Genesis 1:27 gives the image to them, male and female, together and unmediated. The verse that undercuts every claim that one sex images God only through the other.
The full definition
B'tselem Elohim is the phrase that should have settled the whole argument before it started. Bereshit (Genesis) 1:27 says the human was made in the image of God, and it gives that image to them, male and female, in the same breath, with no one standing in the middle. There is no mediator in the verse. The man does not image God for the woman, and she is not a second-hand bearer reaching the image through him. They both carry it directly. Every later doctrine that ranks one above the other in the order of being has to quietly ignore the one verse that defines what a human is. The image is shared, equal, and unmediated from the first page.
Key passages
- Genesis 1:26-27
- Genesis 9:6