Genesis 1:26 — Why does it say that God created man in “our image” and not "my image"?
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
— Genesis 1:26 ESV
If you're like me, some day you may wonder why does this say "Our image" in Genesis 1:26? This seems odd, right? Considering God is the only God, right? Could He be talking about Himself being more than one person or was He talking to others? How does that work?
Short answer: I'm not exactly sure
...and I don't think anyone on the planet is precisely sure about this either. We can make inferences based on the evidence that we find throughout the rest of the Bible as well as some extrabibical texts, but none of us alive today were present with the writers of Genesis, so at best we can try to use the evidence available to us today to explain this.
The long answer will provide some insight about what this text could possibly mean, based on Hebrew grammar, other information in the Bible, and some extrabiblical text. Let's walk through a series of questions to help explain the long answer.
1. Are we sure the translation came through correctly? Are we sure it's supposed to be translated "our image"?
Yes, we can be sure the text reads "our image". The Hebrew word we find here for "our image" is בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ. The word בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ can be translated in several ways in different contexts, notably a phantom, illusion, resemblance, a representative figure, an idol. Importantly, in this text the word is used in the first person common plural tense with something called a pronominal suffix, denoting the meaning of the word to be in the first person plural. We are as sure as we can be that this word was written as a plural "our image."
2. Could this be talking about God Himself being more than one person?
It's a possibility. You are probably fimilar with the doctrine of the Trinity, three person's in one God. Without giving even a fraction of the attention this could have, let's learn why Jesus is considered to be another person of God along with the Father. We know that in John 10:30 Jesus is quoted saying "I and the Father are one.” We also know that from John 1:2 that Jesus, noteably here called the Word, was "was with God in the beginning." Later on in John 14 Jesus addresses this point nearly head on by saying that if you have seen Him you have seen the Father:
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
— John 14:9
So, it looks like we can safely conclude that Jesus was present with God the Father before the creation of the world and that Jesus and God are one in the same, as Colossians 1:5 says: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. As well as Hebrews 1:3:
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
— Hebrews 1:3
So it looks like there is a chance that God is making this claim to make humanity in "our image" to be about Him and Him only, multiple person's within the same God.
We could explain even further that this fits within the doctrine of the Trinity, but we don't have time to dive into the details of the Trinity right now. One final note for this question is that according to gotquestions.com:
The conviction of the early church fathers was that Elohim’s statement, “Let Us make man in Our image,” communicates a complex and unified expression of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity holds that God is One in three Persons: God the Father; God the Son, Jesus Christ our Savior; and God the Holy Spirit. Here in Genesis 1:26, the “Us” and “Our” indicate God the Father speaking in the fullness of His divine creative power to the Son and the Holy Spirit.
3. Could this mean God was talking to others at the creation of the world?
Also a possibility. You'll see noteably from gotquestions.com that they say that this idea falls apart because nowhere in scripture does God claim to make angels in His image. This is a fair point, although the ancient worldview of the Hebrew people would have been more accepting of the idea of God talking to others during the time of creation. We find in Job 38, God is directly speaking to Job about when He created the world:
when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?
— Job 38:5-7
This text above gives us the impression that the "sons of God" were shouting for joy when the world was created. The "sons of God" is a common expression found throughout other places of the Bible denoting the angelic spiritual beings that Yahweh created for His purposes. Something worth paying attention to is that it is common for God to have conversations with these "heavenly host" as we also see within 1 Kings 22:
And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord : I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord , saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.”
— 1 Kings 22:19-23
We don't have time now to dive into the sons of God expression, but know that it is common for God to speak to others within the heavens, and these others are created beings often referred to as "sons of God".
Just for the sake of laying out some references, here are just a portion of the places where we find "sons of God", or God talking to His "heavenly host": Job 1:6; 1 Kings 22:19–20; Psalm 89:5; Genesis 6:4; Luke 2:13-14; Psalm 148:2
Lastly on this question, something else worth pointing out is that in Psalm 8 the scriptures read "You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor." The text is speaking of humans here in comparison to angels. It's appropriate to question how one could be lower than an angel, and yet an angel not bear the attributes found as being God's image bearer. This also begs the question about what does it mean to bear God's image, and do angelic beings possess these same attributes? Things that we will not dive into right now, but what is worth pointing out is that the heavenly host has demonstrated themselves to possess many of the same characteristics as humans and of God, which makes the statement of this concept to be "falling apart" a bit of a stretch.
4. If God was talking to others, does that mean there is more than one God?
No. Scripture makes it clear. In Isaiah 45:6 we find God speaking in the text saying "people may know there is none besides me. I am the Lord, and there is no other." We also see God say something similar in Deuteronomy 32:39 "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand." Here are a few more examples:
'To you it was shown, that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other besides him. '
— Deuteronomy 4:35
'know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. '
— Deuteronomy 4:39
Even though there is none above Yahweh, we also know from the #3 point above that God did create heavenly beings in order for them to share his authority and assist in different decisions. Although God created heavenly beings, those heavenly beings do not have the same power as God. Those beings did not assist God in creating the world, as we see clearly right after Genesis 1:26 in the very next verse that "God created them in His own image" -- God did the creation act.
It is possible, likely in fact, that this image bearing status that God created humans in was a similar status to that of the heavenly host, just lower and within the earthly realm. That the heavenly host were created with a similar respect as humans, to bear God's image. We simply don't get this directly in the text, but this kind of thinking was not far from the ancient near eastern worldview.
We see this to be true whenever God is making a decision with the shared authority of His heavenly host. It is always God who performs the supernatural act, it is His host who sends messages or provided assistance with decision-making.
According to Dr. Michael Heiser in his commentary of the Lexham Bible Dictionary, he writes:
Angelic beings are also divine imagers—representatives of their Creator. While humans image God on earth, angelic beings image God in the spiritual world. They do God’s bidding in their own sphere of influence. The Old Testament and New Testament describe angelic beings with administrative terminology, such as:
• “Prince” (Dan 10:13, 20–21)
• “Thrones” (Col 1:16)
• “Rulers” (Eph 3:10)
• “Authorities” (1 Pet 3:22; Col 1:16)
Whatever the true intention of the Biblical writer, we can hold fast to the truth that we have been created in the image of the divine, giving humanity a status above all of the rest of the created world -- including above animals. That humans have been made in the image of the divine means that we are not just mammals or animals, but divine image bearers. With that, we have a role to play on this earth in God's divine plan. We find ourselves wrapped up in that plan first starting with our new birth at the moment we accept that we are born again, and we will continue to find ourselves wrapped up in that plan as we grow in trust and obedience to our Creator. We will all be able to grow in our understanding of God as Paul wrote in Romans 1:17 ...God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”