and mass rape as instruments of war or to the ongoing traffic in and possession of slaves. It is not cultural imperialism or Eurocentrism to protest such behaviors. Our concept of humanity as the image of God demands that we consider the worth of individual humans and act accordingly. There can be no distinctions between "lesser" or "greater" images of God, autonomous or subordinate, for if we begin to make such distinctions, then the notion of image becomes a meaningless bit of self-congratulation. It is our duty to recognize and respect the image of God in all people, whether they themselves accept such a concept or not.
From Image to Imitation
Acknowledging human dominion and its limits is not by itself adequate for a full religious anthropology. The concept of the "image of God" does not refer only to God's power and dominion. There are other aspects of God that the image of God should share. Human "images" have a responsibility to behave in God-like ways, to walk in God's path and imitate God's actions. Imitatio dei, the "imitation of God," is an integral part of imago dei, God's image; imitation enables the image actively to "image" God. Paul states this bluntly, exhorting the people to be imitators of God (Eph. 5:1) and to "be imitators of me as I am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1). He also has a specific example of what form such imitation should take: "forgive one another as God forgave and live a life of love as Christ loves us" (Eph. 5:2). This idea of imitatio dei is formulated just as bluntly by Abba Saul in the Mechilta: "Resemble Him! Just as He is gracious and merciful, so you should be gracious and merciful" (Mechilta Shirata 3 on Ex 15:2b). The Sifre to Deuteronomy also elaborates on this idea in a comment on the injunction "to go in his ways":
As God is merciful, so you too be merciful. The Holy Blessed One is called "gracious," so you too be gracious ... and give freely. God is called "righteous," so you too be righteous, God is called "devoted," you too be devoted, for thus it is written "all you call by my name will escape" (Joel 3:5) and "all who are called by my name, I have created for my glory" (Is. 43:7).
It is noteworthy that the idea of "imitation of God" always refers to those qualities of God that human beings most fervently desire. No one in either Jewish or Christian tradition has ever used the concept of "imitation of God" to counsel people to get angry and punish others, or to counsel people to insist that their commands be obeyed. "Imitation of God" never prescribes behavior that takes advantage of power and dominion. On the contrary, "imitation of God" always involves self-control, self-abnegation, and love of others. "Imitation of God" enumerates as God's behaviors those behaviors that we hold morally superior and beneficial to humanity, like love, forgiveness, and compassion.
In Genesis Rabbah, Rabbi Simlai finds textual proof that God performs many of the key "acts of loving-kindness" that rabbinic Judaism recommends:
We have found that the Holy Blessed one blesses bridegrooms and adorns brides and visits the sick and buries the dead. Blesses bridegrooms, from "God blessed them" (Gen. 1:28), adorns brides ("God built upon his side," Gen. 2:22), visits the sick ("God appeared to him by the terebinth of Mamreh," Gen. 18:1), and buries the dead ("God buried him in the ravine," Deut. 32:6). R. Shmuel bar Nahman said, "even consoles the dead, for it is written 'God appeared to Jacob when he came from Padan-Aram and blessed him'" (Gen. 35:9).
As historically conscious contemporary thinkers, we recognize that the rabbis project onto God the human traits that they consider most desirable, so that these traits can be reflected back as divine exemplars, as warrants and mandates for humans to act in this way. By projecting these traits onto God, Rabbi Simlai provides a divine template to encourage humans to behave in this way. The most elaborate Jewish expression of this concept of imitatio dei is by Moses Cordovero (1522-1570) in Tomer Devorah, in which he derives the requirements for compassion, tolerance, kindness, and right action from the attributes of God listed in Micah 7:18-20.
The notion of imitation of God seems circular, for our description of the Godly nature and behaviors that we are to imitate conforms to the pattern of behavior that we wish to encourage. Nevertheless, ascribing these patterns to God has great persuasive power, enabling those doing the describing to convince others that they should follow these patterns of behavior. We are imagining the God we are trying to image, and we seek to be the image of the God we imagine. Possibly, this circular rhetoric has far less persuasive impact upon those who understand the mechanism of projection involved here. Nevertheless, the concept of "imitating" or "imaging" God retains its importance, for believing that one is following in God's way enriches the experience of performing ethical actions. To the sense of rightness that the deed itself inspires, the notion of "imitation of God" adds a dimension of sacredness to the ethical act. Being mindful of the divine precedent makes one aware of acting as God's representative or image, increases one's awareness of the presence of God, and, traditional language would add, increases God's presence. Even after we become aware that we have no incontrovertible way of knowing that God acts in these ways, a philosophy of "the image of God actively imaging God" creates an awareness and presence of God. Tomer Devorah suggests that such active imaging has an even greater impact, for the performance of the actions has a theurgic effect, that is, it brings forth these behaviors in God.
Jews can appreciate the fact that the actions of the historical Jesus provide Christians with an accessible role model. From a Jewish perspective, the imitation of Christ, Imitatio Christi, is understandable, and Paul could be sure that his audience would understand him when he told them to imitate him as he imitated Christ. The somewhat controversial Christian question about right action--What would Jesus do? (WWJD)--brings the imitation of God down to earth in the simplest, most dramatically visible way, presenting an unadulterated role model whose behavior is wholly good (unlike the behavior of the characters of the Hebrew Bible). For many, WWJD is a two-edged sword, both simplifying matters for pedagogical and dramatic purposes and oversimplifying them, and in doing the latter, forgetting the transcendent qualities of Jesus and the special purpose of his life. Of course, not even the most literal proponents of WWJD would want the imitators of Christ to publicly humiliate their mothers or to call down the punitive power of the state against them, both things that Jesus did.
Much of the Christian discourse on these topics seems quite familiar to Jews, especially those Christian discussions that have moved beyond the concept of original sin and its impact. Even notions of the Fall can be appreciated when they are taken as a metaphor for the deficiencies of the "fallen universe." The concepts of "image of God" and "imitation of God," particularly in their modern manifestations, present a sense of human nature, purpose, and destiny that can provide common ground for mutual understanding and mission. They provide a basis for understanding and appreciating the closeness of Judaism and Christianity, a basis that does not at the same time serve to "otherize" nonmonotheist religions. Unfortunately, this shared philosophy of the "image of God" is not often recognized. Christians speak of the image of God and the imitation of God as if these were uniquely Christian developments that derived directly from Genesis 1; Jews often speak of tselem elohim as an exclusively Jewish way of appreciating the dignity and sacredness of human life. It is important to realize the significance of these concepts in both Judaism and Christianity and the fact that the development of these concepts often took place with mutual cross-fertilization. Embracing a joint religious humanism should enable us to continue to enrich each other in an increasingly open and mutually inclusive way.
Courtesy of Westview Press, © Westview Press, 2000
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