Can a literal Genesis creation story really hold up?

[CMike]

But people who do take it literally (you?) have a lot of work ahead of them to explain all the scientific evidence that shows the world to be a lot older than mankind, and that the literal description given in Genesis cannot possibly be an accurate account of something that really happened.

I don't have a lot of work ahead of me. I don't have to explain anything. You either believe in G-D and the Torah or you don't.

That said:

1) Scientific evidence is sometimes wrong and often progressing. Some time ago the earth was flat, leeches were used to treat diseases, etc.

Who know what scientific evidence will show 100 or 1000 years from now

2) G-D didn't create from scratch. Therefore, measuring development doesn't necessarily work in this case.

3) There is much discussion about how long a "day" was. Some sayh a "day" may have been a thousand years.

Remember, G-D didn't need rain to create plants. Who says plants needed rain at that time?

 

[metis]

The Rambam is one commentator. His words aren't holy.

The words of the Torah are holy for Jews.

It appears that you are having some difficulty finding any source whereas the RAMBAM said that only a literal interpretation is acceptable, which is no surprise to anyone who actually has checked out what he wrote.

As far as the last sentence, no one here that I've seen has suggested that Torah isn't "holy", which is related to the word "special", and the real issue that's involved with our discussion involves interpretation.

 

[metis]

Yes, indeed, most religious people today do not take scripture literally but as teachings and allegories etc.

IMO these stories were in fact written to explain the physical world, plain and simple, and meant to be read literally. But I know that people more experienced than myself in reading scripture will disagree on that.

But I'm not sure what moral teachings or values we are supposed to extract from the 6-day creation story, or the story about Babel's tower etc., and if they are meant to have spiritual meaning instead of being a historical description of physical events, why it goes on in such detail on what God did each of the days.

Thanks for your input here.

As far as the last item, the morals and values tend to come out especially when we compare it to the Babylonian narrative on creation, which actually doesn't teach morals per se. Just a few examples:

The Babylonian text posits multiple gods, doesn't claim creation is "good", doesn't create the concept of the Sabbath, doesn't explain the nature of "sin", etc. One can find a much more detailed account in the book "Walking the Bible" by Bruce Feiler, which is from the PBS series. You can probably find much of this information on-line, but I haven't checked that out.

 

[metis]

Some may find this interesting, and the below is from the Jewish Virtual Library:

The RCA notes that significant Jewish authorities have maintained that evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not incompatible with belief in a Divine Creator, nor with the first 2 chapters of Genesis.

One can find an array of Orthodox views on the age of the universe, the age of the earth, and views on evolution, in Challenge: Torah Views on Science and Its Problems edited by Aryeh Carmell and Cyril Domb, and in Gerald Schroeder's Genesis and the Big Bang. These works attempt to reconcile traditional Jewish texts with modern scientific findings concerning evolution, the age of the earth and the age of the Universe.

Prominent Orthodox rabbis who affirm that the world is older, and that life has evolved over time, include Aryeh Kaplan, Israel Lipschitz, Sholom Mordechai Schwadron (the MaHaRSHaM), Zvi Hirsch Chajes. To be sure, these rabbis do not accept the views of atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, who hold that evolution has no room at all for God. Rather, each rabbi taking this position proposes their own understanding of theistic evolution, in which the world is older, and that life does evolve over time in accord with natural law, yet also holding that God has a role in this process.

One of the most prominent writers on this subject in the Orthodox Jewish community is Gerald Schroeder, an Israeli physicist. He has written a number of articles and popular books attempting to reconcile Jewish theology with modern scientific findings that the world is billions of years old and that life has evolved over time. (Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony Between Modern Science and the Bible) His work has received approbations from a number of Orthodox rabbinic authorities.

Some of Orthodox Judaism offers significant resistance to the idea of evolution, with many Orthodox rabbis developing rejections of evolution that exactly paralleled the rejections in the Christian community. Orthodox Jews who reject evolution held that the scientists were mistaken, were heretics, or were being deliberately misled by God.

As recently as 2005, Rabbi Natan Slifkin, popularly known as the "zoo rabbi", for his writings about animals in Jewish thought, had his books about animals and evolution banned. -- Judaism and Evolution

 

[Thief]

I don't have a lot of work ahead of me. I don't have to explain anything. You either believe in G-D and the Torah or you don't.

That said:

1) Scientific evidence is sometimes wrong and often progressing. Some time ago the earth was flat, leeches were used to treat diseases, etc.

Who know what scientific evidence will show 100 or 1000 years from now

2) G-D didn't create from scratch. Therefore, measuring development doesn't necessarily work in this case.

3) There is much discussion about how long a "day" was. Some sayh a "day" may have been a thousand years.

Remember, G-D didn't need rain to create plants. Who says plants needed rain at that time?

Science will find it's way.
I believe in God because of science.

In the beginning.....what?
Didn't see any speech about God saying......'I AM!'

'...and they that understand will know whose law this is...'

Plant life as we know it?
or plant life in water?

 

[CMike]

It appears that you are having some difficulty finding any source whereas the RAMBAM said that only a literal interpretation is acceptable, which is no surprise to anyone who actually has checked out what he wrote.

As far as the last sentence, no one here that I've seen has suggested that Torah isn't "holy", which is related to the word "special", and the real issue that's involved with our discussion involves interpretation.

It doesn't matter to me.

This is about the Torah, not about one commentator.

Yes, according to traditional judaism, there was a flood; Adam, Eve, and the serpent did exist, all the stories were literally true.

 

[CMike]

Science will find it's way.
I believe in God because of science.

In the beginning.....what?
Didn't see any speech about God saying......'I AM!'

'...and they that understand will know whose law this is...'

Plant life as we know it?
or plant life in water?

What's the point about "I AM"?

 

[Thief]

It doesn't matter to me.

This is about the Torah, not about one commentator.

Yes, according to traditional judaism, there was a flood; Adam, Eve, and the serpent did exist, all the stories were literally true.

It's not about a particular faith.

 

[metis]

It doesn't matter to me.

This is about the Torah, not about one commentator.

Yes, according to traditional judaism, there was a flood; Adam, Eve, and the serpent did exist, all the stories were literally true.

It's interesting that you can't quite get to the point of admitting that you were wrong about the RAMBAM, but I'll take the above as sort of an acknowledgement of that and move on.

Take a look at my last post that cites the Jewish Virtual Library, which shows that actually a great many Orthodox simply do not at all share your literalistic approach. Also, just a reminder that the value of the creation accounts has really nothing to do with science or history, but a lot to do with the teaching of morals and values as the creation narratives continue on through the Noah narrative and more. Insisting on literalism actually can take away from focusing on really what's important here because the importance here really should be on what does this leave us with that can affect our beliefs and behavior today.

 

[greentwiga]

So...Man as a species?.....Chapter One
Adam as a chosen son of God?.....Chapter Two

That would make sense. God set Adam and Eve apart like he did with Abraham. The statement about Adam being made alive has many similarities to the Christian concept of becoming spiritually alive.

The quote about one day being like a thousand years has been used, in part. There is also another idea few use. First the quote is thousand years is like one day or a watch in the night. One day is like 1,000 years or 6,000 years. deliberately made not exact.

The quote not used is Gen 2:4. It says that this is the generations of the heavens and earth in the day that they were made. Though it uses a formulaic form, it indicates that some unknown number of generations passed between the creation of the heavens and the account of Adam and Eve. It also states that it is in one day. A time period that lasted the six days of Gen 1. This indicates that "day" is not 24 hours.

Because generations passed from Adam in Ch 1 and Adam in Ch 2, I can see Adam of Ch 1 being the creation of mankind the species in East Africa or South Africa, or wherever scientists determine.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

That would make sense. God set Adam and Eve apart like he did with Abraham. The statement about Adam being made alive has many similarities to the Christian concept of becoming spiritually alive.

The quote about one day being like a thousand years has been used, in part. There is also another idea few use. First the quote is thousand years is like one day or a watch in the night. One day is like 1,000 years or 6,000 years. deliberately made not exact.

The quote not used is Gen 2:4. It says that this is the generations of the heavens and earth in the day that they were made. Though it uses a formulaic form, it indicates that some unknown number of generations passed between the creation of the heavens and the account of Adam and Eve. It also states that it is in one day. A time period that lasted the six days of Gen 1. This indicates that "day" is not 24 hours.

Because generations passed from Adam in Ch 1 and Adam in Ch 2, I can see Adam of Ch 1 being the creation of mankind the species in East Africa or South Africa, or wherever scientists determine.

Or it's two different stories?

 

[greentwiga]

There is still the problem of plant life appearing one day before the Sun and the Moon were created. We KNOW that the Sun and the Moon formed long before the first plant life appeared.

I don't have much to say about Gen 1. The terms are so vague that it can be made to say many different things. For example, Why do day 1 and day 4 both deal with the heavens, day 2 and day 5 deal with the waters, and day 3 and day 6 deal with the land? One can claim that the heavens and earth were created on day one or on day 4. At the moment, all I can say is God is teaching that all these things that the polytheists worshiped, are clearly created things.

There is just not enough info. In the story of Eden, there is enough to say that this is a factual event, clearly describing the time and location that wheat was domesticated, in addition to teaching its spiritual lessons.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

I don't have a lot of work ahead of me. I don't have to explain anything. You either believe in G-D and the Torah or you don't.

That said:

1) Scientific evidence is sometimes wrong and often progressing. Some time ago the earth was flat, leeches were used to treat diseases, etc.

Who know what scientific evidence will show 100 or 1000 years from now

2) G-D didn't create from scratch. Therefore, measuring development doesn't necessarily work in this case.

3) There is much discussion about how long a "day" was. Some sayh a "day" may have been a thousand years.

Remember, G-D didn't need rain to create plants. Who says plants needed rain at that time?

None of those you mentioned had anything to do with science though...science as we know it now has been rather relative new creation.

 

[metis]

There's a midrash that has it that what we read in the creation accounts was not the first creation but actually the seventh, whereas the previous creations not being entirely destroyed. I was at a Lubavitch seminar on creation/evolution whereas they mentioned this as a possibility, which also may explain where Cain's wife came from, in their opinion. A part of this theory has it that the individuals from previous creations didn't have a soul (nashama), thus making the flood eventually necessary because of the amount of evil from this intermarriage.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

There's a midrash that has it that what we read in the creation accounts was not the first creation but actually the seventh, whereas the previous creations not being entirely destroyed. I was at a Lubavitch seminar on creation/evolution whereas they mentioned this as a possibility, which also may explain where Cain's wife came from, in their opinion. A part of this theory has it that the individuals from previous creations didn't have a soul (nashama), thus making the flood eventually necessary because of the amount of evil from this intermarriage.

Humanity has gone through several bottleneck periods I think the last one dropped us down to about 40,000 members. Who knows how much more diverse we would have been if that hadn't happen lol

 

[metis]

Humanity has gone through several bottleneck periods I think the last one dropped us down to about 40,000 members. Who knows how much more diverse we would have been if that hadn't happen lol

I think one of my early soulless ancestors at the time of Noah was very able to tread water, which may explain my behavior.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

I think one of my early soulless ancestors at the time of Noah was very able to tread water, which may explain my behavior.

I wonder how neatherdals are accounted for by genesis?

 

[metis]

I wonder how neatherdals are accounted for by genesis?

Or Homo erectus, or Australopithecus, or...

 

[Ouroboros]

1) Scientific evidence is sometimes wrong and often progressing. Some time ago the earth was flat, leeches were used to treat diseases, etc.

Who know what scientific evidence will show 100 or 1000 years from now

So is it possible that science will discover that the Earth was flat after all in 1,000 years and the whole spherical Earth revolving around the Sun in a galaxy in a universe shared with hundreds of billions of galaxies were all just wrong?

3) There is much discussion about how long a "day" was. Some sayh a "day" may have been a thousand years.

How does that work with a "literal" understanding? Is the word literally not the word "day" there? If it means 1,000 years, isn't that using the word in a figurative way rather than literal? Besides, even 1,000 years for a day isn't enough to match the epochs nature is showing us. It would rather be "day" as in millions and billions of years.

Remember, G-D didn't need rain to create plants. Who says plants needed rain at that time?

Because that's how they work. If they didn't need rain or sun, then their genetic makeup and basic design must've been different which means that God had to create them anew and modify their physical design after there was rain. It would require macro-evolution guided by God. So then macro-evolution is acceptable after all as a tool in God's hands?

 

[CG Didymus]

I think one of my early soulless ancestors at the time of Noah was very able to tread water, which may explain my behavior.

If anybody could have survived why not one of the nephilim? Like on an iceberg or driftwood? Or hanging on to the back of the ark?