What Does Genesis 1:26 Mean?

When it comes to proving the Trinity, a common verse thrown is Genesis 1:26. "Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth," (Genesis 1:26 NASB). The verse uses plural language, "our" and "us", these translations corresponding to the Hebrew of the text.

There are several perspectives on the verse. One perspective is this is an example of the "plural of majesty". The plural of majesty is the providing of a plural as to give respect; however, Dr. Heiser, Dr. Muraoka, and Dr. Falk all have made it clear that Hebrew does not have such a concept. As Dr. Heizer notes: "The answer to the plurality language is also not the “plural of majesty.” As Joüon-Muraoka notes, “The we of majesty does not exist in Hebrew”… The plural of majesty does exist for nouns," (Heiser 39).

If not a plural of majesty, what is occurring in the passage? In the book, "Unseen Realm" by Dr. Heiser, he gives an intriguing perspective: "The solution is much more straightforward, one that an ancient Israelite would have readily discerned. What we have is a single person (God) addressing a group–the members of his divine council. It’s like me going into a room of friends and saying, “Hey, let’s go get some pizza!” I’m the one speaking. A group is hearing what I say. Similarly, God comes to the divine council with an exciting announcement: “Let’s create humankind," (Heiser 39-40). For more information on the divine council, see Dr. Heiser's book.

This is a very interesting perspective as well, but according to Dr. Falk, this too has faults. As he states: "Basically, God sitting on his divine throne and telling the divine council, "Let us do this, we will do this", when he is the one doing it. The problem here though, is with that interpretation, is with the rest of the passage. It's who is doing the creating of mankind which is if ... the "us" is the divine council, and the divine council is "our image and our likness", then there is also that inference here that all the divine council is made in the imago Dei, but that becomes problematic when you look at say verses 26 and 27, when it talks about likness and image because those are cultic terms, and those are cultic terms of idols," (Falk). The divine council, a doctrine Dr. Falk too agrees with but not in this specific passage, can not qualify with what is being said in the text. The council cannot act as the image of God. Dr. Falk goes onto argue that this passage is more likely speaking on Trinitarian language for it is more consistent with the text.

Works Cited:

Dr. Falk, David. Live Stream #143: Something Overripe in the State of the Answers YouTube, 26 Jan. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/live/QfRTudHfzBk?si=ZaVCcGnq30AhsQOH&t=7421. Accessed 30 Jan. 2024.

Heiser, Michael S.. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. United States, Faithlife Corporation, 2015.