Page 30 - The mystery of faith

THE PORTRAYAL OF IMAGERY

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 God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and
man became a living soul.
(Genesis 1:26–27; 2:7)

Before God shaped man out of clay, and then breathed life into him, he first created Light, and
then Heaven and Earth, which were divided one from the other. The author of the Book of
Genesis acknowledged how important light – an abstract concept – was to the human race, but
also attempted to illustrate mankind’s creation in terms that were concrete, and therefore more
comprehensible to the faithful. In the first chapter, the author stated only that God made mankind in
his own image, both male and female, but in the following chapter elaborated on the significance of
light, and on the material from which mankind was formed, that is, clay, thus delineating the two
essential elements in the creation of plastic sculpture.

All monotheistic creeds, be they written in the Bible, the Torah or the Koran, without exception
describe the creation of mankind in terms of a clay model, and only vary significantly in their
description of how the Supreme Being in question breathed life into his creation.

This idea that mankind was created out of sculpture also figures in classical mythology. For example,
in retaliation for Prometheus’ enlightened meddling in human destiny, Zeus commanded the Greek god
of the forge, Hephaestus (the Roman Vulcan), to fashion from clay the first woman, Pandora:

He [Zeus] told glorious (ÎÏËÙÔ˜) Hephaestus to make haste, and plaster earth with water, and to infuse it
with a human voice and vigour, and make the face like the immortal goddesses, the bewitching features
of a young girl [...] [and other gods were instructed to bestow their gifts upon her – beauty, intelligence,
persuasion, ability, astuteness and curiosity.]
And all obeyed Lord Zeus, the son of Kronos. The renowned smith modelled her figure of earth, in the
likeness of a decorous young girl, as the son of Kronos had wished [...] and [Hermes] put a voice inside
her, and gave her the name of woman, Pandora, because all the gods who have their homes on Olympus
had given her each a gift, to be a sorrow to men who eat bread.1

Zeus gave Pandora’s hand in marriage to Prometheus’ less astute bother, Epimetheus, to further spite
the clever Titan, and as part of her dowry she brought a jar, which, unbeknownst to her, was filled with
all the evils of the world. Her curiosity eventually got the better of her, and she removed the lid, thus
unleashing all the sorrows of mankind, including toil and illness. Realizing her terrible mistake, she
clamped the lid back down, just in time to contain one remaining thing: hope.

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