So this was really remarkable to see unfold at Dabar.
There are several things at play here. What is the Image of God? Do those outside the garden have it too? How does the Image of God come to all mankind?
As I understand it there is some wide agreement on what the Image of God is among OT scholars. However, in origins, we are talking about the origin of things. If the Image of God includes, say, three different features. We should not assume that these three features arise instantaneously in the same way. Perhaps the features arise by distinct processes.
(You may note some parallels to how I am thinking about original sin).
Any how, here are the most coherent sets of answers I’ve seen to this.
Case 1. The Image of God is unique Adam and his lineage, and is best understood as a spiritual calling or vocation. This appears to be closest to @jack.collins’s and @jongarvey’s view and a few other unnamed scholars. There is no difference here in abilities between those inside and outside the Garden.
Case 2. The Image of God is unique Adam and his lineage, and is best understood as a new spiritual ability, which includes calling and vocation. Here, we would locate this ability within an immaterial soul, not in genetics, and see it spread by genealogical descent.
Case 3. The Image of God is on those outside the garden (not unique to Adam), and is consistent with biological structuralism. In a Catholic twist, we can suppose that a large population outside the garden was simultaneously refurbished at some point in the past. Adam, then, become unique because of the Fall, and the special responsibility he had in the Garden. I’m inclined to this one, and @jongarvey flirts with it too.
Case 4 is problematic though. If we take a structuralist view of the Image of God and say it was unique to Adam, then we are stuck with figuring out how it spreads from him, unless we want to say it was lost. This is what, it seems, a refurbishment creation of Adam seems to imply. Why would a refurbishment be needed if those outside the Garden were in the Image of God? If refurbishment is how Adam is made in God’s image, how does that extend to everyone else? Sure, we can make suppositions, but I think the coherence here is reduced.
Some of this gets down to definitions. Is there really a difference between 1 and 3? Maybe not, except just granting the label “Image of God” at different points in the ontogeny. I suppose I’m partly drawn to 3 because of the rhetorical strength, and what might be some textual grounding (though @jack.collins would disagree with this).
So, for these reasons, I think the refurbishment might be consistent with the text, but seems to raise its own distinct questions, that end up requiring ongoing miracles to solve. Maybe its true, but why add an embellishment to the traditional narrative that creates additional problems to solve?
What problems does de novo creation raise? I do not think it is coherent unless we have a good reason for God making Adam and Eve in a manner such that they can breed with those outside the garden. The way I answer that question is with a natural theology argument (look at me @eddie!) that God wanted them to interbreed. There original purpose was to produce a lineage would welcome others into the Garden. It is only in the fall, that this gets twisted into being a conduit for the transmission of original sin. We can see the ambivalence about interbreeding, and a change of course also, in the narrative of Genesis too (6:1-8, then the Babel Tower).
So, laying all that out, one could take (1) Adam as chosen from a population, (2) Adam refurbished form a prior hominid, or (3) Adam de novo created to redeem a larger population. I think 3 ends up being most coherent, and also closest to the test and the traditional reading. As for the Image of God, I’m not sure there is really a durable difference except rhetoric between Case 1 and 3 above.
What do you think?