Ben C. Olleburger. <i>God the Creator: The Old Testament and the World God Is Making</i>

The book is the fruition of the author’s Princeton dissertation, teaching, and lectures, and opens with the 1925 trial against John T. Scopes (Introduction) to illustrate that the sensus literalis is broader than a “flat” reading of the text. The book addresses the question: “What do the texts say about God the Creator?” (p. 11). Creation is “a dynamic, life-enabling order,” which, in the Old Testament, has natural, moral, and political dimensions, and “God acts as Creator to establish, sustain, and on occasion repair” (p. 5).The first two chapters address Gen 1–2. God created the universe ex nihilo, that is, “not the absence of matter” but “the absence of form, function, and space” (pp. 19–20). The purpose of creation unfolds throughout the Old Testament. Humans were created imago dei, namely, with an administrative purpose “to maintain ‘order and peace on God’s behalf’” (p. 27). Unlike comparative ancient Near East texts, wherein a deity or king constructs a house/temple and makes provision for it, in Gen 2:1–3, God creates a cosmic house/temple but defers occupation until his Spirit has created a physical house/temple and then separated the Levites to provide for it (Exod 31:1–2; 39:32; 40:33–34). Gen 2:17 warns against breaking the line between God and mortals.Chapter 3 examines Gen 3–11, beginning with the disruption of the peace with which God established the creation. Cain and Abel are the first of many rivalries that disrupt peace. Gen 1–11 thus feature God defending the created order from a series of human threats. Chapter 4 presents a fine summary of parallels between Gen 1–11 and the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish, and Atrahasis.In the book of Psalms, one also finds opposition to God’s creation (chapter 5). Ps 74, for example, recalls Yahweh’s dominance over the sea and Leviathan and hearkens to “God’s primordial battle against the Sea” (p. 90). “The implication is clear that in defeating the watery forces of chaos, God was creating the world in which God reigned as King” (p. 90). Similarly, Ps 89 recounts Yahweh’s defeat of the sea and Rahab. Zion psalms 46, 48, and 76 depict God as “King and Creator” (p. 97) in the sense that God wards off chaotic forces and thus “creates peace”—that is, “God orders and sustains a world” (p. 98).The creation theme in Israel’s wisdom literature (chapter 6) is robust. As examples, Prov 3:19–20 connect God’s wisdom and knowledge with the creation of the world, Eccl 3:11 associates creation with time, and Job contains numerous references to God as creator (e.g., 9:5–12; 38:1–41:34).The theme of God the Creator extends to Israel’s prophetic corpus. In Isaiah (chapter 7), God “begets” (ילד) the coming royal child (Isa 9:6, Heb. v. 5; cf. Ps 2:7). Isa 17:12–14 “echoes the creation language” discerned in the psalms in chapter 6 (p. 133). Perhaps anticipating the difficulty of readers to perceive God the Creator in vv. 12–14, Ollenburger explains that the verses “extend God’s action as Creator beyond that of world formation or cosmic ordering into the political sphere” (p. 133). Isa 40–55 envisions God as Creator and King. For example, Isa 40:12, 13, 17; 43:15 are part of God’s case to the exiles that he, not foreign gods, created the earth and is sovereign over the nations (see also, e.g., Isa 44:24–27; 45:7).Chapter 8 turns to Amos, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who proclaimed God’s judgment, yet also a forthcoming time of “the creation of Israel/Judah as a renewed space” (p. 147). Hymnic texts with creation motifs occur in Amos 4:13; 5:8–9, and God’s omnipotence as seen in creation warrants his ability to affect the new covenant (Jer 31). God makes a “new creation” of dry bones (Ezek 37:14) and creates “a new heart” (Ezek 36:24–38; p. 162).The theme of God the Creator also appears in Israel’s apocalyptic literature (chapter 9). Zeph 1–6 “envisions the reordering of the world” (p. 175), and Israel’s subjugation under Darius and other formal features mark the section as “an apocalyptic mode” (p. 177). Ollenburger surveys Dan 1–6; but like the section on Zechariah, most of the section describes the historical background, with only a short final paragraph on God “reordering” the world (p. 180). Similarly, the discussion of Dan 7–12 has little, if anything, to do with creation but is about God acting sovereignly to establish his kingdom.The final chapter examines the theme of God the Creator in texts beyond the Old Testament. Clear examples occur in Jub. 2; 3:15. In the New Testament, John 1:1–3 and Col 1:15–16 associate the Word with God in the creation, and God “created a new community” in the death and resurrection of Christ (Rom 8:34; p. 197). At this point, Ollenburger returns to the question raised in chapter 2 of whether God created the universe ex nihilo. Did Paul have that in mind in Rom 7:14? He cites George S. Hendry’s observation that Greek distinguishes between “mē ontos—something not existing in a proper form” (Rom 4:17) and “ouk ontos,” meaning ontological nothingness (p. 199). Some have seen God’s grace as creatio ex nihilo, but that understanding is at odds with the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo. Ollenburger’s conclusion does not settle the question; instead, he understands creatio ex nihilo as an act of divine grace.The book has scripture and subject indexes, and readers will appreciate the informative, context-setting introductions of each chapter as well as the use of footnotes rather than endnotes. Overall, two concerns emerge. The title “God the Creator” is often applied where it is contextually questionable. For example, Job 7:18, 19 (p. 118) is clearly a lament in which Job bewails being tested/tormented by God. It has no ostensible creation motif, but Ollenburger connects v. 17 with Ps 8:4 (Heb. v. 5), which does relate with creation through the shared term אֱנוֹשׁ (p. 118). In Amos 1–2, God clearly judges the nations, yet Ollenburger refers to him as “God the Creator” (p. 149). He adduces Fretheim, who “suggests that the ‘justice perspective’ of Amos’s first two chapters . . . is rooted ‘in a creation theology’ that includes ‘a created moral order’” (p. 149). Even granting such an interpretation, the primary attribute of God is judge, not creator. Amos 8:9–10 is also an oracle of judgment, but Ollenburger claims that it “portrays Yhwh as Uncreator” (p. 153; italics original). Similarly, in Jer 4:27–28, another oracle of judgment, “Jeremiah envisions God the Creator acting in judgment, undoing what God created: decreating the world” (p. 158, italics original).Similarly, one finds instances where the meaning of creation is untenable. For example, Gen 1:2 implies an opposition to God (p. 85), and opposition also occurs from the force of chaotic water (Pss 74, 77, 104) and its inhabitants, Leviathan (Ps 74) and Rahab (Ps 89). “Creation, in these texts, means the defeat or the disarmament—the pacification—of those forces” (p. 85). Is not God’s sovereignty in view in these texts? Isa 17:12–14 “echoes the creation language we have seen in the Psalms,” but apparently the connection is so faint that Ollenburger adduces Ps 104:7. He explains: Isa “17:12–14, extend[s] God’s action as creator beyond that of world formation or cosmic ordering into the political sphere” (p. 133). Such interpretations arguably go beyond the semantic elasticity of the standard meaning of creation.Ollenburger has demonstrated unequivocally that God’s role as Creator extends well beyond Genesis. However, the book as a whole succeeds in its objective to the extent that readers concur with him on the breadth of the sensus literalis of the term “creation.”