Book Review:

 

The Liturgy of Creation:

Understanding Calendars in an Old Testament Context

 

by Michael LeFebvre 

IVP Academic: 2019

 

          This review will be in two parts: an appreciation of chapters 1-11 for putting attention on the Seven (!) days of Creation, and a criticism of chapter 12 for being philosophically naive about science.

 

Part I – Chapters 1-11

          Most Americans are unfamiliar with Mediterranean weather and agriculture. The year has only two seasons, the cool, rainy season (November to April), and the hot, dry season (April – October). The grain crops are barley, harvested in April, and wheat, harvested in May-June. In the fall there is the grape harvest, and after that olives. Animals are for work, food, and clothing. People live in extended families on inherited plots of land, and families help one another to gather and process crops.

 

Israel’s seven annual feasts began and ended in the dry season, beginning with Passover right after the rainy season ended, and concluding with the Day of Atonement in the fall, just before the rains began. While feasts and harvest-times commonly coincided throughout the ancient Near East, the Torah also linked the feasts with events in Israel’s history. At each feast, Israel remembered God’s care for them, for example, God’s saving them from slavery in Egypt at Passover time.

 

The Torah divides time differently than we do. The seven-day week is like ours, but not its lunar month, with either 29 or 30 days from new moon to new moon. (In English common law a lunar month is 28 days, and the moon’s sidereal period is 27 ¼ days. It gets complicated.) Remarkably, the Torah dates few events. LeFebvre examines each of the twenty-one dated events and examines how each corresponded with one of Israel’s feasts.

 

Americans expect dates to be precise, but not always. We celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday on the third Monday in January, only sometimes King’s exact birthday. The few dated events in the Torah work similarly. Dated events tied to agriculturally coordinated feasts helped Israel to remember the events and praise God. Chronological precision was not the point.

 

The heart of LeFebvre’s study asks about seven more dated events, the seven days of Creation, not six. Those who know the Westminster Shorter Catechism recall Q. 9: “What is God’s work of creation? A. The work of creation is, God’s making all things of nothing, by the word of his power, in the space of six days, and all very good.” That focus on six days misses the point of Genesis’ first section, 1:1-2:3 with its unfortunate chapter break that directs attention away from the final day of Creation, the day of rest.

 

The Fourth Commandment covers seven days. “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work…for in six days the LORD made the heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it.” (Exodus 20:8-11 KJV) The Sabbath was Israel’s main feast day, the one God went to great lengths to impress on Israel after the newly freed slaves no longer had to work every day! (See Exodus 16, 31, 35, Deuteronomy 5:12, and many other places in the Torah.) The main point of the dated days in Genesis 1:1-2:3 was to guide Israel’s week of work and rest, so they are written in a 6 + 1 fashion, the pattern of Israel’s week of six days of work and a day of rest. Like the other dates in the Torah, the seven days of Creation are a teaching tool: about God and his Creation (Exodus 20), about how he saved Israel from slavery in Egypt (Deuteronomy 5), and about God’s day of rest devoted to worshiping him.

 

Moses did not intend in Genesis 1:1-2:3 to give scientifically precise information about how God created the world. Anyone trying to find a concord between a scientific cosmology, whether Aristotle’s or today’s, reads Genesis 1:1-2:3 anachronistically and incorrectly. As Calvin – and before him in similar fashion Augustine – noted:

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Moses makes two great luminaries; but astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons that the star of Saturn, which on account of its great distance, appears the least of all, is greater than the moon. Here lies the difference: Moses wrote in a popular style things which without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend. Nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them. (Commentary on Genesis 1:16, my italics)

 

Inside the 6 + 1 structure of the days of Creation in Genesis 1:1 – 2:3, the first six days are presented 3 + 3, so the Creation week is (3 + 3) + 1. On the first three days, as has been long observed, God established order by separating light from darkness, land from sea, and so on. On the next three days, God filled the ordered spaces with the sun, moon, stars and birds in the firmament, fish in the sea, animals on the earth, and last of all Man, male and female to cultivate and care for the earth. On the Seventh Day, God rested from all his work. The Seventh Day is Creation’s climax.

 

Having made his argument that the days of Creation taught Israel about their own work, rest, and worship, LeFebvre joins both Calvin and Augustine in warning that attempts to read Genesis 1:1-2:3 as though they contain numerically precise scientific data is a mistake. Moses was not writing science that the uneducated could not possibly understand. Attempted “literal” readings of Genesis 1:1-2:3 that try to match it with ancient or modern science require awkward contortions, like trying to explain the existence of light on the first day, plants that need the sun to grow on the third day, but no sun until the fourth day.

 

No one today, in fact, consistently reads Genesis 1 literally because they unwittingly read right past what Moses writes about the “firmament.” (Here I go beyond LeFebvre’s book.)

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And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. (Genesis 1:6-8 KJV)

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How did the waters stay above the firmament? A few patristic commentators, the Cappadocian theologian Basil for example, trying to read this verse literally, came up with the picture of a flat roof above the firmament that held the waters in place so they would not slide down on the earth. Genesis 1:1-2:3, Basil correctly understood, pictures the “firmament” as a kind of rounded dome over the earth, which is what the sky looks like when one stands in the middle of a plain and looks up.

 

The firmament plays a large role in Genesis 1:1-2:3. It has waters above it (1:7; no fair reading water evaporation, clouds, and rain into “above”), birds fly in it (1:20), and the sun and moon are placed in it along with the stars (1:14-16). Genesis 1:1-2:3 read “literally” does not describe a solar system with the sun at its center and the earth revolving around it while the earth rotates on its axis and the moon revolves around the earth. It describes the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament, along with the birds, but higher than them.

 

Both Luther and Calvin sometimes fell into the literalist trap. Luther wrote about the firmament: “Indeed, it is more likely that the bodies of the stars, like that of the sun, are round, and that they are fastened to the firmament like globes of fire, to shed light at night, each according to its endowment and its creation.” He added that there were waters above the firmament where the sun and stars were fastened, and “if the philosophers [scientists] differ about there being waters above the firmament, we must reject their wicked presumption.” Calvin meanwhile condemned our Copernican picture of the solar system with the planets revolving around the sun: “those dreamers who have a spirit of bitterness and contradiction…who in all things reveal their monstrous nature, that they will say that the sun does not move, and it is the earth that shifts and turns.” (Sermon on I Corinthians 10:19-24)

 

Christian commentators’ neglect of the seventh day shows how they miss the point of the seven days of Creation: it instructs Israel how to live, six days of work and one day of rest. They also miss how Moses structured Genesis, using the expression, “These are the generations of…” (Genesis 2:4, 5:1, 6:9, and so on).

 

LeFebvre might have strengthened his contention that the point of Genesis 1:1-2:3 is not to give what he calls a “journalistic” account of creation if he had concluded his book with a chapter showing how Genesis 1:1-2:3 undergirds more of the Ten Commandments than merely the Fourth. Like many other passages in the Bible, it teaches that darkness and light, the sun, moon, stars, earth, birds, fish, animals, and even Man are all mere creatures of God Almighty. Therefore, none can be god. Only the Creator is God, whose First Commandment is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Genesis 1:1-2:3 likewise teaches that no created thing can faithfully represent God the Creator, so His Second Commandment is, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” (Exodus 20:4 KJV) Note, by the way, the different cosmology in the Second Commandment, “heaven above, earth beneath, and water under the earth,” not a firmament above the earth where the sun, moon, stars, and birds have their place, with waters above the firmament. LeFebvre might have connected God’s making Man in his own image to the Sixth Commandment against murder (see Genesis 9:6). Developing these connections between the Ten Commandments and Genesis’ creation account would have made a fitting final chapter.

 

Overall, LeFebvre’s book is a significant achievement that provides fodder for future research. For instance, how was Moses in the Wilderness able to include in the Torah so much material germane to future agricultural life in Canaan, i.e. the agricultural seasons that determined when major feasts requiring travel would be possible? Possible lines of development: a) Moses lived in Sinai for forty years, where the rain and agricultural seasons, such as they were, matched Canaan’s rather than Egypt’s irrigated agriculture, and where he perforce wandered far with his sheep; and/or b) Moses knew from his ancestors, whose stories he records in Genesis, the peasant life of Canaan even while Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were primarily shepherds; and/or c) The spies brought back far more knowledge of the land and its ways than he records in the Torah. LeFebvre’s book opens up other questions besides the one just discussed, but it illustrates how LeFebvre’s book might guide future Torah scholars.

 

Part II – Chapter 12

          In his final chapter, LeFebvre goes in a totally different direction from what might have been a fruitful final chapter. He suddenly seeks to solve the old problem of “the conflict between faith and reason,” or since the 19th Century, “the war between science and religion.” He attacks Ken Ham, Jay Adams, and many others, who try to treat the Bible as a science textbook. In his general outlook, LeFebvre agrees with the general view of the Geneva College Bible Department Chair for many years, J.G. Vos, who wrote concerning “the exact date of the creation and the exact age of the human race:” “If we really needed to know these things, God would have revealed them in the Bible. Since he has not done so, we can only conclude that these are matters, which we do not really need to know. We should always remember that the Bible was not written to satisfy our curiosity, but to show us the way of salvation.” (Commentary on Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 15, my italics) Vos himself believed that the natural way to read “day” in Genesis 1 is a 24-hour day, but he acknowledged that other orthodox people disagree, and moved on. He did not address the “natural” way to read “firmament,” as a dome over the earth, or the “natural” way to understand the moon as its own lesser light source. However, amid a torrent of ideas in chapter 12, LeFebvre asserts, “Nevertheless, where the scientific consensus is critiqued, it should be critiqued from other scientific research.” (p. 209) This rule makes many errors.

 

Error #1: LeFebvre lumps together in the category “science” everything claiming to be science. In particular, he ignores the profound differences between the natural and the social sciences. Genesis 1:1-2:3 provides grounds for that distinction. God gave Man, male and female, dominion over his Creation, but he did not give Man dominion over Man. Even in our fallen state, we can study the natural sciences from the outside and above, so to speak: God gave humanity dominion over the Creation. Our prejudices and self-interest do not fundamentally vitiate our study of astronomy, physics, and chemistry. In fact, the Bible attributes basic inventions like music, metalworking, and animal husbandry to Cain’s line. (Genesis 4:17-22)

 

The social sciences differ fundamentally. People cannot study human affairs with objectivity because they themselves are inside the human realm and so cannot see people clearly. Moreover, sinful twisted self-interest biases results. Furthermore, the student of human affairs must deal with what is hugely complex. Economists, even with all of their mathematical apparatus, are notoriously unsuccessful at predicting the future. Contrast them with astronomers, who can predict a solar or lunar eclipse to the month, day, hour, and minute. Psychiatry, sociology, and anthropology are not sciences like physics and chemistry. Their hypotheses cannot be tested by experiments, and they cannot predict the future. It is deeply misleading therefore to lump the natural and the social sciences together as one thing, “Science.” LeFebvre no doubt knows the difference between natural and social science, but he lumps together criticism of Jay Adams, a psychology counselor, and Ken Ham who writes about natural sciences.

 

Where does biology belong? Somewhere between the natural and the social sciences depending on what is being studied. There is a lot at stake for any biologist, both personally and professionally, in his/her conclusions about neo-Darwinian evolution. It has been the consensus of scientists for a century, but it cannot be squared with the Bible’s teaching about Man created as a single pair, made in the image of God. Evolution, I believe, is a failed scientific theory, propped up by the scientific establishment and the scary alternative of having to deal with a Creator. Today the evolution edifice is showing its cracks. (See David Gelertner’s review of Stephen Meyer’s book, Darwin’s Doubt (2013) in the Claremont Review of Books (Spring 2019) and a later recorded discussion between David Gelertner, David Berlinski, and Stephen Meyer, moderated by Peter Robinson. See also two books by Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box (2006) and Darwin Devolves (2020).) Christians have been correct to reject on biblical grounds both human evolution in particular and the more general assertion of purposeless development of life by chance mutations and Darwin’s “survival of the fittest,” or more recently “survival by superior reproduction.” They should not have to wait for scientists to critique undirected and purposeless evolution solely on scientific grounds before rejecting it. God tells us that he created the world for a purpose, his own glory, and made Man, male and female, in his image to be fruitful and tend his Creation.

 

Error #2: LeFebvre rejects a Christian’s ability to critique science from the Bible. The Bible teaches virtually nothing about physics, astronomy, and chemistry, but it is full of teaching about human affairs. Christians were on solid ground when they rejected the anthropological theory of polygenesis on which scientific racism was based, both in the American South after 1840, and later in Nazi Germany. Covenanters, for example, correctly cited the Bible in opposition to polygenesis, quoting: “And [God] hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth...” (Acts 17:26 KJV) Racial ranking was the “scientific consensus” for nearly a century! Christians did not need to, and should not have waited for, racial science to correct itself. Rejecting it on biblical grounds was correct and rightly done.

 

Error #3: LeFebvre’s “only-critique-science-with-science” rule ignores the reality that decidedly unscientific means often support “the scientific consensus,” often for decades after it has been proven wrong. Even in the physical sciences, people get attached to a theory, gain positions of power, and censor contrary views by means of the “peer review” system for publishing articles, by hiring and tenure decisions, and by conference invitations. Textbook writers generally state the “consensus of science,” and textbooks in all fields are notorious for continuing to teach errors long after they have been debunked. It took a long time for the phlogiston theory of heat to dissipate. In the social sciences, where philosophy and ideology often masquerade as science, it would be a disaster to forbid Christians from critiquing a social science truth claim on the basis of Scripture. For example, there is now a consensus among psychologists that one’s “sexual orientation” cannot change. A Christian correctly rejects that consensus, quoting I Corinthians 6:9-11, which concludes with the past tense, “and such were some of you.” Sigmund Freud’s theories were once part of a “scientific consensus,” but they were always contrary to God’s Word at countless points. Today almost no true Freudians remain because his ideas, though interesting, were always unverifiable, and psychoanalysis did not help people as promised. Science critiqued science. Good. But should Christians have refrained from rejecting Freud until psychiatrists had concluded that his theories are a dead end? When it comes to dealing with human affairs, God’s revelation provides far better guidance than social science can or ever will.

 

Error #4: LeFebvre’s term, “consensus of science,” tends to exalt Science in an Enlightenment fashion as the one and only reliable path to truth. The “consensus of scientists” would be more accurate and less intimidating; it would remind us that scientists’ conclusions come from people like us, with ambitions, preconceptions, sins, and propensity to error.

 

A final issue in what claims the prestige of “Science” is the computer model. Computer economic and climate models have thus far proven to be consistently and sometimes spectacularly wrong. Consider weather prediction: computer models invariably forecast vastly different paths along which a particular hurricane may travel. This example (which I invite you to notice during the next hurricane season) illustrates just how much computer model results will differ according to the data fed into them and the assumptions made when the scientists programmed them. Few people can critique models (any models: economics, climate, weather, so forth) in detail. Sometimes their creators refuse to release the underlying data used in creating them. So it is fair for Christians and non-Christians alike to hesitate to accept or act on computer models. Scientists already work with abstractions of reality, often mathematical. Computer models are abstractions of abstractions.

 

In chapter 12, LeFebvre rightly criticizes ignorant zealots who prescribe biblical medical treatments, or forbid vaccinations, or find health tips in the Mosaic cleanliness codes, or cite God’s promise of no more earth-destroying Floods as a reason to be unconcerned about increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. But his failure to distinguish between the physical and the social sciences, or even to explain clearly what Science is, makes his rule that only science can critique science both wrong and dangerous, especially where human affairs and computerized models about anything are concerned. And writing about the “consensus of science” puts “Science” on an Enlightenment pedestal: better to write “consensus of scientists.” 

 

Conclusion

          I recommend chapters 1-11 of LeFebvre’s book. While it asks us to read the Torah at places in unfamiliar ways, it helpfully directs our attention to a possible liturgical purpose in the seven day schema of (3 + 3) + 1 of Genesis 1:1-2:3. LeFebvre’s interpretation might help Christians escape the hermeneutical and exegetical incoherence of those who insist that parts of Genesis 1:1-2:3 should be read literally (twenty-four hour days even before the sun appears in the narrative) while they read other parts (moon its own source of light, and the firmament containing both birds and stars) non-literally in accord with contemporary astronomy.

 

Chapter 12, however, would have been better left unwritten. By asserting that only scientific research can critique scientific consensus, it gives Science an undeserved autonomous sphere immune from criticism by Christians reading their Bibles. It does not advance, let alone solve, the “war between reason and faith.” It is naive about Science.

 

-- Bill Edgar