Cheryl Schatz

pinklight,
You said:

How do I know that “the human” in Gen 1 is inclusive meaning “humankind”

“The human” is not plural. It is Adam alone. It doesn’t mean mankind. It means “one of” the human race, in particular the first man Adam.

So how do I determine when “the human” is inclusive and when it isn’t used in that sense?

This is pretty easy. When the Bible says “the human” it is specific to one. When it says “them” it is more than one human. When the Bible just says “man” it can mean generic mankind or a specific person. The context will tell us whether “man” means more than one, or generic man, or a specific man. But “the man” can never mean anything else but one specific man.

So God made the human in his own image, in the image of God he made him, male and female he made them.

We could translate this verse as “God made the first human in his own image, so that in the image of God, God made him and God made them (male and female God made).

So that it is exactly as you summarized – that it was humanity that God made in his image. The first of humanity was the man and the male and female were both in his image as both were made in their humanity in the image of God.