Deconstructing Creation

While many prophetic texts display human actions as echoing into the non-human world, Hos 4:3 and Zeph 1:2–3 uniquely do so by reversing the order of creation as found in Gen 1:1–2:3. Both texts literarily deconstruct creation as part of larger paradigms of judgment. Whereas Hosea presents human action (i.e., repentance) as capable of averting the coming crisis, humans are powerless to halt the unraveling of creation in Zephaniah. This shift in the relationship between human agency and creation’s destruction parallels modern ecological concerns, as human actions increasingly stress natural earth systems, threatening to trigger environmental feedback loops (or “tipping points”) that will take the trajectory of climate change out of human control. The following article offers an ecocritical reading of Hos 4:3 and Zeph 1:2–3 in dialogue with the shifting function of human agency in modern calls for human change in response to the climate crisis

Ecocriticism · Parallels · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Development, Ethics, and Society · Religion, Ecology, and Ethics