Not robe-wearing, pious priests, but caretakers of a sacred space. This would have shocked the Ancient Near Eastern world, and hopefully it shocks you too!Īlong with our reigning responsibilities, we were meant to be priests. This language of “ruling and reigning,” along with the thoughts of Israel’s neighbors that the king was the image of God, reveals a mind-blowing concept that all humans are kings (and queens!). But when we look at the text, it tells us a different reason, a different story. And while these are truly unique characteristics of humans, it does not explain why Genesis claims that we are all made in God’s image. Humans have souls, minds, emotions, and creative capacity that are unique to the rest of creation. Maybe you’ve heard someone speak about why and how humans were made in the image of God. So if the kings and idols were the image bearers of the gods, by reflecting their image and ruling on their behalf, what does it mean when Genesis says all humans, not just idols or specific kings, are made in the image of God? Think about Genesis 1. You can already start to see how classes and segregation of people would seep into an ideology where only certain people were considered image-bearers of the divine. This made the king special and separate from his people. Kings were often so closely tied to the gods that they were considered divine themselves. These special, chosen rulers were representations of the gods, ruling and reigning on their behalf. The “image of God” was also a title reserved for kings. The idol stood there as the mediating representation of the god’s power and presence. Rather, the idol was meant to be an image of the divine. It was not thought of as the actual deity.
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The idol then functioned as a reflection and embodiment of the god. Idols were placed within a temple, the place where the gods and humans were connected.
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In the Ancient Near East, an idol served a few purposes.