Opus 2013-77: Book Review: When Bad Things Happen to Good People, part 6 of 7

I find Kushner’s interpretations of certain passages quite original, at least from my experiences. 

One of the beliefs of Christians is in the Trinity.  We believe that God is one but has three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  My purpose here is not to elaborate and explain that doctrine.  It is just a starting point.

One of the interesting things to New Testament believers is the places where it seems we can find reference to God that support our understanding of the trinity.  He takes one of those and does a circus routine with it.

Look at the portion of the creation account. 

(Genesis 1:26 KJV)  And 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 fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Notice that God says, “Let us make...”  One explanation of that is simply what is called the “Royal ‘We’.”  This was a device that kings used to refer to themselves as being above mortal men.  They would say “we” because they represented the state and were the state.  I could accept that.  Another understanding that Christians have is that it refers to the triune nature of God.  Kushner has a great interpretation.  I don’t know if it is his alone or he is quoting from a pool of knowledge.  Check this out.

“At the climax of the Creation process, God is represented as saying, ‘Let us make Man in our image.’  Why the plural?  Who is the ‘us,’ the ‘our’ of which God speaks?  My suggestion for understanding that sentence is to see it as connected to the sentence immediately before it, in which God creates animals....  Having created the animals and beasts, He says to them:  ‘Let us arrange for a new kind of creature to emerge, a human being, in our image, yours and Mine.  Let us fashion a creature who will be like you, an animal, in some ways - needing to eat, to sleep, to mate - and will be like Me in other ways, rising above the animal level.  You animals will contribute his physical dimension, and I will breathe a soul into him.’  And so, as the crown of Creation, human beings are created, part animal, part divine.”  p. 72

Thus God is inviting the animals that He just created to have some input in the nature of man.  This is off the deep end, but you must admit it is creative and entertaining. 

To be continued...

Kushner, Harold S.  When Bad Things Happen to Good People.  New York:  Schocken Books, 1981.

homo unius libri