God is a covenantal being who created man as a covenantal being, meaning that when “God created man” in His own image He “created him” with a collective personality and “created them” with an individual personality (Gen. 1:27). Just as God is a king with both an individual and a collective nature, so He created man in His own image as the king of the earthly realm with both an individual and collective nature (Gen. 1:26-28). Thus to exercise his dominion authority properly over the earthly realm (Gen. 1:26, 28) both the individual and collective aspects of man's nature must first be distinguished then appropriately integrated (Gen. 1:27). In other words, the proper administration of delegated authority is covenantal. The Hebrew word for “man” in Genesis 1:27 is adam which is a singular noun that in this context speaks of the unity of the human race as a whole. In other contexts, such as in Genesis 2:22 and 2:25, adam may also refer to an individual male (man) in distinction from an individual female (woman). Gender-neutral translations like the TNIV obscure the biblical meaning of adam by mistranslating Genesis 1:26-27 to read, “Let us make human beings in our image…So God created human beings in his own image…male and female he created them.” Such translations reflect the secular individualism of modern and postmodern liberalism by wrongly communicating a non-biblical view that only individual male and female persons comprise the human race. Such translations completely fail to communicate the equal ultimacy of the unified, collective personality of mankind as a whole. This undermines a covenantal understanding (a) of the nature of man and therefore (b) of how man is to administrate authority.
Also see “Governing Roles of Men and Women in Basileia,” and Head.