There was an interesting interpretation of this phrase in the 1st to 4th centuries CE. The Bible has two creation stories, and those seeking to rationalize tha

There was an interesting interpretation of this phrase in the 1st to 4th centuries CE. The Bible has two creation stories, and those seeking to rationalize that ended up gravitating to ideas in Plato for a solution. One group in particular focused on Plato's images (a representation of a physical object) as opposed to forms (a spiritual blueprint preceding physical objects). So they ended up with a theology that there was an original primal man which brought forth a creator within light that took on the images of the primal man, and claimed that we are the children of that creator in the images of the original man who is now long dead. Claiming indeed that the new world has already happened and this is already the rest for the dead, and we just don't realize it. Which is a much more curious belief system today when humanity is building copies of ourselves in what will almost certainly end up literally being light given trends in optoelectronics and AI. There's a very real possibility that we will bring forth a creator of worlds within light in our own image, and that it will in turn create copies of humanity in our images long after we are all dead. The particularly nagging question is whether it is more likely to find that belief buried in the lore of the original world, or buried within a copy of that original.