Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Nov 01, 2019 4:54 pm
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The truth is that men and women are all EQUAL (all human beings are created equal. Right, IC (?) All created in God's image !)
This is a popular misconception which is responsible for so much confusion about the essence of men and women.
Actually, it is a value judgment. It does not preclude, or even say anything about, differences that are physical, social, cognitive, genetic, aesthetic, or anything else. It's purely the claim that all human beings have an irreducible value derived from the Creator.
No more.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the [ak]sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. NASB
If you know of anyone familiar with how "him" became "them" and the significance of the transition, I'd appreciate talking to them.
Theologians understand it to be a statement about the value-equivalency of male and female humans. Both are defined here as "man[-kind]".
The repetition is common in Hebrew poetry -- the first phrase of a parallel phrasing (red, above) is, so to speak, "one way of saying it," and the second, repetitive phrasing (blue) is "another way of saying the same thing," an expansion or illumination of the first phrasing.
As for a singular pronoun for the race of mankind in general, historically there's nothing unusual about such usage. In fact, the singular used to be used, as recently as a few decades ago, as a collective noun for the whole species. So, for example, when Darwin talked about "The Descent of Man," he was not attempting to exclude or denigrate women. And when the Bible talks about God making "man," he does not mean, as the 'triggered' Feminist may think, that women don't get included in that.
In short: it's "him" collectively, and "them" when gender is being affirmed for some specific purpose.