Being God's Image

Why Creation Still Matters

By: Carmen Joy Imes

Narrated by: Carmen Joy Imes

What does it mean to be human? This timeless question proves critical as we seek to understand our purpose, identity, and significance. Amidst the many voices clamoring to shape our understanding of humanity, the Bible reveals important truths related to our human identity and vocation that are critical to the flourishing of all of creation.

Carmen Joy Imes seeks to recover the theologically rich message of the creation narratives starting in the book of Genesis as they illuminate what it means to be human. Every human being is created as God's image. Imago Dei is our human identity, and God appointed humans to rule on God's behalf. Being God's Image explores the implications of this kinship relationship with God and considers what it means for our work, our gender relations, our care for creation, and our eternal destiny. The Bible invites us into a dramatically different quality of life: a beloved community in which we can know God and one another as we are truly known.

©2023 Carmen Joy Imes (P)2023 eChristian

Great Listen

Carmen offers very good insights into the Biblical story and how our relationship with our creator is richer that we may have been taught.

Great sequel to Bearing God's Name!

Fantastic book and a great follow-up to Bearing God's Name!! Thoroughly enjoyed the narration. Looking forward to diving into this with a small group.

Dr Imes brings the HEAT!

absolutely loved this book! I've been really enjoying Dr Imes' way of presenting sound scholarship that *could* be a little heady and brings it right down to an accessible level without losing any potency.

the food for thought, especially at the end of the chapters, were particularly challenging and a true call to action onnthr part of the reader.

I'm inspired!

Breath of Fresh Air

This is exactly what we need to hear. It’s bold in places we like to color over and it gives us hope for change and unity.
Great for a study group!

One of best books I’ve read in 2023

An insightful book that takes a deeper look at scriptures and its commands that are not only practical but completely essential to our Christian walk and existence. If you are trying to apply more than just knowledge and wisdom, but an embrace of the personhood of Christ, enter this journey.

This book is full of surprises and challenges

The world and culture would have us believe that being Christian is completely irrelevant in our post modern culture. Some of the issues at hand have not been handled biblically enough or at all.
Carmen Joy Imes Phd. bravely guides us into wrestling with some of these issues beginning where the Bible begins, with humanity being made as God's image. Whether closer to the left or right on the cultural spectrum, all will be surprised and challenged by her findings. After reading part 1, I almost stopped reading. I'm glad I didn't.

get this book

A great follow-up to her first book Bearing God's Name. This book is very applicable to anyone's life as a Christian.

A must read (listen)!

Carmen Imes is a respected biblical scholar and professor, but she has a unique teaching style that makes complicated topics like Being God's Image easy to understand while at the same time encouraging you to keep pondering topics for hours after you stop reading. I loved learning so much about the cultures and times in and around the biblical world. It really unlocks a lot when considering the topic of being made in God's Image. I also really enjoyed how Dr. Imes brings up issues in our modern, western culture that can be shaped by having an understanding of the true meaning of being Gods image. This makes the book a great option for Bible studies or book clubs, which I hope to do soon.

A much-needed reevaluation of why creation still matters

Creation still matters. Many Christians long for a new home, to go to heaven, or to be set free from this broken world. In Being God's Image, Dr. Carmen Imes gently, conversationally, and beautifully resets these expectations and longings by describing what the Bible really says. Her conclusions may surprise those who have not encountered these ideas previously. Nevertheless, I think the glorious restoration Dr. Imes systematically points out far surpasses those expectations. I've already referenced Being God's Image in family devotions and Bible study lessons and seen it resonate with many others.

In the first 29 pages, Dr. Imes addresses readers' potential concerns and then proceeds to tackle the narrative structure of Genesis 1, Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cosmology, seven-day creation as the pattern for Sabbath rest AND its ties to other ANE literature. None of this is new or shocking to me now, but I certainly found these things hard to accept when I first encountered them a decade ago. She does a marvelous job presenting them in a friendly and approachable manner. The inclusion of references at the end of each chapter presents opportunities for further study and to discover these are not isolated, strange new ideas.

I was delighted and surprised by the reversals in chapter 7's "The Gender of Jesus" callout and chapter 8's fifth and sixth paragraphs related to Mary in the Garden discovering the empty tomb. "What was broken can be mended" (pg 131) is a massive understatement. I am truly surprised I've never heard these reversals called out before. I read the section about Mary in the garden (pp 130-131) in our family devotional one night as we were talking about the second half of John. This led to a really good discussion and had a meaningful, personal impact.

Dr. Imes presents the Bible as telling one story, from one Garden to another, Creation to New Creation. The New Creation is embodied, with a restored glory. While many of these ideas were not new to me, I found the clarity with which Dr. Imes describes these things breathtaking and exciting!

I've long wrestled with the message of the Eagles' "The Last Resort." I think they bring up a really good point about Christians (how I hear it) constantly looking to another "Promised Land" and wrecking the one they have. If creation still matters, we have a job to do, the same job we were commissioned at Creation and that we will have in the New Creation: to be God's image. Because of the work of Jesus, who is the image of God, we are being conformed into that image even now.

This is a challenging and important work, and I am ever so grateful for Dr. Imes to have written it and to have read it.

Fantastic Tour through the Bible on What It Means to Be Human as God’s Image

Dr. Imes reads her book which is a gift to the church. As a pastor, I love finding authors write finding the happy medium between a scholarly work and speaking to the average person in the pew for the sake of the church; Dr. Imes takes us on the adventure of what it means to be human by listening deeply to God’s wisdom revealed to us Christ and the Biblical story.

Dr. Imes defines what it means to be human through her interpretation of Gen. 1:28 as “being God’s image.” Being God’s image is our identity and our representational role in relation the creator and the rest of creation. God created and commissioned humans to exercise his reign over creation on his behalf.

Dr. Imes does not shy away from breaking from tradition in interpreting what the Bible is saying on the image of God (though I more than speculate that she is humble interpreter that is chastened by reading the Bible in community and the communion of past saints; see her acknowledgements on the biblical scholars she is conversant with and also an earlier book project called Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends where she goes outside of her wheelhouse of biblical scholarship to glean from church history and historical theology). Are humans made “in the image” (traditional view) or “as the image” (Imes view following the likes of top-notch OT scholar Bruce Waltke or others). In talking to a friend about this book and topic before reading it, he corrected me when I used the the traditional language of “image-bearer” and “made in the image”; and I stand corrected after reading Dr. Imes well-argued case. Dr. Imes spells out some of the implications throughout her book like what this view contributes to the discussion of persons with disability still being the image of God.

The other primary thing Dr. Imes does in this book is guides us through the Bible through the theme of what does it mean to be human as God’s image. It was quite the ride and had me soaring especially when getting to the climax of Christ; this was good news indeed. There’s so much more to the book, but I’ll leave that for those who decide to take the tour with Dr. Imes.

I would use this book for our church not only as a guide to equip us on understanding this significant doctrine but also as an intro to biblical theology to help people in the pew see the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus the Image of God.