13 pinklight,

1 Co 11 says that the man is the image of God (doesn’t mention the man being made in the image of God). I take that to mean a human being who is male reflects the image of God.

What we do is compare scripture with scripture. 1 Cor. 11 says that man is the image of God and Genesis 1:26 God says “Let us make man in Our image…”

Image of God then equates to “made in the image of God”.

I agree with the concepts I think you are saying, I just wouldn’t phrase it as ‘God made male and female in his image’ and specificaly because I don’t find it wworded that way in Genesis.

We actually do find this in Genesis 1:26

Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man 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 cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

When God said “Let Us make man in Our image” man here is to be taken as mankind. This is the way that the church has always taken the verse, except for a few hierarchists who women are subordinate to men because of their nature. God then defines the category of who will rule. The “mankind” is “they” who will rule over the creation. Women certainly are made in the image of God just as men are.

In Gen 1:26-27 we see that those terms for male and fermale are the same ones used for animals describing their sex. Since sex is not made in the image of God because God has no gender, I think that intentionaly the author of Genesis said that ‘God made adam (humanity) in his image,’ but when the author speaks of sex using the Hebrew words for male and female whether animal or human, he says, ‘male and female he made them’.

The terms “male and female” are identifying that “they” is not “men” but both men and women. It adds to the meaning and is not intended to mean that God has one or two genders.