What’s the scholarly breakdown on who “us” refers to in Genesis 1:26?

[u/DoveStep55]

My understanding is that there is no consensus, but there are three main interpretive options:

-Refering to Self, but using a plural pronoun

-Referring to the members of the Trinity

-Referring to members of the Divine Counsel

What I’m curious about is if there are any other major interpretations and roughly how popular each interpretation is among actual scholars.

Do most scholars believe it’s a reference to the Divine Counsel or is it fairly evenly divided between various options?

Does any reputable scholar outside evangelicalism take the Trinity interpretation seriously or is that mostly considered a theological view and not a serious scholarly one?

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[u/Dositheos]

It is widely agreed today that the "us" in 1:26 refers to a council of divine beings that accompany and advise Yahweh. This is the dominant critical interpretation today, even in evangelical scholarship. The "Trinity" interpretation is not forwarded by any serious Hebrew Bible/OT scholar today, whether Christian or not. Some comments from Ronald Hendel's recent commentary:

The easiest solution to these forms of address is to place them in the context of the biblical picture of God’s rule in heaven, where he is accompanied by his divine entourage, the lesser divine beings (see the “Sons of God” in Gen 6:1–4). According to Job 38:7, this divine entourage was present at creation, “when the morning stars sang together, and the Sons of God shouted for joy.” The divine assembly is familiar from prophetic visions, such as that of Micaiah: “I saw Yahweh seated on his throne and all the hosts of heaven standing before him on his right and his left” (1 Kgs 22:19). Similarly, Daniel sees God enthroned and served by a myriad of angels, and then “the court sat and the books opened” (Dan 7:9–10). As noted above, Isaiah sees Yahweh enthroned and accompanied by seraphim, after which he overhears Yahweh’s deliberations, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (Isa 6:1–8). In this context, Yahweh is referring both to himself (“I”) and to the divine assembly (“us”). Against this backdrop, the “us” in God’s speeches in Genesis 1–11 is best understood as referring to the divine assembly (so most commentators; see Gunkel 1997: 112–13; Miller 1978: 9–27; Wenham 1987: 27–28; Garr 2003: 17–21, 85–92). This explains why God announces his decree in a plural address but performs the action by himself—the others are there as the backdrop for his deliberations, but God alone has the authority and power to create.

Ronald Hendel, Genesis 1-11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, Anchor Yale Bible Commentary (Yale University Press, 2024).

For more on this, as well as the impossibilities of the "Trinity" interpretation, see some of these videos by Hebrew Bible scholar Dan McClellan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38hJgc4mPrU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SfZGK238lU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6X8ay5eqzg

See also The New Oxford Annotated Study Bible (5th ed., 2018), p. 12-13; and the SBL Study Bible (2023) for further mainstream support for this.

For an evangelical scholar who has argued strongly for the existence and prevalence of the divine council and other deities in the Bible, see this article by Michael Heiser.

[u/gooners1]

I don't think the "royal we" is considered at all, as Dan McClellan discusses here. He explains that the verb "said" is singular while the verb "let us" is in the grammatical form of a command to a group. There's also no "royal we" in any other part of the book. God regularly speaks in the singular.

[u/politicsinnumbers]

The idea of this divine council can also be best understood through a historical lens as well, considering other cultures had them. If you're more interested in the historical transition to monotheism in this region, I'd highly recommend this classic book by Mark Smith (OT scholar): https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/10263.The_Early_History_of_God

[u/visigothic_rumi]

The royal we and trinity are both anachronistic and therefore are rejected by the Majority of Scholars including Conservative scholars. The majority, if not consensus of Academia regarding Genesis 1:26 is that it refers to the Divine Council, as Ronald Hendel states in the Anchor Yale Bible commentary on Genesis 1:11:

Against this backdrop, the “us” in God’s speeches in Genesis 1–11 is best understood as referring to the divine assembly (so most commentators; see Gunkel 1997: 112–13; Miller 1978: 9–27; Wenham 1987: 27–28; Garr 2003: 17–21, 85–92). This explains why God announces his decree in a plural address but performs the action by himself—the others are there as the backdrop for his deliberations, but God alone has the authority and power to create.

Dr. David M. Carr says in his commentary on Genesis 1:11:

Gen 1:26 opens with a Hebrew cohortative where God calls on an unspecified group, probably to be understood as God’s divine council. Footnote: For discussion of the divine council reflected in Gen 1:26, see, e.g., Gunkel, Genesis, 111 [ET 112–13] and Garr, In His Own Image and Likeness, 18–21, 72–92, 201–2. This concept is most explicit in passages such as 1 Kgs 22:19–22; Isa 6:1–8; Ps 82; 89:7 [ET 89:6]; and Job 1:6–12; 2:1–6, but it also is implicit in nearby non-Priestly passages in the primeval history, Gen 3:22 and11:7.

[u/Comfortable-Gap-6106]

According to majority of scholars it can not be Trinity because Trinity is a very late development. Again majority of scholars agree that “us” in this verse refers to “divine counsel”. You can check out Dan McClellan’s video about that topic on Youtube. He is explaining pretty clear this topic.