16May
We all have gifts. I think one of my gifts is forgetting grammar. That is not a good gift to have when you do a lot of public speaking. I suppose that I get by with English grammar. Still, as Pastor of Preaching and Teaching, I am constantly reminded of how much grammar from the biblical languages that I continue to forget. Consequently, I must review it continually. Getting the nuances right can make quite a bit of difference in many passages. My thanks to Professor Heiser, for reminding me.
If your eyes started glazing over under the spell of the magic word “grammar,” pinch yourself. Stay alert! My comments will not be long or overly complicated. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man [mankind] in our image.” There is a little word in that short sentence that makes a big difference. In English, it is the word “in.” Size-wise, it is an even smaller word in Hebrew. It is only one letter. We call that letter beth (although some pronounce it bate). The name of the letter does not matter.
Keeping my promise, I will not go into details. The little preposition we call beth, in this context, “marks the capacity in which an actor behaves.”1 And what does that mean? It means that our existence as the image of God is a conferred status. We do not become the image of God when we reach a certain level of fetal development. Every human is the image of God. That which is human has the bestowed status of the image of God. Being in the image of God is not based on age, size, or cognitive ability. Image status is conferred. And that is strong theological support for why I am pro-life!
1Waltke and O’Conner, An Intro. to Biblical Hebrew Syntax, pg. 197
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