The origin of new creation in the Old Testament

The words new creation do not appear anywhere in the Old Testament85 and yet scholars freely refer to a whole body of OT texts as ‘new creation texts’.

OT Scriptures which constitute the body of texts from which scholars have drawn in this regard are almost exclusively from Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and while scholars cover much common ground, each also approaches their analysis according to their own particular objectives.86

Isaiah:

I focus upon Isaiah for the very simple reason that it is generally accepted that Paul’s new creation text in Second Corinthians includes direct allusions to a number of passages in that great book.

2 Cor 5:17

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! NRSV

The first echo from 2 Cor 5:17 is to the Exodus as creation in Is 43:15-19

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I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.

85 _{Jackson 2010: 17.}

86 _{Examples: Owens groups his chosen texts as follows: Is 40:1-11; Is 43: 6-21; Is 52:7-12; Is 57:14-21; Is} 65.17-25; Is 66:18-24; Jer 30-31, 33; Jer 31:31-34; Ez 36-37; Ez 40-48; and Ez 47. Owens 2012: 18-68. Hubbard addresses the Isaiah texts as two groups, Is 40-Is 55 and Is 65 and Is 66, and has Jeremiah and Ezekiel texts not unlike those of Owens. Hubbard 2002: Chapter 2.

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Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17

who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:

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Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

As described by Hubbard, the old here in Is 43 is the original Exodus (envisaged as the original creation of Israel) and the new is the redemption of Israel, the impending return from exile in which Israel is re-created by means of new redemptive act.87 Adding,

…the author is also implicitly announcing “a new ‘creation’ of Yahweh’s people.” God’s new act of redemption (the new exodus), is described in terms of the

re-creation of his people and, again, Bernhard Anderson states the issue well: “Second Isaiah understands the ‘New Exodus of salvation’ to be a new creation, comparable to the event of the creation of Israel in the first Exodus...The New Exodus will be the climax of Yahweh’s work and, in a profound sense, something never heard of before.”88

Locating this Is 43 passage right at the centre of the broader ‘new Exodus’ motif in Isaiah 40-55,89 Hubbard says that “The paradigmatic function of the exodus narrative is admirably illustrated by 43:15–21, described by Kiesow in his study of this theme as the ‘Kernstelle’ of the exodus motif in Isaiah 40–55. This passage offers the closest parallel to Paul’s allusion in 2 Corinthians 5:17.”90

The second echo from 2 Cor 5:17 also contrasts former things with new, but this time the contrast is to a creation of a very different kind as promised in Isaiah 65 and 66.

87

Hubbard 2002: 14. Therein he also quotes B. Anderson 1987 “for Second Isaiah the time of Israel’s creation

was the time of the Exodus. When he thinks of Yahweh as the creator of Israel he calls to mind the events of Heilsgeschichte, especially the great miracle of the sea.”

88 _{Ibid, 15}

89 _{Referencing Stuhlmueller 1970 and Anderson 1987 for lexical statistics, Hubbard claims that Isaiah 40-55} contains the highest concentration of creation language in the entre Bible. Ibid, 12.

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Is 65:17-18 17

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.

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But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy

Is 66:22 22

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me, says the Lord; so shall your descendants and your name remain.

If the Isaiah 43 text spoke of anthropological renewal, then the majority91 of scholars support Hubbard and others in identifying Is 65-66 as the classic expression of cosmic new creation in the biblical tradition. Some scholars, such as Russell, opt to see both

anthropological and cosmological characteristics in Is 65-66,92 while Owens sees anthropological, cosmological and ecclesiological characteristics in most of these OT

Scriptures. The latter goes into considerable detail in the exegesis of these passages but I read his results often as inferences rather than as conclusive as he expresses them.93

Jeremiah [Jer 31:31-34] and Ezekiel:94

Each of these prophets brings out characteristics which will feature significantly in the understanding of the New Testament creation texts, namely the distinction between interior life and external observance. Jeremiah’s new covenant goes as far as to declare circumcision itself irrelevant (Jer 9:25-26) while Ezekiel brings out the juxtaposition between new

spirit/heart and hardness of heart (Ez 11:19-20; 36:26-27). Both prophets also introduce the element of everlasting/eternal into the future envisaged creation95 – a factor of particular importance to this present thesis.

91 _{Hubbard 2002: 16.}

92 _{Russell 1996: 75 FN 110. “The antithetical formula ‘heavens and earth’ as in Gen. 1.1 is a widespread}

phenomenon in the ancient Near East denoting the totality of the universe.” [and Russell adds some further

supporting references].

93 _{Owens 2012: 40 on Is 43:16-21: “[Thus], Isaiah’s account of the new exodus in Isa 43:16–21 is replete with}

cosmological undertones, which calls into question any attempt to exclude such notions from the depiction of new creation in the Pauline corpus.”

94 _{Hubbard 2002: 23-25, treats these together, and while Owens addresses them separately he also acknowledges} the very closer parallels between them, Owens 2012: 70-89.

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