The Image of Man in the Torah: Contribution to the debate on norms and principles in modern society

The Torah – the first five books of the Bible – speaks about God. Fat tomes have been filled with answers on numerous questions about the image of God. But reading the Bible, the author of this book feels more often than not that God is taken for granted and that man is the real problem. That’s the reason why he got fascinated by the question after the image of man in the Torah. And apparently this question could only be answered by reading the Torah in the light of the old rabbinical exegesis, because their language and their line of thought are most cognate to the Torah.In this book Peter van ‘t Riet discusses the image of man in the Torah for a wide audience. In the course of his study amazingly modern views and insights emerge: responsibility for a better world, learning all one’s life, continuing self-reflection, creating a just society, reconciliation after conflicts, all these notions that play an important part in modern society today, can already be gathered from the Torah. Man, who is – according to the Torah – the partner of God in creation, needs besides his own experience the sounding board of the Torah to find his way through the world.The author makes interesting comparisons with other religious and secular images of man. He shows the image of man in the Torah as a third way between the dictates of Christianity and Islam at one hand and the arbitrariness of Rationalism and Romanticism at the other. This book is a must for everybody who participates in the present-day debate on norms and principles in society.Dr. S.P. (Peter) van ’t Riet studied Mathematics and Psychology at the Free University in Amsterdam and wrote his thesis on an educational-psychological subject. He is a retired Professor of Education of Windesheim University in Zwolle in the Netherlands. As an independent Bible-researcher he published several books on the Jewish character of the Bible, especially the New Testament.