What does God mean "in Our Image and Our Likeness"?

To answer this question I must first give some history, and answer a question you did not ask, that being who is God talking to? The word used for God here in Hebrew is Elohim, (el-o-heem). Elohim is both plural and singular, and it depends on how it is used to know the difference, like I caught a fish, and look at all the fish. I know the later is plural because how it is used in the sentence. Elohim when used as a singular is usually in the definitive article "Ha-Elohim" or 'the God', as in "The God of Israel". But here in Genesis it is used in the plural, This causes a problem with most monotheistic cultures because we are thought there is One God. But in ancient Hebrew and even until a few hundred years ago the Jews believed in a doctrine called "the two powers of heaven". In reading the original Hebrew, Ugaret, Akkadian or even older Sumerian texts, sometimes God would seem to be talking to himself as if there were two of him. So the Hebrews later in the Aramaic texts added the word "Memra" or 'Word', making the second YHVH "the Word of God". If you read any text with the Word of God in it you will see the person was not hearing a voice, but seeing 'the Word of the Lord in front of them. The reason there are 'two' YHVH, is because the first one they called the Father, or Creator God who is unseen, and has no form and that no man can comprehend. The second is the "Unique Son of God" or "ha Ben Elohim", Unique because this Son was not created, but was one with the Father. The Word was the physical manifestation of the unseen God. He made his appearance many times in the old testament, It was God the father acting through the physical unique Son of God to create the physical universe. So it is Elohim plural talking to each other about making man in the image of himself. What this means can be interpreted several ways, First as God the Father and God the Son were one, so are we one with God the creator, His breath was breathed into man, and man became a living soul. Also like God we are two in nature, Our physical seen body, and our unseen non-physical spirit, and like God we speak to ourselves. We are also like God as we are also creators, but on a minute scale. We can think, reason, plan and imagine that which is not and bring it into reality. And lastly, physically we are in the image of the physical Son of God. So hopefully you will except this answer to your question.

I have an even better question for you. Why does he refer to himself in plural form? Why does he say "our" instead of "my"? As far as the image and likeness part, I don't think he's referring to physical form because God isn't supposed to have a "body" like we have. I'm sure there is a deeper meaning. An even greater question is why is there so much word play in the bible if God wanted us to really understand it. The whole thing is subject to personal interpretation.

Man is created after the image of God. It means like God we have personality, we have intellect, we have emotion, we have will. It is not necessary that He has also feet, hands like we have since God is a spirit.

When God speaks of "us" and "our" in that verse, it may suggest that he was speaking to Christ, being the closest likeness and image of him. Christ had the likeness of being human with hands, feet, mouth but also the likeness of God spiritually. This is one possibility, and some say that Jesus pre-existed his physical birth in the New Testament. However it does not suggest that Jesus was God or Creator, but was possibility there in communion with God at the time of Creation. Some believe this indicates a plurality in God as a possibility. There are some who believe that it could indicate that God was actually talking to himself, because maybe the translation of the original language into other languages loses the meaning. Or, perhaps it may indicates he was talking to the angels, or the holy spirit because they also may have a close likeness and image to God. These are other possibilities. Perhaps, in some way God wanted us to ask questions about his word and keep seeking the truth.

Bible is all about opinion. It cannot be interpreted. However, many have tried. The only logical explanation (this is not only from Bible (OKJV) but also from the torah and the qur'an) is that god was a being, and he had fellow beings. These were not angels, as angels are never described as having the appreance of god. It is far more likely that LORD was an acronym for something (like a collection of beings such as democratic 'USA' or communist 'USSR'). I just find it fits too perfectly to be ignored. Usually when something is absurd, the most likely, logical and simplest explanation is found to be true. Simplest explanation i can think of is that humanoids stumbled upon earth while we were starting our evolutionary process towards becoming self aware, they possibly (on purpose or inadvertantly) manipulated our genes, thus creating us in their own image. After this it's likely that they watched our progress and intervened on occasion to breed us how they wanted to. They got upset when we got into their stuff and started learning everything about them (tree of knowledge), they 'cast out' any remaining humans from their world least we find the (tree of life and become immortal like they). I just find that all over the world, pyramids are all similar with similar markings and hyroglyphics. It's possible it's a coincidence but remember the story of babel. These beings saw that we were evolving way to fast for their liking so they decided to spread us all over the world and mess with our language so that we could not advance quicker than they have in the past. Because with their help, they made us smarter than they expected. Besides that, there are too many religions with similar accounts of the creation of man. Only thing is that catholics piss me off because they are one of the few that claim god created the heavens, the earth, the sun and the moon. Other religions are at least not arrogant enough to speak such rubish... they acknowledge that everyting was already here before god created man. I don't know, there are many infinite possabilities. It's possible there is a god (but what is god?) and it's possible that it was just other humanoids. Or it's possible that the whole thing is completely made up because no-one really knows what happened. Remember, we lost alot of knowledge throughout history due to the fires in alexandria, plato himself and that two word curse that is the catholic church. Bottom line is, you interpret is as you wish. It is a book. It is science fiction. It is for you to interpret into your own words and not for someone to preach and force their beliefs on you. /cough catholic church. I wish i could murder you all.

None knows who the author of 'Book of Genesis' was, however, whosoever he was; he was a wise man indeed. He used merism to describe the creation and the subsequent events. When God said, "let us make man in our image, after our likeness", God was not referring to His physical features. He has none because God is a spiritual being. God is a pure spirit means He Himself is an essence, an extract of all good things, fermented, boiled and made so pure that it is invisible. At Genesis 1:7 it is written, "And Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul." It means God did not give him His physical features, because he made him out of dust of the ground. Though Adam intrinsically had God's nature in him, but because God had created him out of the dust, he was made imperfect. God had shaped Adam like a tree, because he was able to stand upright like a tree. Adam was a conglomeration of 'good' and 'evil' both. 'Good' because he had God's nature in him and evil because he was made out of dust of the ground. God forbade him to eat the fruit of knowledge. Dust of the ground had made man instinctive. What are instincts? Instincts are the experiences of those who had lived before us. We inherit these impulses as knowledge, which rise in us as instinct to guide us, to tell us what we must do whenever we face danger. When God asked man not to eat the fruit of knowledge he meant that man must not live by his instinct. Woman is more emotional than man is, means she is instinctive than he is. Instincts are greater in her because she has to pass on those instincts to her offspring to enable them to survive in this hostile world. Being instinctive, she fell into temptation and tempted Adam as well. Thus, man's nature is in God's own image but his physical characteristics are of the earth out of which God created him. Man is gradually shedding those characteristics to reveal God's nature in him. When God Himself came as Jesus Christ He did not have Adam's nature of a man in Him, but he had a divine nature, a nature we know as human. Jesus was kindly and humane. Because of Jesus, man is able to shed some of his sinful nature. Therefore, we say, "Jesus came to save us from sins."

Image - A reproduction of the form of a person or object especially a sculptured likeness. Physics. An optically formed duplicate, counterpart, or other representative reproduction of an object, especially as optical reproduction formed by a ler or mirror. One that closely or exactly resembles another: a double From the definition of the word image it is describing the exact duplicate, does that mean the creator has hand and feet etc... yes. It is just our proception of God is distorted. We are try to lable or give what created us a name and a description. The quote from Genesis states clearly "let us" which is meaning more than one and to go futher in Genesis 2:4 these are the generation of the heavens and of the earth.... mean that there are generation of heavenly and earthly being before the creation of this being that was called Adam. Now I don't have the exact quote but in Genesis chapter 6 the sons of god came down in unto the daughter of men and they had children..... So how do you see god John 10: 34 You are all Gods Psalms 86 or 87 same quote