^{page 262 note 2} T. Reuben 4:1; T. Simeon 4:5; T. Levi 13:1; T. 1 ssacher 4:1–5:1; Wisd. 1:1; cf. Matt. 6:22; 22:36–40; Kee, Howard Clark, ‘The Ethical Dimensions of the Testaments of the XII as a Clue to Provenance’, New Testament Studies 24 (1978): 264–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 263 note 3} Glacken, Clarence J. characterizes the realization that the earth's resources are limited as ‘a modern idea’; it was first articulated in connection with the growth of Italian cities in 1588 but did not become a major theme until the late eighteenth century: Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1967) 373, 623, 632–7Google Scholar. Earlier intimations of the precarious situation of growing cities that rely on agricultural resources were expressed by Tertullian, De anima 30 and Cyprian, Treatise V.3; VII.25; Williams, G. H., ‘Christian Attitudes Toward Nature’, Christian Scholars Review 2 (1971–1972): 17–18.Google Scholar

^{page 264 note 4} Harris, Victor, All Coherence Gone: A Study of the Seventeenth Century Controversy over Disorder and Decay in the Universe (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1949) 4–5, 94–95, 123.Google Scholar

^{page 264 note 5} In bibical times, obedience to divine law was the primary criterion for innocence. It is not my intention here to legitimate that particular formulation of personal ethics (women's experience may call for a different version) but to show that, given the biblical version, the nonhuman creation was judged by biblical writers to be innocent.

^{page 264 note 6} Aspects of nature were associated with angels in Job 38:7; Dan. 8:10 and subsequent apocalyptic literature. But though the angelic and natural spheres might overlap, they were clearly distinct: Pss. 89:5–12; 148:1–4.

^{page 264 note 7} The latter distinction is frequently found in Scripture: e.g., Gen. 2:4–8; Ps. 104:14–23; Prov. 8:27–31. References to the pollution or defilement of the land of Israel itself are, therefore, not of immediate relevance here. Such ‘pollution’ is ritual uncleanness caused by the shedding of innocent human blood, the transgression of sexual norms, or idolatry (Lev. 18:25–28; Num. 35:33–34; Ps. 106:37–38;Jer. 2:7; 3:1–3; 16:18; 23:15; Hos. 4:1–3; cf. Gen 4:11–12; Isa. 24:5–7 for applications to cultivated land beyond Israel). The fact that this has nothing to do with ‘pollution’ or land degradation in the modern sense is underscored by the fact that both God and God's name could likewise be profaned or polluted (Isa. 48:11; Jer. 34:16; Ezek. 13:19; 20:39; 22:26; 43:8).

The major problem with the biblical differentiation I am adopting here arises for us today in the case of national parks where humans penetrate habitats they do not cultivate and affect species like bears which they do not domesticate.

^{page 265 note 8} On cosmic integrity and human justice as parallel manifestations of divine order, see Schmid, H. H., ‘Creation, Righteousness, and Salvation’ (German orig. 1973), in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. Anderson, Bernhard W. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 104–111Google Scholar; Knierim, Rolf, ‘Cosmos and History in Israel's Theology’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 3 (1981): 71–72, 87–88, 96–97, 100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knight, Douglas A., ‘Cosmogony and Order in the Hebrew Tradition’, Cosmogony and Ethical Order, ed. Lovin, Robin W. and Reynolds, Frank E. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1985) 139–140, 148–51.Google Scholar

^{page 265 note 9} Cf. 1 Enoch 72:33–37; 83:11; T. Naphtali 3:2.

^{page 266 note 10} Cf. Job 38:33 (huqqah); Jer. 33:20–26 (berit; huqqah). Similar comparisons are found in Pss. 89:2–4, 29, 36–37; 102:25–27; 119:89–91; Isa. 51:6; Mark 13:31.

^{page 266 note 11} Cf. Exod. 18:16, 20; 2 Kgs. 17:37; 1 Chron. 16:17; 2 Chron. 33:8; Neh. 9:13–14; Ps. 105:10; Jer. 44:10, 23, Mal. 4:4.

^{page 266 note 12} Cf. Ps. 37:31; 40:8; Davies, W. D., Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to Come (Philadelphia: SBL, 1952), 17–23.Google Scholar

^{page 266 note 13} A ‘new heart’ and a ‘new spirit’ are required to enable humans to do what other creatures do by nature: Ezek. 11:19–20; 36:26–28; cf. Ps. 104:29–30.

^{page 266 note 14} I Enoch 2:1; 5:2–4; Sir. 16:26–28; 43:9–10; T. Naphtali 3:2; Pss. Sol. 18:12–14; 1QS 3:15–17; Prayer for the Feast of Weeks 2:1–4 (A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings [Cleveland: World, 1961] 336). In the patristic literature: Eusebius, Praep. evang. VII.x.314–15; Athanasius, De incarn. 43; Basil, Hexaemeron V.1, 10; IX.2; Augustine, De Gen. ad lit. V.xx.41–xxi.42; De Trin. III.viii.13. In 3 Baruch 8, the lawlessness of humans on earth is said to defile the rays of the sun, but four angels are appointed to cleanse them daily (8:4–5).

^{page 266 note 15} Kaiser, C. B., Creation and the History of Science (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 15–34.Google Scholar

^{page 267 note 16} Bright, John, Jeremiah, Anchor Bible 21 (Garden City: Doubleday/Anchor, 1965), 63.Google Scholar

^{page 267 note 17} Cf. Job 26:10 [hoq]; 38:10 [hoq]; Ps. 104:9; 148:4–6 [hoq]; Prov. 8:27 [haqaq], 29 [hoq]; 1 Enoch 5:3. According to one Jewish tradition, the seas overflowed their bounds at the command of God in the idolatrous generation of Enosh: Gen. Rab. 5:6; Ginzberg, Louis, Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909–1938)Google Scholar, 1:123, 147, 5:152. The unqualified obedience of all nature to God's will would not have been conceivable unless the chaotic aspects of the cosmos had been understood as part of God's creation and hence ‘good’ in themselves. Thus the Septuagint translation of Genesis I and subsequent statements of creation ex nihilo (in both Hellenistic and Palestinian Judaism) interpreted the formless matter (earth, water) out of which creatures later emerged in Genesis 1, as created by God in the beginning: Ps. 148:4–6; Prov. 8:22–24; Ep. Arist. 136;Jub. 2:2–3; 2 Mace. 7:28 (wording based on LXX of Gen. 1:2); Philo, apud Eusebius, Praep. evang. VII.xxi.336b; Gen. Rab. 1:9; Hermas, Vis. I.i.6; Mand. I.i. E. C. Rust is reliable here: Nature and Man in Biblical Thought (London: Lutterworth, 1953) 148–149, 200–202.Google Scholar

^{page 268 note 18} The fact that animals were destroyed in the Flood raised the possibility that they had transgressed divine ordinances in ante-diluvial times: Jub. 5:2; 3 Enoch 4:4; Ginzberg, Legends, 1:160, 5:180.

^{page 268 note 19} Cf. Basil, Hexaemeron VII.3–4: ‘How is it that each sort of fish, content with the region that has been assigned to it, never travels over its own limits to pass into foreign seas.…it is a law of nature, which according to the needs of each kind, has allotted to them their dwelling places with equality and justice. It is not thus with us…. A fish does not resist God's law, and we men cannot endure his precepts of salvation’ (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, ed. Schaff, Philip and Wace, Henry, 14vols. [Buffalo and New York, 1890–1900], 8:92).Google Scholar

^{page 268 note 20} The Hebrew word, derek, is another of the terms used to describe the law and covenant of Moses: Deut. 5:33; 1 Kgs. 2:3; 3:14; Pss. 25:8–10; 119:1; Isa. 5:3; 48:17–18; Jer. 7:23.

^{page 268 note 21} I Enoch 5:4; Charlesworth, James H., ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (hereafter OTP), 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1983–1985), 1:15.Google Scholar

^{page 268 note 22} Pace Rust who clearly reads nineteenth-century notions back into Scripture: Nature, 234, 338–9.

^{page 269 note 23} Cf. Theophilus, Ad Autolycum 11.18 for a patristic confirmation of this notion. Note, however, that Gen. 1:30 does not forbid that animals eat flesh, and Gen. 9:2–7 does not account for the origin of meat-eating among animals as it does that of meateating by humans. So the Priestly writer may well have viewed the existence of carnivores as being so obviously part of the original order of creation that it required no special account.

^{page 269 note 24} Cf. Deut. 14:11–18. On the priestly distinction between clean and unclean, see Coote, Robert B. and Ord, David Robert, In the Beginning: Creation and the Priestly History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), 54–56, 63–64Google Scholar; Houston, Walter, Purity and Monotheism: Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 43–46, 193–4, 198–9.Google Scholar

^{page 269 note 25} Job 38:39–41; 39:26–30; Ps. 104:21; 147:9; Sir. 39:30–31.

^{page 269 note 26} In Isa. 31:4; Hos. 13:7–8, Yahweh's tenacious hold on Jerusalem is compared to that of a lion, leopard, or bear on its prey. In Num. 23:24 and Mic. 5:8, Israel's promised rule over the nations is compared to that of a lion gorging itself on flesh and blood.

^{page 269 note 27} Hausfater, Glenn and Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer, eds., Infanticide: Comparative and Evolutionary Perspectives (New York: Aldine, 1984)Google Scholar; Goodall, Jane, The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Van Hoeven, James W., ‘Editorial: Back-up Chicks,’ Perspectives 3 (May 1988), 3.Google Scholar

^{page 270 note 28} So Knierim, ‘Cosmos and History’, 81, 85, 88–89; Gowan, Donald E., ‘The Fall and Redemption of the Material World in Apoclayptic Literature’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 7 (1985), 83–103.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPace Glacken, Traces, 153–4, 162–5; Hendry, George S., Theology of Nature (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 190–191.Google Scholar

^{page 270 note 29} Cf. Lev. 18:25–28 and Ezek. 33:25–27 for analogous interpretations of the Exile as due to violations of the God's ordinances concerning sexual relations and the eating of blood (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 17:10–13; Deut. 12:16, 23–25).

^{page 271 note 30} Robinson, H. Wheeler. Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946), Part I.Google Scholar

^{page 271 note 31} Raven, Charles argued against the notion of the depravity of nature as a ‘present misunderstanding of the whole matter’ already in his 1951 Gifford Lectures: Natural Religion and Christian Theology (2 vols, Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1953), 1:22.Google Scholar

^{page 271 note 32} Deloria, Vine Jr., God is Red (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973), 93.Google Scholar

^{page 271 note 33} Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1951–1963), 2:36–44.Google Scholar

^{page 272 note 34} Thomas, Keith, Man and the Natural World (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983), 157.Google Scholar

^{page 272 note 35} Note, however, the less-known traditions that the animals also partook of the fruit of the forbidden tree and fell with Adam: Gen. Rab. 20:8; Theophilus, Ad Antolycum II.17.

^{page 273 note 36} Theodore Hiebert, ‘The Primeval Age’, unpublished MS (1993), 5–6. Texts like Deut. 29:24, 27 (Hebrew 29:23, 26) and Hos. 4:1–3 describe the ‘eres as being cursed due to the disobedience of Israel, the the scope of ‘eres in these cases is clearly limited to the land of Israel.

^{page 273 note 37} Cf. the presence of thorns and thistles on the altars of Bethel in Hos. 10:8. Their presence is a divine judgement on the priests of Bethel and their cult just as their presence in Gen. 3:18 is a divine judgement on Adam and his fields.

^{page 273 note 38} Cf. Gen. 4:12; Isa. 32:13; Jer. 12:13; Hos. 10:4.

^{page 273 note 39} On the other hand, there could be said to be a curse on the ground in the sense that it is not allowed to fulfill its godgiven purpose. One of the main purposes of the earth in Scripture (though not the only purpose) is to give birth and sustenance to humanity (cf. Pseudo-Philo, Bib. Ant. 60:3). Both aspects of this purpose, human life and sustenance, are negated in Gen. 3:18–19 [J]: the ground is to yield thorns and thistles, which are obviously not very nourishing to humans; and the earth is to receive the dead bodies of her children back into the very womb from which they were taken. (Even if humans would eventually have died in any case [cf. 3:22], the parallel curse referred to in 6:13, 17 [P];7:4 [J] 8:21 [J] includes the sentence of death on earth's offspring; cf. Midr. AB 8:1). But such a curse pertains to the ground as an agent (in relation to God's purposes), not as a patient (affected by human deeds). I take this matter up again in the discussion of the groaning of creation in Romans 8.

^{page 274 note 40} Neusner, Jacob, trans., Genesis Rabbah, 3 vols. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 1:223Google Scholar. Even in the more pessimistic setting of this midrash in Gen. Rab. 5:9, the rabbis were hard pressed to figure out which commandment the earth had violated to warrant its being cursed in its own right.

^{page 274 note 41} There is also a tradition that the animals ceased to speak in a common language and dispersed to different habitats (already created specifically for their use) after the Fall (Jub. 3:28–29;Josephus, Antiq. I.i.4; cf. Quran VI.38). According to 2 Enoch 58:3, however, animals were created deaf and dumb to begin with. Cf. Ginzberg, Legends, 5:94, 101.

^{page 274 note 42} Job 39:6–8, 27–28; Ps. 10:9; 104:18–24; Isa. 11:8; Amos 3:4; Nah. 2:11–12; 4 Ezra 5:8.

^{page 274 note 43} Exod. 8–10; Lev. 26:6; Isa. 13:21f.; 32:14; 34:11–15; Jer. 50:39; Hos. 2:12b; Joel 2:1–11, 25; Zeph. 2:14f.

^{page 274 note 44} Lev. 26:22; Deut. 32:24b; 2 Kgs. 2:24; 13:20–28; Isa. 55:9; Jer. 5:6; 12:9; Ezek. 5:17; 14:15, 21; 33:27; Sir. 39:30–31; T. Abraham A 10:6–7. Attacks by wild animals on domesticated ones was not generally sanctioned by God (Ezek. 34:5, 8), but predatory animals were described in very realistic terms with no hint of disappproval (cf. Isa. 5:29; 31:4). Wild animals were held accountable for any unwarranted attacks on humans; cf. Gen. 3:15; 9:5; m. Sanh. 1:4. According to 2 Enoch 58:4–5, humans will answer for their mishandling of domestic animals at the final judgement. Cf. Deut. 22:6–7 on human accountability for the treatment of wild birds.

^{page 274 note 45} An apparent exception would be attacks by snakes who lived in and under the fields cultivated by Israelites. Naturally they would attack the foot or heel of a farmer who inadvertently stepped near their nests (cf. Gen. 3:15). But other parts of creation like heat, drought, mildew, snow and hail were regarded as instruments of judgement, e.g., in Deut. 28:20–24; 32:24a; Job 38:23; Ps. 121:6; Sir. 39:28–29; 1 Enoch 80:2–8; 100:13; T. Levi 3:2; Rev. 8:7; m. Sota 9:12b.

Compare the Neo-Babylonian ‘Erra Epic’, where unrestrained foraging by wild animals is attributed to the god's neglect of his duties of supervision; Murray, Robert, The Cosmic Covenant: Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (London: Sheed & Ward. 1992). 59. 200 n.35Google Scholar. The polemic of the Hebrew Bible against polytheistic myths stressed the fact that Yahweh would never neglect his duties in such away (1 Kgs. 18:27; Ps. 121:3–4;Jer. 23:23–27)

^{page 275 note 46} The warfare between God and the rebel angels, sometimes represented as wandering stars, is another matter: Isa. 14:12–15; 1 Enoch 86:1–6;Jude 13. According to David Winston, the related motif of seven wandering stars (1 Enoch 18:13–16; 21:1–6; 80:6–7;Jude 13) is possibly based on a Zurvanite tradition: ‘The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran,’ History of Religions 5 (1966), 191, 193.Google Scholar

^{page 275 note 47} The warfare between God and Satan, or between humans and Satan, where the latter is sometimes represented as a serpent or lion, is also another matter: Gen. 3:15; Ps. 74:13–14; Isa. 27:1; Adam and Eve 37 = Apoc. Moses 10; 1 Pet. 5:8; Rev. 12:7–17.

^{page 275 note 48} Augustine, Con. Ep. Manichaei 37.42. Cf. 41.47, where Augustine recognized the proper role of death in the animal world.

^{page 275 note 49} Human encroachment occurred particularly in open fields and on hillsides, which were open to both human and animal use; cf.Judg. 14:5–6; 1 Sam. 17:34–35; Ps. 104:20–23; Jer. 9:10.

^{page 276 note 50} ktisis is also used where primarily earth is meant in Col 1:15 (cf. 18), 23; cf. 4 Ezra 5:44–55. Even if Paul knew the tradition that humans were formed out of a plurality of elements, only flesh coming from the earth itself (2 Enoch 30:8; Philo, On Creation 146; Who Is the Heir? 281–3; Corpus Hermeticum 1.16), the primary reference was to the element of earth; cf. Gen. 2:7; Ps. 139:15; Wisd. 7:1.

^{page 277 note 51} In the LXX of Isa. 66:8, the verb odino (‘to travail or suffer birth-pangs’) is used for earth's bringing forth human children. Philo (On Creation 43) uses odino to describe the earth's bringing forth vegetation in Gen. 1:11–12. In Wis. 7:1, Adam (and by extension Solomon and each human being) is the child of earth. In Sir. 40:1 and Philo (On Creation 133; On Noah's Work 14–15), earth is ‘the mother of all living’ like Eve in Gen. 3:20. 4 Ezra 5:48–50; 10:9–14 refers to earth as the mother of all humans.

^{page 277 note 52} Cf. Gen. 3:19; Eccl. 12:7; Isa. 26:17–19; Sir. 17:1; 40:1; Matt. 24:7–8; 27:51–53; and Rev. 20:13 with Rom. 8:11, 17, 23. The second-century apologist, Aristides, argues that earth cannot be immortal (i.e., incorruptible) because it is ‘filled with the dead bodies and becomes a tomb for corpses’; Apology 4.3 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Roberts, A. and Donaldson, J., 10 vols. [Edinburgh, 1868–1872], 10:266–267).Google Scholar

The defilement of the earth by the shedding of blood is fundamental in Gen. 4:8–12; 1 Sam. 14:32–35; Ps. 106:38. That the defiling blood is only that of humans and their domesticated animals is clear from Lev. 17:13, where the blood of wild animals and birds is properly poured out on the earth.

^{page 277 note 53} Rom. 8:26; cf. Gal. 4:11, 19 on Paul's own experience of futile childbirth.

^{page 277 note 54} So Cranfield, C. E. B. interprets the phrase oux ekousa (‘not of its own will’) in The Bible and Christian Life (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1985), 100.Google Scholar

^{page 277 note 55} There may also be a contrast here with the mythical giants, the illegitimate children spawned by the angelic ‘sons of God’ in Genesis 6 and 1 Enoch 6–8, who had brought corruption and oppression to all the inhabitants of earth in antediluvian times. The contrast lies behind Luke 20:34–36, where the true ‘sons of God’ neither marry nor are given in marriage and are thus equal to the unfallen angels, in contrast to the ‘sons of this age’ (huioi ton aionos), i.e., children of mother earth (cf. Prov. 8:23 LXX; 2 Apoc. Bar. 4:4; 51:8; Apoc. Abr. 9:6–9; Heb. 11:3). Cf. 1 Enoch 10:7–22 for the clearest parallels to Rom. 8:19–22.

Although this cataclysmic disaster happened in antediluvian times and was healed in the events associated with the Flood (Gen. 8–9; 1 Enoch 10–11), the mythic themes associated with it (cf. Enuma elish III.73–112; IV.105–122) could be recycled and applied to historical cataclysms like the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians, the collapse of the Persian empire, the conquests of the Greeks and the spread of Hellenistic culture, and even to the events of Paul's own time (cf. Rev. 12:7–12; 4 Ezra 5:3–10): Kaiser, Otto, Isaiah 13–39 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 179Google Scholar; Millar, William R., Isaiah 24–27 and the Origin of Apocalyptic (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976), 118Google Scholar; Collins, John J., The Apocalyptic Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1984), 46Google Scholar; Johnson, Daniel G., From Chaos to Restoration (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), 25–35, 54–57Google Scholar; Christoffersson, Olle, The Earnest Expectation of the Creature: The Flood-Tradition as Matrix of Romans 8:18–27 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1990), 116–137.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 56} So Cranfield, C.E.B., Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T.Clark, 1975), 413–414Google Scholar; idem, Bible and Christian Life, 99. Compare the discussion of Gen. 6:13 (‘I will destroy them with the earth’) in Gen. Rab. 31:7. The arable layer of earth (the top three handbreadths) is said to have been punished because earth was the tutor or nurse of her violent children.

^{page 278 note 57} 4 Ezra 5:44–55; 10:9–14; 14:10; 2 Baruch 85:10. Cf. the idea that humans are smaller and shorter lived than they once were: Gen. 6:3–4; Deut. 2:10.

^{page 278 note 58} Job 38:41; Ps. 104:10–30; 145:15–16; 147:8–9; 4 Ezra 10:14; Philo, On Creation XLV. 132–33; Matt. 6:26.

^{page 278 note 59} For the parallel between Eve, the universal mother, and the earth, cf. Ps. 139:15; Sir. 40:1. Compare the image of the land of Zion being married to God and bringing forth children (or a special child) in Isa. 62:4; 66:7–11; Jer. 4:31; Mic. 4:9–10; 5:2–3; 4 Ezra 9:43–45. Cf. Isa. 54:1; Gal. 4:23–27 (eleuthera, douleuei, odinousa) for the closest approximation to the wording of Rom. 8:21–22. Cranfield notes the importance of Gen. 3:17–19, but fails to point out the reference to the travailing earth (in analogy to Gen. 3:16) and generalizes Paul's idea to ‘the sum-total of subhuman nature’; see Cranfield, , Epistle to the Romans, 1:411–417Google Scholar; idem, Bible and Christian Life, 96, 98.

^{page 278 note 60} The Greek word for ‘decay’ in Rom. 8:21 is phthora. If applied directly to earth, this phthora might refer to contamination by rotting flesh (ritual, not ecological, contamination) as in Pss. 16:10; 30:9 LXX; Acts 2:31; 13:34–37; 1 Cor. 15:42; cf. Lev. 21:1–4, 11:22:4; Num. 19:11–16. Along these lines, the LXX of lsa. 24:4 uses the verbal form (ephthare) to describe the decay of the world with a parallel to the idea of the mourning of the earth; cf. Johnson, , From Chaos to Restoration, 29.Google Scholar

However, both the internal structure of Rom. 8:21 and its parallels in 8:17–18 make it likely that the ‘decay’ in question is the decay of the deceased children of God prior to the resurrection. In 8:21, the phrase tes douleias tes phthoras (‘the bondage of the decay’) is directly parallelled by the phrase ten eleutherian les doxes (‘the freedom of the glory’). Bondage is parallelled by freedom, and decay by glory. As Cranfield points out, tes doxes must ‘have a sense corresponding to that of tes phthoras’; Bible and Christian Life, 102. Since, the bondage and freedom are both clearly those of earth and the glory is that of the children of God, the ‘decay’ in question must also be that of the children of God. The parallel to decay in 8:17–18 is suffering–the suffering of the children of God. Again the decay in question must also be that of the children of God.

In support of this interpretation, one should consider the possibility is that Paul refers here to the Stoic idea of successive cycles of corruption and regeneration. For example, Origen attributes Celsus's view that ‘after the body has been entirely corrupted it will return to its original nature’ to the Stoics (Contra Celsum V.23). On this reading, the hoped for freedom of the creation referred to in Rom. 8:20–21 would be liberation from endless cycles of death and rebirth, and the emphasis on ‘the whole creation’ might be a pro-Stoic barb against the Aristotelians, for whom the cycles of generation and corruption were limited to the sublunar realm. But Paul's focus, like that of Origen's Stoics, would be on the death and rebirth of humans. It is significant that many of the fragments of Stoic writings on this subject were preserved by early Christian writers because they could be cited in support of the biblical belief in the general resurrection; see Grant, Robert M., Miracle and Natural Law in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Thought (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1952), 236–238.Google Scholar

Within Jewish sources the closest parallel would be to the birth of the suffering Messiah in 1QH 3:7–10. Here the woman in labor pains is the hymnist, either the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ or the community he represents. The reason that the ‘woman’ is in the ‘bonds of Sheol’ is that the life of her offspring is threatened. Cf. Rev. 12:1–4, where the cosmic dimensions of the woman, representing the community of the faithful, are brought out in verse 1.

^{page 279 note 61} Cf. Isa. 24:4 (’eres); 33:9 (’eres); Jer. 4:28 (’eres); 12:4, 11 (’eres); Joel 1:10 (’adamah); Zech. 12:12 (’eres); 4 Ezra 10:9–14; 1 Enoch 7:6; cf. Milton, , Paradise Lost IX.782–783Google Scholar, 1000–1004 and note the conlast here between nature's groaning and Adam's carelessness. The mother-child relationship is brought out quite clearly in Zech. 12:10–12.

^{page 279 note 62} Isa. 46:3–4; 53:10–11; Hos. 11:8; John 11:33, 38; Rom. 8:26; Gal. 4:19.

^{page 280 note 63} Matt. 28:18; 1 Cor. 15:25–27; Eph. 1:20–23; cf. Ps. 104:30. The fallen angels responsible for the affliction of earth had also been reconciled at Christ's resurrection: Eph. 1:10; 4:8–10; Phil. 2:9–11; Col. 1:18–20; 1 Pet. 3:18–20.

According the Athanasius, the air was exorcised of all demonic powers by the lifting up of Jesus on the cross. But, even before this exorcism, there was no disruption of God's order, even in the air: ‘Why, neither sun, nor moon, nor heaven, nor the stars, not water, nor air had swerved from their order; but, knowing their artificer and sovereign, the Word, they remain as they were made.’ The notion that the cosmos was in peril from chaos is associated with Plato and clearly differentiated from Christian teaching (On the Incarnation 25, 43; the latter quoted from Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 4:59b).

^{page 280 note 64} Wallace-Hadrill, D. S., The Greek Patristic View of Nature (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 1968), 104–109Google Scholar; Nicolson, Marjorie Hope, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1959), 97–99Google Scholar; Williams, ‘Christian Attitudes’, 8–9, 11–13, 30. Glacken's data on the patristic and medieval period belie his statement that the nature was widely believed by medievals to be deteriorating: Traces, 153–4, 164–5, 379, 381; cf. 177, 183–4, 192–4, 199, 205–7, 212, 216–7, 230–33, 241–6.

^{page 280 note 65} E.g., Jewish traditions (post-Jamnia) that the ground (cursed in Gen. 3:17) and moon (subject to waxing and waning) were punished along with Adam, or else with Cain: Gen. Rab. 5:9; 3 Apoc. Bar. 9:5–7; Ginzberg, , Legends, 1:79–80Google Scholar, 110, 147; 3:31; 5:28, 142. In b. Sanhedrin 42a, however, the waxing and waning of the moon is in accordance with the original laws of God. According to Marjorie Hope Nicolson, cosmic pessimism was even less prominent in Christian than in Jewish thinking. Nonetheless, it was a minor theme in Christian literature also: Mountain Gloom, 83, 89–96.

^{page 281 note 66} Nicolson views Luther's (or Melanchthon's) Lectures on Genesis as epitomizing nature gloom: Mountain Gloom, 100–104 (followed by Harris, All Coherence Gone, 90–91). For Luther's more positive view of nature, see Bornkamm, Heinrich, Luther's World of Thought (Saint Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), 58–59, 179–94Google Scholar; Santmire, H. Paul, The Travail of Nature (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 129–132Google Scholar. On the complexity of Luther's and Calvin's imagery here, see Schreiner, Susan E., The Theater of His Glory: Nature and the Natural Order in the Thought of John Calvin (Durham NC: Labyrinth Press, 1991), 156 n.8.Google Scholar

The interpretation of Calvin requires particular care at this point. Simply to list passages in which Calvin refers to the effects of the Fall in nature, as Schreiner does (Theater, 28–30), does not take into account Calvin's use of anthropocentric language for homiletical purposes.

^{page 281 note 67} Kaiser, C. B., ‘Calvin's Understanding of Aristotelian Natural Philosophy’, in Calviniana, Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies 10, ed. Schnucker, Robert V. (Kirksville: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1988), 81–83.Google Scholar

^{page 281 note 68} Winny, James.ed., The Frame of Order (London: Allen & Unwin, 1957), 19Google Scholar; Harris, , All Coherence Gone, 88, 97, 106Google Scholar. The printing of Lucretius's De rerum naturae (1473) also encouraged speculation about the birth and death of the earth (cf. De rerum natura II.1105–74): Harris, Coherence, 100.

^{page 281 note 69} Williamson, George, ‘Mutability, Decay, and Seventeenth-Century Melancholy’, ELH 2 (1935), 140–142CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, Richard Foster, Ancients and Moderns (St. Louis: Washington Univ., 1936, 1961), 23–25Google Scholar; Harris, Coherence, 3, 87–88, 95, 106, 107, 116, 126, 128, 138, 147–8.

Luther (or Melanchthon) argued for the corruptibility of the heavens in his Lectures on Gevesis 2:8; 3:17–19 (Luther's Works, ed. Pelikan, J. and Lehmann, H.T., 55 vols. [St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia Publishing House and Fortress Press, 1955–1976]Google Scholar, 1:90, 204. Calvin concurred in his commentaries on Gen. 8:22; Ps. 102:25–27; Jer. 5:25; Rom. 8:20. Cf. Schreiner, , Theater, 28–30.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 70} ‘Corruption’, in this context, means deviation from God's order or degeneration from an ideal state, not the mere fact of change which was understood by all Christian theologians to be a condition of creation. There was no problem as long as mutability was not contrasted with the perfection of the heavens in such a way as to suggest its source in the Fall. Divine providence could be seen in the balance of the forces of generation and corruption as, e.g., by Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queene VII. vii. 17–26, 49–59; Harris, All Coherence Gone, 119.

^{page 282 note 71} Harris, , All Coherence Gone, 82.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 72} John Donne, ‘An Anatomie of the World’ (1611); Goodman, , The Fall of Man (1616)Google Scholar; cf. Nicolson, , Mountain Gloom, 76, 105–106Google Scholar; Harris, , All Coherence Gone, 45–46, 124–6Google Scholar. Williamson (‘Mutability’ 133, 136–7) and Harris (All Coherence Gone, 105–7) note the effect of new astronomical discoveries already in Shakelton (1580), Lipsius (1583), and Spenser (1596).

^{page 283 note 73} Jones, , Ancients, 28Google Scholar; Winny, Frame, 21; Nicolson, Mountain Gloom, 105–6.

^{page 283 note 74} Henry Vaughan, ‘Corruption’ 9–16; cf. Nicolson, Mountain Gloom, 83; Harris, All Coherence Gone, 154.

^{page 283 note 75} Milton, , Paradise Lost X.651–714Google Scholar; idem, ‘Ode on the Nativity’. But Milton was generally more optimistic according to Nicolson, Mountain Gloom, 74, 79–80, 106–7; Harris, All Coherence Gone, 161–3; cf. Marjara, H.S., Contemplation of Created Things: Science in Paradise Lost (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1992), 71–72.Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 76} The biblical perspective on eschatology was preserved, e.g., in Browne, Thomas, Religio Medici I.45: ‘I doe beleeve the world draws neare its end, yet is neither old nor decayed, nor will ever perish upon the mines of its owne principles.’Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 77} Pace Winny (Frame 20) and others who see seventeenth-century pessimism as the result of the English Reformation itself. The Reformation did remove the solace offered by the Roman Church, but offered the alternative security of a social order reformed according to the word of God.

^{page 283 note 78} Trevor-Roper, H. R. dates the major outbreak of witch hysteria to the 1560s: The European Witch-Craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)Google Scholar. An earlier outbreak occurred in the mid-fifteenth century.

^{page 283 note 79} Harris dates this trend to the 1580s: All Coherence Gone, 109–10, 116, 126.

^{page 284 note 80} Williams, Arnold notes the separation of post-Aristotelian science and biblical exegesis in the later seventeenth century: The Common Expositor (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1948), 180, 261Google Scholar. Harris documents the assimilation of the idea of integrity by the dualistic mechanical philosophy from Hobbes to Fontanelle: All Coherence Gone, 6, 160, 167–9, 204.

^{page 284 note 81} Frankfort, H. et al. , eds., The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1946), 136–140.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 82} Albrektson, Bertil, History and the Gods (Lund: CWK Gleerup, 1967), 22–23.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 83} Texts in which the council of the gods is described include Gen. 1:26; 3:22; 11:6–7; Deut. 4:19; 32:8 (LXX, Qumran); 33:2–3; Josh. 10:12; 1 Kgs. 22:19–23; Job 1:6–12; 2:1–7; 15:8; 38:7; Pss. 2:7; 68:17–18; 82:1–7; 89:5–12; 138:1; 148:1–6; Isa. 6:1–9; 40:3–14;Jer. 23:18, 22; Dan. 7:9–14; Zech. 3:1–2, 7; 14:5; Sir. 24:1–8; 1 Enoch 1:9; 47:3; Heb. 12:22–24. Cf. Whybray, R. N., The Heavenly Counselor in Isaiah xl. 13–14 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1971), 39–53, 81–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cross, Frank Moore, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), 186–190Google Scholar; Miller, Patrick D. Jr., The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (Cambridge MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), 66–74Google Scholar; idem, Genesis 1–11: Studies in Structure and Theme (Sheffield: Univ. of Sheffield, 1978), 9–20Google Scholar; idem, ‘Creation and World Order,’ Horizons in Biblical Theology 9 (Dec. 1987), 53–78Google Scholar; Mullen, E. Theodore Jr., The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1980), 189–209, 226–38Google Scholar; Day, John, God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1985), 54–57.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 84} Cf. Deut. 4:19; Josh. 10:12; Judg. 5:20; Job 28:25–26; 38:4–39:30; Ps. 89:9; 119:91; 148:3–10; Prov. 8:27–29; Isa. 45:12;55:10–11; Jer. 5:22–24; Mullen, , Divine Council 194–197.Google Scholar

^{page 286 note 85} Neusner, trans., Genesis Rabbah, 1:49.

^{page 287 note 86} Kaiser, C. B., The Doctrine of God (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1982), 22, 49–55.Google Scholar

^{page 287 note 87} Kaiser, , The Doctrine of God, 75–81.Google Scholar

^{page 288 note 88} For the use of yasa‚ (or the Greek equivalent, ekporeuomci), see (1) Isa. 2:3–4 [ = Mic. 4:2–3]; 45:23; 55:11; Sir. 24:3, 30 for the going forth of the Word and Wisdom; (2) 1 Kgs. 22:22; Job 1:12; 2:7 for the going forth of angels; and (3) Ps. 19:5–6 (mosa‚); Bar. 3:33 (poreuomai) for the going forth of the sun and light.

For the use of shalah (or the Greek, apostello or exapostello), see (1) Pss. 43:3; 104:30; 107:20; 147:15–19; Isa. 9:8;55:11; Zech.7:12; Jdt. 16:14; Wisd. 9:10; Gal. 4:6; 1 Pet. 1:12 for the sending forth of the Word, Wisdom, or Spirit of God; (2) Exod. 23:20; Tob. 3:17; 2 macc. 11:6; Luke 1:26; Acts 12:11; Heb. 1:14 for the sending forth of angels; (3) Exod. 15:10 LXX; Bar. 3:33 for the sending forth of wind and light; and (4) Isa. 6:8; Jer. 7:25; 14:14–15; 19:14; passim; Mai. 3:1; Mark 1:2;John 1:6, for the sending forth of prophets.

^{page 289 note 89} The NRSV replaces the cosmic terms, ‘clouds’ and ‘mists’, by more anthropological ones, ‘inward parts’ and ‘mind’. I retain the original RSV reading here in accordance with the reasoning of Rowley, H. H., Job, New Century Bible (London: Oliphants, 1976), 246.Google Scholar

^{page 290 note 90} The Qumran Targum translates Job 39:27, ‘Is it by your word [Aramaic, memra] that the eagle lifts itself aloft…?’; Barker, Margaret, The Great Angel (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992), 144.Google Scholar

^{page 290 note 91} See also I Enoch 101:8, ‘Who gave the knowledge of wisdom to all those who move upon the earth and in the sea?’ and 2 Apoc. Baruch 48:9, ‘You instruct the creation with your understanding, and you give wisdom to the spheres so that they minister according to their positions’ (OTP 1:82, 636).

^{page 290 note 92} Job 38:4–39:30; Pss. 93:1–5; 96:10–12; 104:5–9; 119:89–91; Prov. 8:23–29.