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Anna Shoffner Brown is a dedicated Bible and theology student from Bend, Oregon with a bachelors in economics from Hillsdale College and a history of passionate work on behalf of the unitarian Christian movement. She is currently working for Living Hope International Ministries in their Marketing & Publishing division, coleading the unitarian Salt & Light Bible study and online community, and assisting with the planting of Compass Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. In addition to all this, she is also on the Board of Directors for Christian Centered Counseling. Anna is also taking classes in biblical Hebrew with the Biblical Languages Center.

Below is an abstract for Anna’s paper: “Nothing ‘Mere’ About a Man in the Image of God: Biblical Anthropology as a Response to Psilanthropism”.

Trinitarian Christians frequently level an accusation at unitarians: “You can’t believe that Jesus is just a ‘mere man.’” However, over the last century, archeologists and scholars have discovered that in the ancient world, certain humans were described as representing the divine. I will argue that with this phrase: “the image of God” the Bible describes all of humanity in these terms. We will focus in particular with two figures: Adam and Christ.

I will begin with definition of psilanthropism and citing a modern example. Next, I will discuss the conclusions arrived at by theologians as they have tried to understand the phrase “image of God”. Then we’ll journey into the ancient world to understand what the biblical authors’ contemporaries believed about images of gods and their relationship to the divine. By now, we will have built a biblical anthropology, so next we’ll apply it to Christ. I will show that in the New Testament, our perspective on Adam influences our perspective on the Messiah.

First, let’s define psilanthropism. No, it’s not a heretic who gives away his or her money to charity. Rather, psilanthropism is the belief that Jesus is a “mere man”. In all the places I have found that discuss it, psilanthropism is described as a “heresy”. Here, some of us unitarians struggle. We say, “Well, Jesus isn’t a ‘mere’ man. He is special.” But the accusation here isn’t that Jesus is just some run of the mill regular Joe. Rather, the accusation is that a human Jesus denigrates humanity, because humanity is too lowly to represent God. I disagree. I believe that Jesus is a man, and there’s nothing lowly about that.

Within the last century and a half, archeologists and scholars have shown how the humanity God created was intended to rule on God’s behalf, representing God in and to creation. If we take this biblical perspective on humankind and apply it to our Lord and savior, we will see that as the human Messiah, Jesus is everything humankind is supposed to be. From the biblical perspective, that is a rich and beautiful thing.

“Kingdom Through Covenant” by Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum is a wonderful book. But I disagree with the authors’ claim that Jesus must be God: “Scripture… teaches that this Mesisah is more than a mere man, since he is identified with God. How so? Because in fulfilling God’s promises, he literally inaugurates God’s saving rule [kingdom] and shares the very throne of God – something no mere human can do – which entrails that his identity is organically tied to the one true and living God.”

To Gentry and Wellum, since Jesus: 1) is identified with God 2) fulfills God’s promises and 3) shares the throne of God, then Jesus must be God. These authors conclude with a list of accomplishments which – according to the authors – no mere man could ever accomplish: “In him, as fully human, the glory and radiance of God is completely expressed, since he is the exact image and representation of the Father… It is crucial to point out: to say that Jesus has done all this is to identify him as God the Son incarnate, fully God and fully Man. It is for this reason that the New Testament presents Jesus in an entirely different category than any other created thing. In fact, scripture so identifies him with Yahweh in all his actions, character, and work that he is viewed, as David Wells reminds us, as ‘the agent, the instrument, and the personifier of God’s sovereign, eternal saving rule.”

The claim here that “Jesus is in an entirely different category than any created thing” merely because he is “the agent, the instrument, and the personifier of God’s sovereign, eternal saving rule” flies in the face of the ancient Near Eastern culture in which the Bible was written.

On the contrary, in the ancient Near East, kings and image statues were seen as the “agents” and “instruments” and “personifiers” of divine rule. The Book of Genesis gives this role to all of humanity. Despite trinitarian concerns to the contrary, in the biblical perspective, a human being can and does serve as the agent, instrument, and personifier of God’s saving rule.