Original scientific paper
Let us make man… (Genesis 1, 26) Anthropological emphases in Gen 1, 1-2, 4a
Ivica Čatić
orcid.org/0000-0002-2293-0917
; Catholic Faculty of Theology in Đakovo, J. J. Strossmayer University of Osijek, Đakovo, Croatia
Abstract
Genesis 1, 1-2, 4a represents a magnificent introduction to the chapters of biblical prehistory (Gen 1-11), which are essential for understanding of biblical conception of man, of history and their relationship to God. Thus it prepares the background for the long history of the relationship between God the Creator and man. The traditional belief that Genesis 1, 1-2, 4a represents concentrate P of the doctrine, which took years to develop and to be carefully shaped into the form of a hymn glorifying God - the Creator who creates everything. In accordance with this it is a common practice to emphasize the harmony of God’s act of creation which in its entirety was very good (Gen 1, 31). This study is aimed at research of man’s position within the context of the first account on Creation. But it doesn’t reside on the established qualifications of the harmonized relations where man fits by Creation, it attempts to go further. Starting from the literary-theological givenness of the very text, as well as from the results of the previous exegetic works, in its first section the article emphasizes the fundamental characteristics of man’s position, only to go a step further in the second section, where it highlights several categories of challenging relations inherited by man on the grounds of Gen 1, 1-2, 4a. Although it is not explicitly mentioned in the text, man was put in a paradoxical position towards God, towards other men, towards nature and towards Saturday. The analysis will show that these paradoxes are the expression of tensions which God also intended for man’s existence as dynamic generators of his development and maturation. In this sense the command fill the earth and subdue it (Gen 1, 28) is just a discreetly expressed indicator of the whole complex of the relations which man needs to acquire in order to proceed towards the full realization of God’s creative purpose. The harmony of God’s creative act is in this sense less a quality of the world in its initial phase, and more the ideal God has intended for man and directed him towards it, among other things, by means of the relation He puts him in.
Keywords
Genesis; Creation of the world; the anthropology of the first account on Creation
Hrčak ID:
71762
URI
Publication date:
22.9.2011.
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