Bibliographic record
Abstract
THE LIBERATING IMAGE: THE IMAGO DEI IN GENESIS 1. Richard J. Middleton, 2005. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing. Reviewed by Jerry A. Gladson [Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)/Marietta, Georgia]. presentation of the imago Dei in Genesis 1, claims Richard Middleton, is of the most daring acts of theological imagination within (p. 231). Written as an alternative for a doctoral dissertation at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto, jointly with the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, Liberating proceeds to unpack this bold statement. Although growing out of academic concerns, it also represents the author's own personal identity struggle (he grew up white in predominately black Jamaica). Middleton seeks to make biblical scholarship on the imago accessible for theological reflection on human identity in a world increasingly defined by brutality and dehumanization. He succeeds admirably. His study should be of great interest to professionals in ministry, counseling, and psychology. Part 1, The Meaning of the Image (pp. 13-90) reviews earlier attempts to interpret the imago as substantialistic (as an analogy to the divine Being), relational (as personal encounter with God), or functional (as mediation of power), and decides in favor of the functional view. imago Dei in Genesis 1:26-28 refers to human rule, the exercise of power on God's behalf. It is modeled on God's wisdom and artful creative activity (p. 88). This conclusion comes, in large part, as a result of treating Scripture as a fullfledged conversation partner in the contemporary theological task of developing a doctrine of the imago Dei' (p. 41). He then turns in Part 2 (The Social Context of the Image [pp. 91-231] to examine the ancient Near Eastern background of the imago). This takes him through the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh Epic and the Enuma Elish, the Egyptian Instruction for Merikare and the Instruction of Ani, and other less well-known texts. In this literature, the king or royal ruler, representing humanity, is generally said to be created in the divine image for the purpose of serving the gods. Conceived in this way, the image reflects the social order and legitimates the cultic system. Although one cannot automatically assume the social order implied in these texts was explicitly followed in the everyday world, Middleton is quite correct in concluding that the image in them is profoundly-even oppressively-subordinated to the gods themselves. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.020 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".