The Liturgy of Creation

Understanding Calendars in Old Testament Context

Michael LeFebvre

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780830865185
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblische Studien

Biblical Foundations Award FinalistHolidays today are often established by legislation, and calendars are published on paper and smart phones. But how were holidays chosen and taught in biblical Israel? And what might these holidays have to do with the creation narrative? In this book, Michael LeFebvre considers the calendars of the Pentateuch with their basis in the heavenly lights and the land's agricultural cadences. He argues that dates were added to Old Testament narratives not as journalistic details but to teach sacred rhythms of labor and worship. LeFebvre then applies this insight to the creation week, finding that the days of creation also serve a liturgical purpose and not a scientific one. The Liturgy of Creation restores emphasis on the religious function of the creation week as a guide for Sabbath worship. Scholars, students, and church members alike will appreciate LeFebvre's careful scholarship and pastoral sensibilities.

Part I

Israel’s
Calendars

WHEN YOUR FRIEND PROMISES to “check the calendar,” she will likely consult an app on her smartphone or a printed calendar on her desk. But to “check the calendar” in ancient Israel would require looking to the skies. Israel’s calendar was not on paper or scrolls. Like other ancient nations, Israel observed the calendar revealed in the movements of the sun, moon, and stars (Gen 1:14).

The ancient Hebrews also had different reasons for consulting the cosmic calendar than we have for checking calendars today. Nowadays we use calendars to coordinate plans between people—to “get on the same page” with friends, coworkers, and other organizations regarding work schedules, meetings, birthdays, and so forth. In the ancient world, the cosmic calendar was “read” to coordinate one’s activities with the nation’s deity.1 The movements of the sun, moon, and stars were regarded as signs from the divine realm, provided for humans to follow to ensure heaven’s blessings on their plantings and harvests. Therefore, to “check the calendar” was a religious duty2—and the fruitfulness of society depended on it.

Ancient peoples developed worship festivals to mark the various seasonal harvests. Those festivals typically had religious stories attached to them. Festival stories provided an “interpretation” of the festivals and the deity whose blessings were critical to the land’s fruitfulness. All nations looked to the same sun, moon, and stars as their “clock,” but different nations developed different understandings of the divine order revealed by that heavenly clock. But one theme is found repeatedly in calendrical observances throughout the ancient world.

In the ancient Near East, the seasons cycle between periods of death and dryness, on the one hand, and rainfall bringing new life, on the other. This “death and new life” principle is woven into calendrical festivals throughout the ancient world. Farmers across cultures recognized the life-giving character of the Creator instilled in the seasonal cycles, and through their disparate national festivals they sought to participate in that divine gift of life to produce a fruitful crop and thriving societies. Ancient peoples adopted festival observances that timed their rituals of humility and their festivals of praise with the various cadences of “dying” and “new life” that governed the seasons revealed from heaven’s calendar.

Israel’s Calendar Among the Nations

Many societies of the ancient world recognized this life-giving principle inscribed into nature.3 The ancient Canaanite kingdom of Ugarit, for example, adopted a mythical narrative for its seasonal festivals known to scholars as the Baal Epic.

In the Baal Epic, these Canaanite worshipers reviewed the myth of the Canaanite storm god Baal, who desired to build a palace for himself. Baal’s enemy was Mot, the god of death. Mot initially defeated Baal and confined him to the underworld. During the storm god’s confinement, the land went without rain and thus shared in Baal’s death. But then Baal defeated Mot and escaped. He restored rain to the land and finally built his desired palace, the temple where he was to be worshiped.4 The Baal Epic provided a narrative framework for the seasonal changes and harvests of Baal worshipers. “In reality,” Theodor Herzl Gaster explains, “[the Baal Epic] is a nature myth and its theme is the alternation of the seasons.”5

A similar pattern can be found in other ancient calendars.6 The Sumerian festivals were set within a story of the dying and rising of the god Dumuzi.7 Ur’s calendar identified the changing seasons with a mythical contest between Utu, the sun deity, and Nanna, the moon deity.8 In Babylonia, yet another instance of this pattern is found, ritually guiding the Mesopotamian peoples through their seasonal changes.9 Egyptian festivals annually rehearsed the mythical death of Osiris, slain by Set and then restored to life as Horus. The rites of the Osiris myth were observed in cadence with the flooding of the Nile River, which brought fertility back to the Egyptian farmland each summer. “The Egyptian myth-makers . . . relied on observation of the natural world. The continuance of life through procreation provided a natural symbol for the order of the universe, and . . . [reveals] that beyond the natural world there is a divine mind. In this divine mind the Egyptians saw the ultimate reason for the ongoing cycle of the natural world.”10

In the New Testament, the apostle Paul referred to such Gentile myths as “seek[ing] God” (see Acts 17:27; cf. Acts 14:17). According to Paul, the world itself reveals the “invisible attributes” of God, “namely, his eternal power and divine nature” (Rom 1:20). Even the religious festivals of Gentile nations showed that “the work of the law is written on their hearts” (Rom 2:15). All nations recognized the life-giving character and power of the Creator, and through their festival calendars they sought after him.

Israel also had an annual series of festivals coordinated with the harvests of the land as well as a narrative that provided a theological interpretation of the “death to life” pattern manifest in the seasons. However, Israel did not resort to myth for its redemption narrative. A myth is a story that explains present, this-worldly realities through a description of primeval, other-worldly causes such as battles between the gods. Israel had a historical experience of the Creator’s redemptive goodness. They had experienced the life-renewing redemption of God in their deliverance from slavery and his carrying them into a “land of milk and honey.” The people could hope in God’s goodness toward their labors in the land because he had shown such mercy and grace to bring them out of Egypt and into the land in the first place. The events of the exodus were therefore attached to Israel’s festival calendar, providing a historical (rather than mythical) redemption narrative for the nation’s worship and labor through their seasonal harvests.

The Hebrew festival calendar, therefore, was like those of other nations in that it was shaped around the seasonal cadences governed by the heavenly lights, but it was unlike those of other nations in that its framing narrative was historical rather than using the form of a myth.11 Later in this book (chapter four), we will look more closely at Israel’s festival narratives in the Pentateuch. In the remainder of this chapter and in the next, I want to provide a more detailed exploration of the natural (that is, nature-based) shape of Israel’s cosmic calendar.

The “Clock” Behind Israel’s Calendar

In Genesis 1:14-15, God appointed the heavenly lights to serve as Israel’s calendar. “And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the span of the heavens to separate between the day [yôm] and the night [laylâ], and let them be for signs [ʾōtōt], and for festivals [môʿădîm] and for days [yāmîm] and years [šānîm]. And let them be for lights in the span of the heavens for the light upon the earth.’ And it was so” (a.t.).

This passage is structured around three “let there be”/“let them be” statements.12 In the first, the lights are appointed “to separate between the day [yôm] and the night [laylâ].” The first purpose assigned to the heavenly lights is to provide each individual day with its cadence. The second “let them be” statement introduces a broader, calendar-keeping role of the heavenly lights. “Let them be for signs [ʾōtōt], and for festivals [môʿădîm] and for days [yāmîm] and years [šānîm].” The Hebrew construction of the phrase foregrounds the term signs (ʾōtōt),13 which includes regular cosmic events like equinoxes and solstices that govern the changes in earth’s seasons, as well as irregular cosmic events like eclipses and comets. Some nations used the sighting of irregular signs in the heavens for fortunetelling, a practice the Hebrews were exhorted to repudiate (Deut 18:9-14; Jer 10:2). Certain irregular signs have occasionally been used by God to mark special works of heaven in the world, like the rainbow (called a “sign” in Gen 9:12) and the star of Bethlehem (Mt 2:2).14 But the primary signs indicated by this usage are the regular movements of the sun, moon, and stars that indicate the changing seasons. These signs were appointed, Genesis 1:14 states, for marking “festivals [môʿădîm]” and for marking “days [yāmîm] and years [šānîm].”

The term môʿădîm (“festivals”) is commonly translated “seasons” in English Bibles.15 However, as Walter Vogels asserts, “the word moʿed in the Torah never means the seasons of the year such as winter, spring, summer and fall . . . The word means ‘fixed times’ for festivals.”16 Leviticus 23:1-44 provides a typical list of such “appointed festivals [môʿădîm] of the LORD” (Lev 23:2, a.t.), listing the weekly sabbath, and the annual festivals of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Booths. The role of the heavenly signs to indicate festivals is paired with their role to govern the overarching calendar indicated by the merism “and for days [yāmîm] and years [šānîm].” A merism is a phrase that describes a spectrum of items by naming the two ends of the spectrum. In this case, days and years indicate the full scope of the calendar: particularly days, months, and years.17 Indeed, it is the tracking of days, months, and years that enables the scheduling of the aforementioned festivals. The days (and months) and years are the divisions of time directly regulated by the heavenly lights, while the festivals are indirectly governed by the heavenly lights, being based on the days, months, and years. Thus, the heavenly lights in their movements were, quite literally, the clock and calendar of Israel. “The calendrical purpose of the luminaries,” says Guillaume, “can hardly be more clearly stated.”18

The final “let them be” statement in this verse introduces a third role appointed for the lights—namely, to provide “the light upon the earth.” Modern societies regulate working hours by artificial lighting, but our ancestors were dependent on the luminaries in the heavens. Those “let there be”/“let them be” statements indicate the three purposes assigned to the heavenly li...