Katzpur said:
I respect your right to believe that, Binyamin. I just don't agree with you.
okay.
Katzpur said:
I have yet to see one single solitary example of the word "image" used in a sentence to refer to anything other than the representation of physical appearance. If you can give me one, I'd be interested in hearing it. But I can't begin to count the number of times I have challenged people to do so, and so far, no one has been able to.
Okay.
Katzpur said:
Genesis 1:26 states, "And God said, Let us make man in ourimage, after our likeness..." Just five chapters later, Genesis 5:3 says, "And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth."
Here is some commentary you may find interesting on Genesis 1:26 and 27, I'm not going to type it all but here are some points...
Abarbanel:
Let us make Man - This preamble indicated that Man was created with great deliberation and wisdom. G-d didn't say, "Let the earth bring forth" as He did with other creatures; instead, Man was brought into being with the deepest involvement of Divine Providence and wisdom.
Targum Yonassan - "And G-d said to the ministering angels who had been created on the second day of creation, 'Let us make Man'."
Midrash - When Moses wrote the Torah and came to this verse, (Let
us make), which is in the plural and implies that there is more than one Creater, he said: "Soverign of the Universe! Why do You thus furnish a pretext for heretics to maintain that there is a plurality of divinities?" "Write" G-d replied. "Whoever wishes to err will err... instead let them learn from their Creator Who created all, yet when He came to create Man He took counsel with the ministering angels"
Thus G-d taught that one should always consult others before embarking upon major new initatives, and He was notdeterred by the possibilities that some might choose to find sacriligious implication in the verse. This implation of G-ds response, "whoever
wishes to err" is that one who sincerely seeks the truth will see it,
one who looks for an excuse to blaspheme will find it.
Rashi -
In Our image - In Our mold, meaning that G-d had prepared the mold with which He would now shape Man.
Rashi -
After Our likeness - With the power of understanding and intellect.
27...
Rashi -
So G-d created - Just as Man is unique, so is the manner of his creation was unique and exalted. Throughout this chapter, G-d brought all things into being with an utterance, but He created Man with His own hands, as it were.
Ramban -
In His image, in the image of G-d. - Among all living creatures, Man alone is endowed -- life His Creater -- with morality, reason and free will. He can know and love G-d and can hold spiritual communion with Him; and Man alone can guide his actions through reason. It is in this sense that the Torah describes Man as having been created in G-d's image and likeness.
R'Hirsch -
Male and female. Although Eve was created later (2:21), she and Adam were created on the same day. Although all living creatures were created male and female, this fact is specified only in the case of human beings, to stress that both sexes were created by G-d in His likeness.
Katzpur said:
Adam fathered a son whom he named Seth. Seth looked like his father. What reason can you give me for coming to the conclusion that in Genesis 1:26 the words "likeness" and "image" mean something entirely different than they do in Genesis 5:3, when the context is almost identical?
Of course they are similar...
Yevamos 63A - He created them male and female. The Talmud comments that a man without a wife is not a man, for it is said, "He created them male and female... and called their name Man (Only when a man is united with his wife can he be called a Man).
Ramban -
In his likness and his image. - The verse mentions this to indicate that G-d gave Adam, who himself was created in G-d's likeness, the capactity to reproduce offspring who were also in this noble likeness. This is not mentioned concerning Cain or Abel because, since their seed perished, the Torah did not wish to prolong the descriptions of them.
Want to come up with a new interpretation? Fine, it's a free country. These are the commentaries that go back to Moses...
