Local flood? Don't make me laugh

Some people, even some intelligent people, insist that the story of Noach is scientifically compatible with a small, local flood. Many small floods happen all the time all over the planet, and these people claim that the flood of Noach was some small flood that happened in Mesopotamia 5000 years ago or thereabouts. Of course the surrounding countryside and population was fine, and presumably all the people at the edges of the flood zone survived, but one man in the middle of the flood zone (Noach) was miraculously saved in a boat, with a few animals.

Some also claim that the flood covered the entire area of population at that time, and thats why the Bible says 'all the earth'. However we know the flood didn't cover Egypt, which was certainly well populated at that time. And furthermore, the people in Mesopotamia would have been well aware of what happened in Egypt, as the biblical stories make clear. There were trade routes and traders travelling all round the region. So certainly no one would have been under the impression that 'all of civilization had been destroyed' had a flood just happened in Mesopotamia.

Apart from the fact that this is not how the story was traditionally read, or that this almost completely kills the drama and intent of the whole story, it doesn't fit with the text anyway. Here is the story of Noach. I have bolded the relevant words. How anyone can claim this story is describing a local flood is beyond me. Ness/Nissayon is almost more believable than that.

Genesis 6

1 And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 And God saw the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. 13 And God said unto Noah: 'The end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; with rooms shalt thou make the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. 16 A light shalt thou make to the ark, and to a cubit shalt thou finish it upward; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. 17 And I, behold, I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; every thing that is in the earth shall perish. 18 But I will establish My covenant with thee; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' wives with thee. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. 20 Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 21 And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.' 22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

Genesis 7

1 And the LORD said unto Noah: 'Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this generation. 2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, each with his mate; and of the beasts that are not clean two [and two], each with his mate; 3 of the fowl also of the air, seven and seven, male and female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I blot out from off the face of the earth.' 5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him. 6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth. 7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the ground, 9 there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah. 10 And it came to pass after the seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. 12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; 14 they, and every beast after its kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after its kind, and every fowl after its kind, every bird of every sort. 15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. 16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God commanded him; and the LORD shut him in. 17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. 18 And the waters prevailed, and increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high mountains that were under the whole heaven were covered. 20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. 21 And all flesh perished that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and beast, and every swarming thing that swarmeth upon the earth, and every man; 22 all in whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life, whatsoever was in the dry land, died. 23 And He blotted out every living substance which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and creeping thing, and fowl of the heaven; and they were blotted out from the earth; and Noah only was left, and they that were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days.

Genesis 8

1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that were with him in the ark; and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; 2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually; and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. 6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 7 And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark. 10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 11 And the dove came in to him at eventide; and lo in her mouth an olive-leaf freshly plucked; so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth. 12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more. 13 And it came to pass in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth; and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dried. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dry. 15 And God spoke unto Noah, saying: 16 'Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee. 17 Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both fowl, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; that they may swarm in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply upon the earth.' 18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him; 19 every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, whatsoever moveth upon the earth, after their families; went forth out of the ark. 20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. 21 And the LORD smelled the sweet savour; and the LORD said in His heart: 'I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. 22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'

Genesis 9

1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them: 'Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. 2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all wherewith the ground teemeth, and upon all the fishes of the sea: into your hand are they delivered. 3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be for food for you; as the green herb have I given you all. 4 Only flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. 5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. 6 Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man. 7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; swarm in the earth, and multiply therein.' 8 And God spoke unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying: 9 'As for Me, behold, I establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10 and with every living creature that is with you, the fowl, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you; of all that go out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 11 And I will establish My covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of the flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.' 12 And God said: 'This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow is seen in the cloud, 15 that I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.' 17 And God said unto Noah: 'This is the token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth.'

18 And the sons of Noah, that went forth from the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth; and Ham is the father of Canaan. 19 These three were the sons of Noah, and of these was the whole earth overspread. 20 And Noah the husbandman began, and planted a vineyard. 21 And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he was uncovered within his tent. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. 23 And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. 24 And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his youngest son had done unto him. 25 And he said: Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. 26 And he said: Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be their servant. 27 God enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be their servant. 28 And Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. 29 And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years; and he died.

Nuts on Bechofer's Blog

I couldn't believe this comment from some anonymous commenter on RYG Bechofers blog to 'Saul', who presented some reasonable arguments about Egyptian chronology and the Mabul:

Saul, you talk of mabul as moshol. Our entire plane of existence is only moshol. You and I certainly are only moshol as nothing exists except Hashem. The form of revelation given to "us" is a guide to apprehension of Emes - in particular Ichud Hashem. Your search is all in the wrong direction.

And please do not think that a "frum egyptologist" could ever prove anything about the truth of Mabul or Mitzrayim, which are truths regardless of papyri - regardless of video, if you could produce some - it only proves something about you.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes: I accept the mesorah as superior to my own senses and judgments.

Saul writes: "In case it is unclear, I am not arguing that the Torah is wrong. I am simply trying to encourage a proper interpretation of the Torah." What is clear to everyone besides you, Saul, is that you are arguing that the Torah has to fit the conclusions of other disciplines - history, science, whatever. But the Torah does not have to and never will. You think that you honor Torah by struggling to find a way to make it reasonable for you - but you are not honoring Torah, you are dishonoring it - you are honoring yourself, your intellect, your reason.

Saul writes: "They are following their own eyes and sense. Some of these people actually work in these fields and see the evidence for themselves. They do not have to hear it from others. You are telling them that they cannot believe what they see." Yes - that is precisely what I am telling them. Woe to those who have been misled by modern day school education or by "kiruv" - do you not know that the nature of our belief is to know that the Emes lies in our Mesorah and not in what you see? V'lo sossuru acharei levavchem v'acharei aneichem asher atem zonim achareihem. Saul, Saul - just sacrifice the ego of your own infallibility, relinquish your death grasp on your intellect, embrace emunoh.

I promise you: the observable world will always appear to be in conflict with Torah - v'idach peirusha.

The mind boggles.

Good Noach Kashye

[Hat tip: S]

Saul Shanjfeld asks RYGB, concerning a literal understanding of the Noach story:

And how did Noach's sons, who knew how to make metal, read and write literature, evolve into illiterate bushmen with bones through their noses who beat on tree stumps?

The answer is poshut! When everyone magically flew through the air to the various regions of the world after the Tower of Bavel incident, the tremendous air pressure and g-forces caused them to forget everything they once knew, and they turned into ignorant bushmen. Or maybe it was kinda like a Blue Lagoon or Castaway situation - one or two people got sent to a remote location and they didn't have the smarts to pass on reading or writing to their kids. Or maybe they had kids but then they died shortly after that and so the kids were not educated. Or maybe the kids were the ones who were transported to the remote locations, and then they didn't have the education to begin with. See, it's not such a kashye at all! Either that, or it was a nes that Hashem specifically created to test our emunah.

And if you believe any of that, you need your head examined.

What The Gosse-Goons Don't Realize

Here is a short list of serious problems with Gosse Theory i.e. That the world was created looking old. (Note that Gosses original theory that the world was created in a mature state isn't enough to answer the kashyes on Breishis, it needs to be supplemented by a whole bunch of weird miracles to make it work.)

1. It requires us to believe that G-d planted huge amounts of fake evidence.
2. It doesn’t actually fit with the text of Breishis anyway.
3. It doesn’t answer many of the questions regarding the Mabul, Migdal Bavel etc, or why the order of Creation is wrong.
4. It has no real basis in the Mesorah, and in fact the notion of G-d deceiving us in such a way runs counter to normative Judaism (Navi Sheker is different).
5. It kills any chance of rationally proving Sinai, since the nesayon theory can trump Sinai too.
6. It raises serious philosophical questions regarding rationality and reality, and makes rational reasoning very suspect, if not impossible.
7. It says, G-d would never lie to us in the Torah, but totally faked us out with his Creation, yet we know for a fact that only He was responsible for the Creation, yet there are many other plausible explanations for the Torah (e.g. Non Literal). In effect, you are more comfortable saying that G-d is a faker than saying that the fundamentalists are wrong. Weird priorities.
8. It will make me ridicule you mercilessly.

The problem with Gosse is not just that it makes G-d to be a faker (though that is bad enough). The problem is that it's an entirely arbitrary, unprovable solution, specifically invented to answer a contradiction, using the kind of reasoning that can be used to resolve any contradiction, at any time, ever. I can just as well use Gosse type reasoning to prove that Sinai didn't happen, or that Zoboomafoo is really our creator.

In other words, it's worthless.

Pottery & Paintings

[Artwork courtesy of Hakodosh Boruch Hu]


Let's talk about pottery and paintings. There are many different pottery and painting styles from all over the world, and from many different eras. Australian aboriginal art is quite unique for example.

According to Gosse, Gosseleib and Gosse Student, any pottery and paintings pre 5766 are fakes, planted by G-d in the newly created world to make it appear old, presumably to test us. Any pottery and paintings post 5766 are real.

But wait a minute, the Torah recounts how the dispersion only occurred after the Migdal Bavel incident. So any pottery from say 5766-4766 years ago in Australia must also be fake. Did G-d create that fake pottery at the moment of creation? Or maybe later? I guess at the moment of creation, but it was faked to look younger.

But, isn't it strange that the real Aboriginal pottery which came later exactly matches the style of G-d's fake pottery which was buried in the ground from before? I guess G-d with His foreknowledge knew what style the Aboriginees would pick and davkah planted the appropriate pots in the right places. Or maybe the Aboriginees dug up the old pottery and copied the styles?

This means that not only is G-d in the business of dictating books, but also He designs pottery and paintings! I like the paintings in the caves in France, some very nice brushwork there.

And what about the global flood, for which there is evidence it never happened? I guess G-d cleaned up all the evidence, another ness of course. This one isn't really Gosse theory, but you need it all the same. Why would G-d make it look like the Mabul never happened? To test us of course! It all fits like a glove. Or maybe a straight-jacket.

And what about all the ancient civilizations which show continuous evidence of being around for 8,000 years or more? Were they created with false memories of history? Many of them only got their start after the Migdal Bavel, and certainly only after the Mabul. How did Noach's new descendants who branched out after the flood pick up all the pieces of the earlier destroyed civilizations and re-create them in the correct image? Thats a pretty cool trick. Those migdal-bavelians who were magically flown to the Americas successfully re-created Native American culture. Likewise those migdal-bavelians who were magically flown to Australia. How did they know what to do? I guess they dug up all the fake stuff and tried their best.

Oy vey. I am starting to sound like one of those skeptics. Do you see, all you Gosse-Goons, see what effect your insanity has?

Gosse Student

Oy Vey!

R Gil Student has clearly lost his mind. Maybe it was me tagging him as Conservative Chareidi in my previous post that did him in.

R Gil says (regarding Gosse):

Does this contradict the way God is supposed to work? I don't know. My general response is simply "Could be." Can the world have been created looking old? Could be. Would God make this elaborate fake-out to fool us into thinking the world is older than it really is? Could be. Hey, I don't claim to know how God works.

To which the only rational response is:

Does this contradict the way Zoboomafoo is supposed to work? I don't know. My general response is simply "Could be." Can the world have been created with fake evidence of Sinai? Could be. Would Zoboomafoo make this elaborate fake-out to fool us into thinking that Judaism is real? Could be. Hey, I don't claim to know how Zoboomafoo works!

R Gil, I like you, so listen up and listen well.

You cannot throw rational thought away with such wild abandon like that. It's insane. You cannot just create arbitrary theories to explain away contradictions. You undermine the basis for everything once you start doing that. Even the Gedolim have not endorsed Gosse. There is no mekkor ANYWHERE in traditional Judaism for the idea of G-d creating fake evidence.

Maybe you could find some support for the idea of the World being created at a certain age, like Adam. But certainly not for fake cave paintings, or clean up of a global flood. That's nuts. Gosse is not only insane, but a distortion of traditional Jewish values too. So maybe the mythology peshat is not so traditional either, but at least it's not insane.

Once you discard evidence for non rational arbitrary theories, there is no more room for rational discourse. I could make up anything at all and say 'Could be, could be'. Well anything could be, even the holy Zoboomafoo.

The point is NOT what 'could be'. The point is, 'What is most likely to be'.

Why Gosseleib doesn’t work

I’m not sure everyone gets why Gosseleib is so wrong. Let me try and explain one more time.

Gosseleib starts from a position that he can convince any reasonable person of the truths of Judaism. He has a long, well researched essay where he shows that given the evidence of the claim of Sinai, plus the history of the Jewish people, any reasonable person will conclude that the Sinai claim is the most reasonable hypothesis.

In other words, his methodology is that a reasonable person, looking at reasonable evidence, will reasonably conclude that the evidence is good.

Yet, when it comes to Scientific evidence, which at the very least is certainly as strong as the evidence for Sinai, and really anyone reasonable will agree it is significantly stronger than the evidence for Sinai, suddenly he claims that’s no evidence, because its trumped by a literal reading of Breishis. So he invents this ‘Nes-Nisayon’ theory (or rather copies it from a Christian. I assure you that this theory has NO solid source in traditional Judaism).

So really, what we have is two sets of conflicting evidence. One set, for Sinai, and one set for Science. Reconciliationists like me do not find these two sets to be in conflict, and we can come up with some reasonable answers. But according to Gosseleib, it’s impossible that both sets are actually true. So he trumps Science with Sinai, and comes up with his wacky peshat that the scientific evidence is all fakery.

But if we can discount the very reasonable scientific evidence as fakery, in order to preserve the Torah, why not discount the Torah as fakery, to preserve the Science? If anything, that is a much more reasonable approach, since the Scientific evidence is so much stronger. And you can’t claim that the Torah must be true, because that’s the very thing he sets out to prove in the first place!

It makes no sense, and a supposed ‘logician’ as he claims to be should be ashamed to spout such nonsense. I still maintain that he’s just not that stupid, so it’s a shame that the power of the extremists is so strong, and his moral fiber so weak, that he caved in. It’s really quite pathetic, and a rather sad reflection on the state of things today in the frum world.

How can we answer the claims of the skeptics and disaffected BT’s when some of the supposed Kiruv Experts show themselves to be so foolish? What a bizzayon. Not only have I lost confidence in the Gedolim, but also in the ‘stars’ of the Kiruv Industry.

Is there no one out there with any sechel? (and still frum?)

Gosseleib

Gottleib has a long article on why its rational to believe in Sinai. He brings all sorts of rational proofs about how it couldn't have been made up. It's somewhat convincing and well presented. But now I see that when it comes to Breishis & Science, all of a sudden the whole thing is a miracle. This is an extremely non-rational approach.

So why believe in Torah? Maybe some other diety, lets call him Zoboomafoo, davkah created false evidence that the Torah was given on Sinai, as a nisayon to believe in him? Is there any difference between these two claims? Lets say that Zoboomafoo has engineered most of history as one gigantic nisayon. Whose to say otherwise?

Once you succumb to this kind of insane, non-rational reasoning all bets are off. There is no more capacity for logical thought, or rationally proving anything. Maybe all the Gedolim are one big nisayon from Zoboomafoo? Maybe the Torah is a nisayon? Maybe we were all created yesterday? Everything becomes one crazy game of justifying impossible beliefs. I cannot believe that Gottleib is that stupid. He surely realizes this. I can only conclude that he is an intellectually dishonest coward, who has given into pressure from the Gedolim and the Kannoim.

A very sad day for Judaism, for Kiruv, and for Gottleib himself.

Gottleib endorses Gosse!

WARNING: Emunah Threat

[I'm really dissapointed in R Dovid Gottleib. I have been having a correspondence with 'Mark', a friend of his, and he was almost to the point of convincing me that Gottleib was a sensible guy. Then I saw this bunch of nonsense, where Gottleib endorses Gosse Theory (Ness/Nissayon).]

THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE
The age of the the universe according to science is approximately 13 billion years; the Jewish date is 5755 years since Creation. There is a direct solution to this “contradiction”. The real age of the universe is 5755 years, but that it has misleading evidence of greater age. The bones, artifacts, partially decayed radium, potassium-argon, uranium, the red-shifted light from space, etc. - all of it points to a greater age which nevertheless is not true. G-d put these things in the universe and they lead many to the false conclusion of a much greater age.

Let's first understand that G-d certainly can do this if He wishes. There is no logical impossibility in imagining such indicators of false age. Furthermore, something like this is part of the naive understanding of Genesis. Adam was created as an adult. Observing him a few minutes after he was created, we would assume him to be at least twenty years old: he was created with misleading symptoms of greater age than he possessed. The trees created in the Garden of Eden presumably had tree rings. Tree rings usually indicate the age of the tree, but in this case the rings are misleading evidence of age the trees did not possess. So the idea is not inherently absurd.

The usual response to this idea is: "Why would G-d do that? Why would He want to mislead us in that way?" Now strictly speaking we don't have to answer that question. Knowing why G-d would do it is not a prerequisite to asserting that He did it. Often we don't know why people do various things; that does not lead us to doubt that they did them! Nevertheless, even though we don't need to answer the question, we can. Briefly, the purpose of the physical world is to hide G-d's presence so that we can exercise free will. In fact, the Hebrew word for "world" - olam - means "hiding". So evidence which hides the true age of the universe since Creation would be part of the general policy of hiding G-d's presence.

Some people [GH: Me!!!!] are surprised by the idea that G-d would create evidence that would mislead people. Perhaps He will not give us overwhelming evidence of the truth, they think, but He would not create evidence that will lead to false beliefs. But this is a mistake. First – not having enough evidence of the truth can also lead to false beliefs. Second, G-d’s constant providence is hidden by the appearance of nature. The world looks as if it runs blindly, automatically. The truth is that events are guided by G-d. The appearance of nature leads us to miss this truth.

Of course, G-d does not condemn us to ignorance. He TELLS US the truth! And the same holds for the age of the universe. The misleading physical evidence leads to the false belief in billions of years. He reveals to us that this conclusion is wrong. [GH: This is insane]. A more sophisticated objection to the second solution is this. Can we not defend any arbitrarily chosen age for the universe by this logic? If we said the universe is 50,000, or 500,000, or 5,000,000 years old, we could always say that the evidence of greater age was due to misleading evidence put there by G-d! Doesn't this trivialize the whole project? It means that there is no objective standard at all for deciding how old the universe is!

The answer to this objection is as follows. Indeed, if we were to use this logic without any limits, it would trivialize all investigation in the age of the universe. But we are suggesting that it be used to resolve a contradiction between two generally reliable sources of information. Under these conditions it is wholly appropriate. I will give you an analogy. Suppose George is accused of murder, and we have his fingerprints at the scene of the crime, the murder weapon at his premises, and he has a motive. Suppose the only argument put forward by the defense is that George is being framed. That will surely not be taken seriously. To take it seriously would undermine almost all attempts to convict, since almost always it is possible that the defendant is being framed. But now suppose we have a witness who claims to have seen George 100 miles from the crime at the time when it occurred. Now we have a contradiction in the evidence. Now it surely would be appropriate to suggest the possibility of a frame-up and to investigate that possibility. After all, frame-ups do sometimes happen. Our case is strictly parallel. To suggest that G-d hid the true age in defense of any arbitrarily chosen age is wrong. But to use that suggestion to solve a contradiction in the evidence is perfectly appropriate.

Of course, this solution assumes that the Jewish tradition does have enough evidence to be regarded as generally reliable. I believe that this is true, but defending it requires a much larger effort. [See for example my Living Up to the Truth, at http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/publications.htm.] In the mean time, given that premise, the analogy with prosecuting crime holds. Therefore it seems to me that this second solution is perfectly adequate to reconcile the two ages of the universe: the Jewish date gives the real age, while the scientific estimate is the result of reading misleading evidence.

[GH: I have lost all respect for him. If someone so respected in Kiruv can be so foolish, what does that say? Further damage to my emunah in these people.]

Was Noach a real person?

People often come to me and say ‘Hey Godol, do you believe there was a flood?’, and I say ‘Of course I do!’, and they walk away happy. What I don’t tell them is that the flood in question ruined my basement and I had to replace all the carpets. I considered the idea of trying to find a carpet guy called Noah, but this proved too difficult, plus the lady at Carpet Depot thought I was a bit strange.

There are literally hundreds of flood stories (myths) from many different cultures around the world. Here is a compilation. On hearing this, a typical fundamentalist response is 'See, Noach must be true! All these other stories confirm it'. However a global flood is pretty much impossible according to Science. Of course it could all have been a ness, except that the evidence shows it never happened. Of course maybe the ness also included cleaning up all the evidence afterwards too, but then that starts to get a little wierd. Hayim claims that maybe the flood water was magic water which left no mess. A mess-less ness! Could be, could be.

(Here are some difficulties with the concept of a global flood.)

Some people claim the flood was local to Mesopotamia, and when the Chumash repeatedly says 'all' (all the earth, all the heavens, all the animals etc) it just means 'all the local'. This is possible, but then what's the point of the story? A guy survives a small local flood on a boat with some animals. People on the edge of the flood were not affected, and while it might have been a big deal for that one guy, it certainly wasn't for the rest of the world. That doesn't really fit with the story, and you really have to stretch and kvetch a lot.

Another approach is Cassuto/Sarna, which I termed Myth Moshol. Flood mythology was very prevalent in the ancient near east, and the Israelites would certainly have been aware of it. However rather than accepting the Sumerian mythology of Utnapishtim, Gilgamesh or whatever, where the gods bring the flood because people were getting too noisy, the Torah turns the flood story into an ethical monotheistic morality story.

According to this, it turns out that Noach wasn't too real. This is upsetting to many people (me too), because we like Noach, even more than Adam. Also, it is jarring, since the Torah records some specific details about Noach's life and progeny, and accepting it as mythology makes the Torah look a little suspect.

Ultimately, there is no really satisfying answer to this problem (from an Orthodox perspective, if you are not Orthodox, it's not a question). I suppose I can sympathize with Rav Mattisyahu Solomon, who claimed we should all just say Taiku and wait for Moshiach. Meanwhile the flood story continues to inspire countless generations including mine, and at the last count we have the following:

• Flood themed crib set
• Noahs Ark painting
• Flood wallpaper border
• TevahTzedakah Box
• Tevah Menorah
• Fisher Price Noah's Ark Set

So what do I really think? I think there was cdertainly some major flood in Mesopotamia, probably about 8000 years ago. It's possible that there was a guy called Noach on a boat with a bunch of animals, who was saved miraculously. But somehow I doubt it. Still, believing in Noach is not one of the ikkarim, and saying that Noach was mythical is certainly NOT kefirah, contrary to the lunatic rantings of people like ZooShoteh (keshmo ken hu) and FKM (Freaking Kiruv Maniac).

Warning: Category 5 Emunah ThreatReconciling Breishis with Science is good, clean fun. It doesn’t rea

The idiots on Avodah can't seem to give up their Bittul Torah discussion on Evolution and the age of the Universe. This weeks prime offender is Simcha Coffer, the guy just doesn't give up, which is a shame, since the position he is not giving up is a moronic one. Here is a great quote from Coffer, clearly showing his lunatic opinions:

If you're going to contradict the scientists, you may as well go the whole way (i.e. the correct way IMO) and say that in truth they really have no evidence at all. Once you come to this realization, the necessity of reconciling vast periods of time with [Maase Breishit] becomes obsolete.

But some blame must go to Micha Berger too, for actually engaging this guy in serious discussion. Micha, is there really any point? Don't you have anything better to do? Don't you realize that Coffer (and Ostroff) are crazy fundamentalists? They are not interested in reason. They have their pre-formed ideological opinions and all the evidence in the world is not going to change their minds. Arguing with these fools is like arguing with mental patients.

In case you missed it, here is some advice for you Avodah guys. (This advice also applies to Rabbi Slifkin and the Kiruv Clowns too). A basic assumption of your mehalech should be that you accept established science. That's it. No discussion, not argument, no proofs required. You accept it and then you move on from there. If you need to explain why you accept it, then you are probably talking to the wrong audience.

Creation and Evolution Are A Problem

Warning: Category 5 Emunah Threat

Reconciling Breishis with Science is good, clean fun. It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day if Adam and Noah were actual people or not, and it’s fun to speculate and debate wondrous peshatim about miracles and dinosaur extinctions and the like. One commenter here, Chaim, is convinced that if he can just put together the right collection of miracles, everything will work out. Currently he has figured out that the flood water wasn’t regular water, but was of course miraculous water, the kind of miracle water that doesn’t leave any damage to buildings or rock, though it does remove all traces of human life. We haven’t got to the end of his theory yet, but I assume at some point we will get to the miracle of the kangaroos magically hopping from the Ark all the way to Australia. When I told him he can’t just make up miracles like that, he responded ‘Yes I can, to answer questions’. All good fun, and highly entertaining too, especially for the Geek Orthodox. Even the Gedolim are not too bothered by all this.

A much bigger problem though is reconciling the rest of History with Orthodox Judaism. Starting with Yetzias Mitzrayim and ending around the year 500CE, there are two entirely different accounts of what actually happened. Most frum Jews are so shielded from academic scholarship that they take the entire OJ story for granted. They are aware that of course Reform and the Goyim don’t believe in Sinai, but they think that’s about it. Unfortunately modern scholarship dates what we now think of as Orthodox Judaism to the period of 0-500CE, in other words Chazal pretty much made up Torah sheBaal Peh as they were writing it down. One scholar even suggests that Rabbinic Judaism was created as a reaction against Christianity.

This is a much more difficult subject to get into. The Science around the creation and evolution of the world is well documented and well understood, and mostly accepted by all the world’s scientists. However the theories around the creation and evolution of Rabbinic Judaism are just that: mostly theories. It’s hard to determine what is fact, and what is theory. Each side is dogmatically entrenched in their own positions. Plus, this whole debate is mostly of interest only to historians interested in the evolution of Judaism. Orthodox Jews themselves mostly ignore this area of study, as they are content to just believe the standard frum account. This is in contrast to the Science & Torah issues where there has been a lot of interest over the years from all sides.

So what to do? This is below the radar of most kiruv organizations (which is probably a good thing), and I haven’t seen any material on it. I don’t even know where to start, and probably shouldn’t go there. But your fearless Godol will now go and read up on all this kefirah so you don’t have to. Book suggestions are welcome (but don’t tell the Rebbetzin).

New! Myth/Moshol V2.0

Skins are great. You can take a boring, out-of-the-box interface such as Mozilla Firefox and add a cool skin to it, one which makes you feel much happier about using the product. In the same spirit, I now present Myth/Moshol Theory V2.0, now with skins!

Brisker Skin
Replaces the words ‘Myth/Moshol’ with ‘Halachik Construct’

Talmud Skin
Replaces the words ‘Myth/Moshol’ with ‘Aggadatah’

New Age Skin
Replaces the words ‘Myth/Moshol’ with ‘Breishis contains Spiritual Truth’

Humanistic Skin
Replaces the words ‘Myth/Moshol’ with ‘Breishis contains Moral & Ethical Truth’

Skeptical Skin
Replaces the words ‘Myth/Moshol’ with ‘Breishis contains a bunch of made up stories’

Cassuto Skin
Replaces the words ‘Myth/Moshol’ with ‘Jewish Mythology to counteract Sumerian Mythology'

In other words, skin it (or spin it) any way you like. But don't take it literally.

Brisker Myth/Moshol Theory

[Guest Post]

The approach that Torah is not a history book has always left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. However, after reading a significant portion of RYBS Ish Hahalachah, I now have a new perspective on the science/history vs religion issue. One needs to make a “brisker” type of distinction between “al pi din” and “metzius”. The object one sees through a prism is no less real than without a prism. Just as when we look at something through our eyes and a “visible spectrum” of light it appears different than if we could see the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Is any one view right or real? No just different perspectives. Halachah and Judaism looks at the world through its own prism, while science has its own view. Is any one view right or is either one real? No, they just use different perspectives.

Halachah expects us to view things through its own perspective. It has its own set of rules and regulations. Thus, salting meat will “remove” the blood, carrying an object 4 amos in a public place “removes” it from one domain to another domain, a bliah in a kli will make the food it comes in contact with imbued with a taam of the bliah if it's less than 24 hours old and the taam will be pogum if its more than 24 hours, an animal with a sign of treifah can not live etc. For an Orthodox Jew, the boundary provided by a “tsuras hapesach” is no less real than a solid wall. All these halachik constructs are not necessarily factual from a “metzius” perspective but they are 100% factual from a halachik perspective.

Mathematics is considered the “purest” sciences. Yet to a mathematician, so called “imaginary numbers” are no less real or useful than so called “real numbers”. The square root of a negative number is no less “real” or useful than is the square root of 4. Non-Euclidean geometry can be just as real as Euclidean geometry. Is any one view right or real? No they just use different perspectives. No wonder why, the Gra, one of the greatest Talmudic minds appreciated math so much. (I understand that R Moshe Feinstein z”tl also enjoyed solving complex calculus problems).

Similarly, the Torah wants us to view Breishis, Noach etc as if they were factual no less than any other halachik construct. They are no more mythical than imaginary numbers or laws of kashrus. Thus Shabbos IS the “seventh” day, Adam and Chavah WERE the first two people etc. By adopting this perspective we attain a Torah viewpoint of life. This perspective is important when considering the value/need to observe Shabbos, the value of a single human life etc. The question of “what really happened” is no more relevant [GH: I assume he means to Judaism, obviously it is relevant to Science] than what is the red stuff that exudes from a piece of salted meat. Halacha considers the liquid as “juice” and considers creation as having taken place in 7 days. When studying science we wear a scientific “hat” when living our lives as moral/halachik Jews we view things from a Torah perspective.

From time to time there may appear a seeming conflict between these two viewpoints. Of course, halacha has some flexibility in it, so an 8 month baby is now viable and the metzius/halacha has changed. Sometimes the halachah allows for a convergence of the metzius and the din sometimes they remain distinct. When that should happen is for the poskim to debate.

Makes sense to me. What do you think?

[GH: I think you are basically saying that it's a myth/moshol, but you don't want to use those words. And also that there are 'halachik' (or rather 'hashkafic') reasons why the Torah portayed things the way it does i.e. There are deep moral and spiritual lessons in the Torah's version of events, which is exactly what Myth/Moshol Theory says too. So I think this is ultimately the Myth/Moshol theory with a Brisker/RYBS spin on it. In other words, I like it!]

Real Questions... Fake Answers

[Note: This post is not serious. Of course all these questions are very difficult ones. What bothers me about the Artscroll ad is that it makes it seem they have good answers, when of course they mostly don't. These are issues that we all struggle with every day, yet Artscroll makes it seem that we just need to buy this set of 6 CD's and all will be answered. Well, I will buy the set, but I don't have high expectations, except for lots of raw material to post about].

Real Questions... Real Answers
Answers to The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Judaism - A 6 CD-Rom Set (Windows only)

[6 CD's !!! I could do it in a few lines! See my comments below]

List Price: $59.99
Online Discount: 10%
You Pay Only: $53.99
Binding: Cd-Rom
Published: September 2005 by Association for Jewish Outreach Programs

Description:
Never in history have so many Jews had so many questions about their religion, their heritage and their identity. Good questions, honest questions, real questions. This unique CD set brings together twelve of the most highly regarded individuals in the Jewish world - people who for years have been addressing literally thousands of questions posed by thousands of real people, with real questions.

This interactive CD-ROM puts a wealth of expertise at your fingertips. Without a doubt, you too have been asked many of the questions dealt with - at the office, by a neighbor, friend or relative. You have done your best to answer, and now you can do even better. Real Questions, Real Answers will enable you to do just what you want to do - respond thoughtfully and effectively when an inquiring person asks you a good question - a question whose answer just might open up a whole new world to a questioning Jewish mind.

Prominent figures featured include HaRav Shmuel Kamanetzky, HaRav Noah Weinberg, Rav Mordechai Becher, Rav Beryl Gershenfeld, Rav Rueven Leuchter, Rav Yerachmiel Milstein and more...

Sample Questions:

1. Isn't the idea that we are the Chose People elitist or even racist?
   [Elitist]
   
2. Why does a man say the blessing of "shelo asani isha" while a woman says "sheasani kirtzono"?
   [Because Davening reflects the social norms of the 1st millenium (or earlier) when women were regarded as inferior]
   
3. How can I believe in G-d when there is so much suffering in the world? How could G-d have allowed the Holocaust?
   [There is no answer except that we assume G-d evens everything out in the next world]
   
4. What is G-d's attitude toward the non-Jew?
   [Presumably he loves them too. But traditional Judaism doesn't so much]
   
5. Why should I marry a Jew?
   [The Halachah says you have to]
   
6. Do you believe that Orthodox Judaism is the only valid form of Judaism? Aren't Conservative and Reform Judaism also valid expressions of the Jewish religion?
   [Judaism has had many sects over the years. Orthodox Judaism is a descendant of Rabbinic (Pharisee) Judaism which arose around the time of the destruction of the 2nd Temple. OJ believes that its form of Judaism is the most accurate.]
   
7. Hypocrisy: Am I not worse off if I know and don't do than if I simply remain ignorant?
   [Yes, you will be worse off.]
   
8. Why must women dress modestly?
   [To stop men staring at them and getting bad ideas]
   
9. Won't Judaism stifle my individuality and creativity?
   [Orthodox Judaism might, other branches won't]
   
10. How do I know the Torah was really given on Sinai?
    [You just have to have faith]
    
11. How can observant Jews do bad things?
    [Very easily]
    
12. Why did G-d choose the Jewish Nation?
    [According to the Jewish tradition, because G-d liked Abraham, though it's not very clear why. Presumably because he recognized G-d and had superior morals.]
    
13. What is wrong with Christianity and Islam? What is the fundamental difference between them and Judaism?
    [According to OJ, their claims of revelation are lies, while our claims are true.]
    
14. What if my partner intends to convert?
    [To what? Judaism?]

'Better' DNA out of fossil bones

Map shows first migratory routes taken by humans, based on surveys of different types of the male Y chromosome. "Adam" represents the common ancestor from which all Y chromosomes descended

Neanderthals evolve about 250,000 years ago
Their range extends from Europe to Central Asia and the Middle East
Modern humans leave Africa about 60,000 years ago and arrive in Europe around 40,000 years ago
By 27,000 years ago, the Neanderthals are extinct
Possible reasons include climate change and competition with modern humans

Research based on DNA testing of 10,000 people from indigenous populations around the world

Source: The Genographic Project

By Alison Ross
BBC News

Improved technologies for extracting genetic material from fossils may help us find out more about our ancient ancestors.

Scientists in Israel have just developed a new technique to retrieve better quality, less contaminated DNA from very old remains, including human bones. It could aid the study of the evolution and migration of early modern humans, as well as extinct populations such as our close relatives, the Neanderthals.

Many researchers would dearly love to get their hands on DNA samples from hominids further back in time - from those that lived 100,000 years ago or more - to find out how they were related to people alive today.

But fossil studies this far back in time have long been hindered by contamination with foreign genetic material and the problem of recovering long, intact DNA sequences.

The new method provides hope, however.

What's real?
"DNA gets everywhere. So when we're dealing with a sample and you find it's got human DNA in it - is that DNA from the fossil, or is it actually DNA from the person who unearthed it?" says Professor Chris Stringer, the head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, UK.

Also, DNA falls apart over the course of time. "It breaks up into very small fragments so it is quite technically complicated to put it all back together again," explains Dr Robert Foley, the director of the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Freezing provides the ideal preservation conditions. The most widely accepted oldest DNA yet isolated comes from 400,000-year-old plants found in ice in Siberia. But most specimens are not excavated from such places.

An improved technique for retrieving DNA from fossil bone, just published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), may help.

Dr Michal Salamon, from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and colleagues, showed that "crystal aggregates", small mineral pockets formed during fossilisation, can preserve DNA better than the rest of the bone.

They compared DNA extracted from these crystal aggregates with genetic material taken from untreated, whole-bone powder. The samples were taken from eight different modern and fossil bones.

They found better preserved, less contaminated DNA could be recovered from the isolated crystals. This approach, "significantly improves the chances of obtaining authentic ancient DNA sequences, especially from human bones", they told PNAS.

Commenting on the latest research, Dr Michael Hofreiter, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who helped decode 40,000-year-old nuclear DNA from a cave bear earlier this year, said: "It's possible; but there need to be more studies on more samples, and they need to show that you don't get human contamination of animal bones.

"Then I would believe that it is a breakthrough for ancient DNA research."

The big split

Scientists are hopeful the new technique will help them get at the DNA in the chromosomes of a cell - the nuclear DNA.

Ancient DNA research has so far mainly focused on mitochondria, the tiny "power-stations" of the cell. These exist outside of the nucleus and have their own DNA. And, although this information is very useful, it is more limited in its scope than that which could be obtained from nuclear DNA.

It is partly a question of sensitivity. "There's about 1,000 times more mitochondrial DNA than nuclear DNA in our cells, so it's much easier to pick up," explains Professor Stringer.

The mitochondrial DNA is inherited only through the egg - through females. This means it is a useful marker for tracing a line back into the past, as it has never been mixed with DNA from males.

"One of the most important discoveries from studying ancient mitochondrial DNA is the estimate of when humans diverged in evolution from the Neanderthals - around half a million years ago," according to Dr Foley.

Professor Stringer adds: "We've now got about 10 Neanderthal specimens of around 40-50,000 years old that have yielded DNA that is clearly distinct from anyone alive today."

This means scientists can be sure that it is ancient, not just modern DNA from contamination. It has also given them a measure of how different Neanderthals were from modern people. Neanderthals are three times as different from us as we all are from each other," says Professor Stringer.

Species debate

But there remains the hotly debated question of whether Neanderthals were a completely separate species to us. Professor Stringer says that they are if that assessment is based on studying their bone anatomy.

However, the evidence from mitochondrial DNA is somewhat ambiguous. "The mitochondrial DNA on its own can't tell us if we're a distinct species," he explains. "It depends what mammal you take. There are some species where the difference in mitochondrial DNA between us and Neanderthals would say they were a different species. "Whereas in chimpanzees, our closest relative, you could contain the variation between us and Neanderthals in a single species alive today in Africa."

Scientists need to recover better DNA from our fossils, especially the nuclear DNA. "Each gene has a separate evolution so to understand Neanderthals properly we will need different bits of their DNA to see if they're all telling us the same story," he adds.

Population movements

The male sex chromosome (the "Y") is useful for tracking male inheritance, since males inherit their Y chromosome only from their father.

Using both mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA from people alive today, complex pathways have been mapped for how modern humans got to where they are - but there are problems.

Dr Mim Bower, an ancient DNA researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, UK, gives an example.

"Using modern DNA we see a different pattern of settlement in the Pacific islands between men and women - the mitochondrial DNA patterns show a different migration pattern to the Y chromosome DNA."

Studying the DNA not of modern humans but of their distant ancestors could help answer such questions.

"At the moment we can't follow that into the past as it's very difficult to get nuclear DNA," Dr Bower says.

This is especially problematic for the Y chromosome, which is nuclear.

Dalai Lama has more sechel than the Gedolim?

Dalai Lama has more sechel than the Gedolim?

[Hat tip: I don't think he wants one!]

New York Times
September 18, 2005

'The Universe in a Single Atom': Reason and Faith
By GEORGE JOHNSON

It's been a brutal season in the culture wars with both the White House and a prominent Catholic cardinal speaking out in favor of creationist superstition, while public schools and even natural history museums shy away from teaching evolutionary science. When I picked up the Dalai Lama's new book, "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality," I feared that His Holiness, the leader of Tibetan Buddhism, was adding to the confusion between reason and faith.

It was his subtitle that bothered me. Spirituality is about the ineffable and unprovable, science about the physical world of demonstrable fact. Faced with two such contradictory enterprises, divergence would be a better goal. The last thing anyone needs is another attempt to contort biology to fit a particular religion or to use cosmology to prove the existence of God.

But this book offers something wiser: a compassionate and clearheaded account by a religious leader who not only respects science but, for the most part, embraces it. "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims," he writes. No one who wants to understand the world "can ignore the basic insights of theories as key as evolution, relativity and quantum mechanics."

That is an extraordinary concession compared with the Christian apologias that dominate conferences devoted to reconciling science and religion. The "dialogues" implicitly begin with nonnegotiables - "Given that Jesus died on the cross and was bodily resurrected into heaven. . ." - then seek scientific justification for what is already assumed to be true.

The story of how someone so open-minded became the Tibetan Buddhist equivalent of the pope reads like a fairy tale. When the 13th Dalai Lama died in 1933 he was facing northeast, so a spiritual search team was sent in that direction to find his reincarnation. The quest narrowed further when a lama had a vision pointing to a certain house with unusual gutters. Inside a boy called out to the visitors, who showed him some toys and relics that would have belonged to him in his previous life. "It is mine!" he exclaimed, like any acquisitive 2-year-old, and so his reign began.

Once installed in Lhasa, the new Dalai Lama happened upon another of his forerunner's possessions, a collapsible brass telescope. When he focused it one evening on what Tibetans call "the rabbit on the moon," he saw that it consisted of shadows cast by craters. Although he knew nothing yet about astronomy, he inferred that the moon, like the earth, must be lighted by the sun. He had experienced the thrill of discovery.

Before long he was dismantling and repairing clocks and watches and tinkering with car engines and an old movie projector. As he grew older and traveled the world, he was as keen to meet with scientists and philosophers - David Bohm, Carl von Weizsäcker, Karl Popper - as with religious and political leaders. More recently his "Mind and Life" conferences have brought physicists, cosmologists, biologists and psychologists to Dharamsala, India, where he now lives in exile from the Chinese occupation of Tibet. He and his guests discuss things like the neuroscientific basis of Buddhist meditation and the similarities between Eastern concepts like the "philosophy of emptiness" and modern field theory. In "The Universe in a Single Atom" he tells how he walked the mountains around his home trying to persuade hermits to contribute to scientific understanding by meditating with electrodes on their heads.

But when it comes to questions about life and its origins, this would-be man of science begins to waver. Though he professes to accept evolutionary theory, he recoils at one of its most basic tenets: that the mutations that provide the raw material for natural selection occur at random. Look deeply enough, he suggests, and the randomness will turn out to be complexity in disguise - "hidden causality," the Buddha's smile. There you have it, Eastern religion's version of intelligent design. He also opposes physical explanations for consciousness, invoking instead the existence of some kind of irreducible mind stuff, an idea rejected long ago by mainstream science. Some members of the Society for Neuroscience are understandably uneasy that he has been invited to give a lecture at their annual meeting this November. In a petition, they protested that his topic, the science of meditation, is known for "hyperbolic claims, limited research and compromised scientific rigor."

There may be a political subtext to the controversy. According to an article in Nature, many of the petitioners are Chinese. But however mixed their motivation, they make a basic philosophical point. All religion is rooted in a belief in the supernatural. Inviting a holy man to address a scientific conference may be leaving the back door ajar for ghosts.

Adam & Eve Horishon & their pet snake Nachy

[This post is dedicated to Dude. ]

Some people who are a little more conversant with Science say the following peshat in Breishis:

It’s true that there were many human type creatures all over the world dating back hundreds of thousands of years. But when the Torah talks about Adam & Eve it’s really talking about a new modern breed of humanity, and of course there were other people around then too of the older variety.

Adam & Eve were the first of this new breed, and were created by G-d in some fashion, either directly, or maybe through the addition of a special neshamah/intellect. There is no Scientific proof for neshamot even today, so claiming Adam & Eve had the first modern neshamot makes no difference to Science.

Some people even try and link this in to the story of the ‘Sons of the gods' marrying the ‘Daughters of Man’, and claim that this story is about the intermarriage between the descendants of the ‘godly’ Adam and the descendants of the older (but less godly?) 'Neanderthals'. (By the way, both the Malbim and Cassutto dispute this, and R Menachem Kasher notes this in Torah Shelemah.)

The motivation for this strange peshat is to try and preserve Adam & Eve as real people. Clearly, the motivation cannot be preserving the ‘mesorah’ or a literal reading of the text, since this peshat doesn’t fit the text very well without kvetching, nor is it the standard mesorah anyway (though there are certainly indications that Chazal were comfortable with the idea of previous worlds e.g. 974 of them).

So, is it worth saying such a peshat?

I think not, (but I can't prove it). Firstly, to posit that Adam & Eve were two specific people who had more developed neshamot (or brains), who then went on to fertilize the world is scientifically problematic. What about the aboriginees and other far flung peoples? Are they less developed because they don’t have the new Adam & Eve neshama/ genes in them?

Secondly, this still doesn’t help with all the other ‘facts’ in Breishis, like the impossibly long ages or global flood, or incorrect order of creation. So you end up taking many things non literally anyway, and this whole peshat is hardly the same as the traditional mesorah.

I think that it is probably not a co-incidence that the Torah goes back 6000 years, and so does modern civilization.

About 6000 years ago a marked shift occurred and humans became more urbanized. About this same time frame farming and animal husbandry became more popular, and recently some Scientists even talked about changes in brain development 5800 years ago. But this correlates to Breishis mythology for obvious reasons. You could read the story of Adam & Eve as a metaphor for the birth of modern civilization, and it works quite well.

If you really want to insist that there was an actual couple called Adam & Eve Horishon, who lived in a special garden in Iraq, and they had a special neshamah, then of course Science can’t disprove that and neither can I. But don’t forget their pet snake, Nachy. I hear he could tricks.

(And don’t marry off your kids to any Aboriginal Gerim – Pure breeds would still presumably be lacking that special neshamah/gene and you wouldn’t want your grandchildren to be ‘half-neshamas’. They might not get into the good yeshivas.)

Is Jonathan Ostroff a complete moron?

He can't be, as this list of his publications is quite impressive. Yet I never cease to be amazed by the stupidity of his posts on Avodah. There is a long debate going on currently as to whether Rav Dessler rejected evolution or not. I could give some carefully reasoned arguments showing why Rav Dessler is completely wrong. But why bother? Is Ostroff interested in well reasoned arguments when such arguments conflict with his own moronic ideology? I don't think so. So instead I will just make the obvious argument, hurl some insults, and hopefully I will feel better.

Whether evolution happened all on its ownsome, or whether it needed a little extra supernatural help from G-d makes no difference at all. Either way,a true maamin will see the hand of G-d in the fact that 15 billion years ago there was nothing, and now we have intelligent human beings (but not so much on Avodah).

Rav Dessler's alleged contention that "anyone viewing the world within the context of evolution over millions of years as opposed to seeing the yad Hashem in the beria is a tipesh and a porek ol" (according to Simcha Coffer) is utter nonsense nowadays. In fact anyone saying such a thing is a 'tipesh', and were Rav Desller alive today I would like to think that he would have enough sechel to realize his mistakes. Sure Rav Dessler was a talmid chochom, but his views on evolution are outdated, incorrect and entirely irrelevant.

Rav Dessler also says that "Geology is actually proof that the world unfolded rapidly, in a short period of time, as opposed to the evolutionary time frame." Do you honestly think that Rav Dessler knows Geology better than all the worlds geologists currently dedicating their lives to the study of Geology? GET A FRIKKIN CLUE PEOPLE. This stupidity is mind boggling. I could understand it if it was some Bnei Brak hocker who has never been exposed to Western Civilization. But the guys on Avodah speak English! They seem educated. Almost intelligent. Yet they are also complete morons. Amazing!

When will the idiots on Avodah realize that they are wasting their time? It is abundantly clear that the world is significantly older than 6000 years, and it is abundantly clear that there were many intelligent humans walking around in many parts of the world 10,000 years ago and more.

These two facts alone are enough to finish off any notion that the Adam & Eve story in Breishis is literal. Once you realize that, you will also realize that there is little gain in debating evolution. You neither lose anything or buy anything. G-d is quite capable of working though 'natural' evolution, in fact this is a greater chochmah than creating man out of thin air (or dust). Leave the details of Evolution to the Scientists, it makes no difference at this point, Breishis has already been proven to be non literal.

Denying scientifically 'proven' theories while stubbornly insisting on Sinai type proofs is the height of hypocricy and absurdity. When intelligent and frum Jews go through such mental gymnastics to try and twist the truth to fit their own narrow minded warped agendas, it really makes you think. How can these people have any credibility? How can they expect to be taken seriously? Is their Torah worth anything at all when they will stoop to lies and distortions to further their own stupidity?

Avodah should come with an 'Emunah Threat Level High' warning. The sight of so many frum Jews spouting such utter idiocy is enough to turn anyone into a kofer. Krum as Bagel told me about the latest stupidity and now I'm back in the dumps again. Just before Rosh Hashanah too.

Here is some advice for the idiots on Avodah:

When it comes to Science and Torah, the views of Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim (and 90% of present day Gedolim) are ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT. I know you all love to quote Chazal, Rishonim and Acharonim on every subject under the sun, but THEY HAD NO CLUE ABOUT SCIENCE. How could they? It hadn't been 'invented' yet. Of course today's Gedolim could have a clue, but they chose not to. Shame on them.

Does insulting an idiot like Ostroff make me feel better? Not really. But realizing that Ostroff is into Formal Methods and the OMG MDA does. It proves that the guy lives in a fantasy world, I should have guessed. Here is special message for Ostroff:

DO YOU REALLY THINK RAV DESSLER WAS AN EXPERT IN GEOLOGY OR EVOLUTION? DO YOU REALLY THINK ALL THE WORLDS SCIENTISTS ARE WRONG BUT THE GEDOLIM KNOW BETTER? IF SO, YOU ARE A FOOL. DO YOU REALLY THINK FORMAL METHODS WILL EVER BE USED OUTSIDE OF ACADEMIA? IF SO, YOU ARE A DELUSIONAL FOOL. GET A FRIKKIN CLUE MAN. YOUR TORAH IS DAMAGING TO NORMAL PEOPLE. I SUGGEST YOU STOP BEFORE YOU TURN US ALL INTO KOFRIM.

Mythology in the Torah II

Some people objected that the Myth/Moshol peshat is 'not Judaism'. I guess Chief Rabbi Hertz and Rabbi Gedalyah Nadel were not Jewish then. In BeToraso Shel Rav Gedalyah, p.99, Rav Nadel says:

The description of the formation of man from the dust is by way of allegory and parable. The Holy One did not take a spoonful of dirt and knead it with water, as children do in kindergarten. The "dust" here is raw material, from which animals were also formed.

In other words, Evolution. Also noteworthy is the fact the he uses the word 'allegory' and 'parable', in other words 'Mythology'.

And I'm pretty sure that Rav Nadel was practicing Judaism, since he even got a glowing hesped in the Yated, and they don't do that if you aren't Jewish. Strangely, the hesped doesn't mention anything about Rav Nadel's somewhat unorthodox views regarding Evolution and the Age of the Universe.

Chakira had three posts on Rav Nadel:

1. Allegory
2. Age of the Universe
3. Flood

Another choice quotes from Nadel:

Maimonides said “don’t be perplexed! Read the verses in a way of figurative language, the way of language and melitzah…and this is the correct interpretation, the truth of Torah. There is no doubt that the verses didn’t mean anything contradicted by the sekhel. Thus we say “there are many varied demonstrations, with exactitude that can be tested by experiment…that show that millions of years have passed. There are radioactive tests, fragments of rocks that have been found and there are geological tests…It is a mistake to believe that all of this is false. In the realm of saving lives, the most serious part of the Torah, we rely on scientific knowledge. When a doctor applies medicine made with scientific knowledge…you rely on him. You have no suspicion that he might be lying. Also with regard to the age of the world, there is no reason to say that the scientists are lying…If the sekhel needs it and the language can accommodate it, you are required to allegorize.

Again, notice what he says and does not say. He does NOT say, 'If the sekhel needs it then twist the language to mean something it doesn't.' He DOES say 'and the language can accommodate it, you are required to allegorize'.

So my objectors will no doubt kvetch and say its okay to allegorize certain phrases and words, but not whole chapters. Why not? Maybe 'Adam' is an allegory for 'Mankind', makes sense. And 'Gan Eden' is just an allegory for 'The Fertile Crescent (or wherever)'. The bottom line is that the sekhel requires that we allegorize almost all of Breishis 1-11, so we do. Maybe those people who don't allegorize just don't have the sekhel to require it.

Here are some scanned excerpts from Rav Nadel's sefer.

Here is a copy of Rabbi Hertz's essay.

Cassuto: Introduction to From Adam To Noah

§ 1. The purpose of the Torah in this section is to teach us that the whole world and all that it contains were created by the word of the One God, according to His will, which operates without restraint. It is thus opposed to the concepts current among the peoples of the ancient East who were Israel’s neighbors; and in some respects it is also in conflict with certain ideas that had already found their way into the ranks of our people. The language, however, is tranquil, undisturbed by polemic or dispute; the controversial note is heard indirectly, as it were, through the deliberate, quiet utterances of Scripture, which sets the opposing views at naught by silence or by subtle hint.

§ 2. All kinds of wondrous stories about the creation of the world were wide-spread throughout the lands of the East, and many of them assumed a literary form in epic poems or other compositions. In the course of our exposition we shall have repeated occasion to refer to a number of matters found in these sources and to translate several verses from their texts. Here it will suffice to indicate briefly their general character.

They began, as a rule, with a theogony, that is, with the origin of the gods, the genealogy of the deities who preceded the birth of the world and mankind; and they told of the antagonism between this god and that god, of frictions that arose from these clashes of will, and of mighty wars that were waged by the gods. They connected the genesis of the world with the genesis of the gods and with the hostilities and wars between them; and they identified the different parts of the universe with given deities or with certain parts of their bodies. Even the elect few among the nations, the thinkers who for a time attained to loftier concepts than those normally held in their environment, men like Amenhotep IV the Egyptian king who attributed the entire creation to one of the gods, the sun-god Aten—and his predecessors (the discoveries of recent years prove that he was not the first to hold this doctrine), even they pictured this god to themselves as but one of the gods, be he the very greatest, as a deity linked to nature and identifiable with one of its component parts. Then came the Torah and soared aloft, as on eagles’ wings, above all these notions. Not many gods but One God; not theogony, for a god has no family tree; not wars nor strife nor the clash of wills, but only One Will, which rules over everything, without the slightest let or hindrance; not a deity associated with nature and identified with it wholly or in part, but a God who stands absolutely above nature, and outside of it, and nature and all its constituent elements, even the sun and all the other entities, be they never so exalted, are only His creatures, made according to His will.

§ 3. Among the Israelites, too, there existed, prior to the Biblical account, narrative poems about the creation and the beginning of the world’s history. Although these poems have not come down to us, having perished in the course of time, evidence of their existence is to be found both in this section and in other parts of Scripture. Frequently the prophets and the Bible poets allude to matters appertaining directly or indirectly to the creation of the world that are not mentioned in our section at all, for example, the story of Rahab, the prince of the sea, who rose up in revolt against God, and in the end God subdued him and slew him (see below, on i 9); but the brevity of these references leaves the impression that the authors were touching on topics that were well-known to the people they addressed. At times the Scriptural allusions closely resemble what we are told in the legends of the non-Israelites; yet it is difficult to imagine that these particular myths influenced them directly. Generally speaking, it is inconceivable that the prophets and poets of Israel intended to seek support for their views in the pagan mythological works, which they undoubtedly detested and abominated; nor is it thinkable that they mentioned the heathen legends as something that the Israelites knew and accepted.

Furthermore, whilst these allusions show certain resemblances quite striking, at times to the sagas of the Gentiles, they also exhibit distinct differences: the actions credited to the various deities in the pagan literature are attributed in the Hebrew Scriptures to the God of Israel, and are portrayed in a form more in keeping with Israel’s religious conscience. It follows that we have to assume the existence of intermediate links in the chain of development, which bridged the gap between the poems of the non-Israelites and the myths alluded to in the Bible. It seems that the intermediaries between the heathen peoples and Israel were the groups of Sages, the exponents of international ‘Wisdom’, who, it is known, were prone to obscure the religious elements peculiar to each individual nation. It may confidently be surmised that the said links included epic poems of Israel, Israelite cycles in which the ancient Eastern tradition took on a form that was generally in harmony with the national spirit of Israel and its religious convictions. I have dealt at length with this subject in my Hebrew essay on ‘The Epic Poetry of Israel’, which appeared in Keneseth, dedicated to H. N. Bialik, Vol. viii, 1943; I shall not, therefore, repeat what I have written there. Here I shall refer only to matters that concern our section as a whole, and in the course of my annotations on the individual verses, I shall mention the points that have a bearing on those verses in particular. Allusions to the creation-story that are unrelated to our section are found, for instance, in Job xxxviii 4-7:

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,
When the morning stars sang together,
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

There is a clear indication here of a tradition concerning the creation of the earth on a bright morning, whilst the stars and God’s angels sang a paean. Undoubtedly, the author of the book of Job did not fabricate these details. Nor did he invent such concepts or terms as lay the foundations, measurements, line, bases, cornerstone. Similarly, we read in Isaiah xl 12, 21–22:

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in.

The two passages probably derive from a common poetic source. It may be noted in regard to the root ? yasadh [‘lay the foundations’], which occurs in both texts in relation to the earth, that it is used a number of times in the Bible in this sense, although it does not appear in our section at all. The same applies to the verb ? nata [‘stretch out’] in connection with the heavens, which is found in Isaiah ibid., and in another passage of Job (ix 8); this word, too, occurs frequently in Scripture but not in our section. At times, moreover, both expressions to lay the foundations of the earth and to stretch out the heavens are found in juxtaposition. It cannot, therefore, be doubted that we have here an ancient literary tradition, and apparently this tradition has its roots in Israel’s epic poetry. There are also other literary characteristics that appear to belong to the vocabulary and phraseology of the ancient poetic tradition regarding the creation, and serve to prove the existence of such a poetic tradition among the Israelites: for instance, the expression spread forth the earth; the simile of a tent-curtain, or some synonym thereof, employed in connection with the stretching out of the heavens; the figure of chambers or upper chambers, signifying the heavens in relation to the earth beneath them; the verb ? hameqare [‘who hast laid the beams’] in Psa. civ 3, which corresponds to an Akkadian expression (see below, on verse 6); the root ? kun [‘establish’] followed by the words ? bal yimmot or bal timmot [‘shall not be moved’]; the verb holel in the sense of created; the adverb ? terem [‘not yet’] or the conjunction beterem [‘before’], used with reference to the pre-creation period (a similar usage is also common in non-Israelite writings), and many more examples of this kind.

As far as our own section is concerned, a poetic construction like ? ? hayetho ’eres [‘beasts of the earth’] (i 24) next to the corresponding prose form hayyath ha’ares (i 25, 30); or verses with poetic rhythm like i 27:

So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.

and a number of other poetic features, which we shall discuss in the course of our exposition, also point to a poetic tradition among the Israelites anterior to the Book of Genesis. The metre of the verse, So God created man . . .tetrameter, which is also found in other verses of our section, is the most usual in the epic poetry of the Eastern peoples of antiquity, and was probably employed to a large extent in the epic poetry of Israel, too. There is no necessity to assume that the Torah took these verses verbatim from an earlier epic poem. Admittedly this is possible; but it is simpler to suppose that wherever, in the course of the Biblical story, which is mainly in prose, the special importance of the subject led to an exaltation of style approaching the level of poetry, the thought took on of its own accord, as it were, an aspect conforming to the traditional pattern of narrative poetry an aspect, at all events, that was in keeping with ancient poetic tradition.

§ 4. Although the epic poetry of Israel gave the traditional material, as has been stated, a form that was generally in harmony with the spirit and conscience of the nation, it nevertheless retained certain elements in which echoes of their origin in a foreign environment could still be heard. The saga, for example, of the revolt of ‘the lord of the sea’ against God belonged to this category. The same applies to the reference in Job xxxviii 7, to the morning stars that sang and to the sons of God who shouted for joy when God laid the cornerstone of the earth. It is not surprising, therefore, that the attitude of the Torah to these elements was not sympathetic. The prophets and the Biblical poets, who were accustomed to clothe their ideas in poetic garb and to elucidate them with the help of similes, and generally to employ the familiar devices of poesy, were not, to be sure, deterred from using what they found to hand in Israel’s epic poetry. But the Torah, which is not written in verse but in prose, and employs as a rule simple, not figurative, language, and weighs every word scrupulously, was careful not to introduce ingredients that were not completely in accord with its doctrines. Nay more, whenever necessary it voiced, in its own subtle way, its objection in principle to concepts suggestive of an alien spirit as, for instance, the myth of the revolt of the sea against its Creator (see below on i 6, 9, 14–15, 21).

Nevertheless, the Torah did not refrain from taking over other components of Israel’s poetic tradition, in so far as these did not militate against its spirit. We have already seen above that here and there the style of our section assumes an elevated poetic form, and that it is precisely the metre of epic poetry that is reflected in some of its sentences. This applies also to the content of the story, which has likewise absorbed certain elements of Israel’s ancient poetry. The truth that the Torah wished to convey in this section, to wit, that the world in its entirety was created by the word of the One God, could not be stated in abstract terms, simply as a theoretical concept. Semitic thought avoids general statements. Particularly in the case of a book like ours, which was not intended for the thinkers and the elect few only, but for the people as a whole, including also its common folk, it was proper that its ideas should be embodied in the language of concrete description. Hence, the Torah made use of the concrete traditions that found expression in the ‘Wisdom’ literature and in the ancient heroic poetry of Israel, and drew from them material for its structure. Choosing only what it deemed worthy, it refined and purified the selected matter, and moulded the entire narrative to a pattern of its own a pattern befitting its purpose and educational aim. In the light of this hypothesis, the parallels between our section and the traditions current in the ancient Orient become perfectly clear.

§ 5. The structure of our section is based on a system of numerical harmony. Not only is the number seven fundamental to its main theme, but it also serves to determine many of its details. Both to the Israelites and to the Gentiles, in the East and also in the West but especially in the East it was the number of perfection and the basis of ordered arrangement; and particular importance attached to it in the symbolism of numbers. The work of the Creator, which is marked by absolute perfection and flawless systematic orderliness, is distributed over seven days: six days of labour and a seventh day set aside for the enjoyment of the completed task. On the significance and use of the number seven see the works I have listed in Tarbiz, xiii, p. 207, notes 31 32, and my remarks ibid., pp. 206–207 [Hebrew], as well as the examples that I have cited there from Akkadian and Ugaritic literature, which prove that a series of seven consecutive days was considered a perfect period [unit of time] in which to develop an important work, the action lasting six days and reaching its conclusion and outcome on the seventh day. Possibly the Torah perceives in the importance attributed to the number seven by non-Israelites a kind of indistinct echo of the story of creation.

It is worth noting in this connection that in the case of actions lasting the above-mentioned length of time, it was customary to divide the six days of labour into three pairs, and to relate the story somewhat as follows: on the first day and on the second suchand- such a work was done; so, too, on the third day and on the fourth that work was done; likewise on the fifth day and on the sixth the same work was done. Thereafter, when the work had been completed on the sixth day, came the seventh day, a day of conclusion and change of situation (see the Akkadian and Ugaritic examples that I quote ibid.). In our section the division of the days is, as we shall see later, rather different, to wit, two series of three days each. But the prevailing pattern is implicit in the rabbinic saying: ‘It (the Sabbath day) has no partner: there is the first of the Sabbath [i. e. week], the second of the Sabbath; the third, the fourth, the fifth, the eve of the Sabbath; but the Sabbath itself remains unpaired’ (Bereshith Rabba, xi 8; for the different readings and parallels see Theodor’s edition).

In view of the importance ascribed to the number seven generally, and particularly in the story of Creation, this number occurs again and again in the structure of our section. The following details are deserving of note:

(a). After the introductory verse (i 1), the section is divided into seven paragraphs, each of which appertains to one of the seven days. An obvious indication of this division is to be seen in the recurring sentence, And there was evening and there was morning, such-and-such a day. Hence the Masoretes were right in placing an open paragraph [i. e. one that begins on a new line] after each of these verses. Other ways of dividing the section suggested by some modern scholars are unsatisfactory.

(b-d). Each of the three nouns that occur in the first verse and express the basic concepts of the section, viz God [ Elohim] heavens [ shamayim], earth [eres], are repeated in the section a given number of times that is a multiple of seven: thus the name of God occurs thirty-five times, that is, five times seven (on the fact that the Divine Name, in one of its forms, occurs seventy times in the first four chapters, see below); earth is found twentyone times, that is, three times seven; similarly heavens (or firmament, raqia?) appears twenty-one times.

(e). The ten sayings with which, according to the Talmud, the world was created (Aboth v 1; in B. Rosh Hashana 32a and B. Megilla 21b only nine of them are enumerated, the one in i 29, apparently, being omitted)that is, the ten utterances of God beginning with the words, and. . . said are clearly divisible into two groups: the first group contains seven Divine fiats enjoining the creation of the creatures, to wit, ‘Let there be light’, ‘Let there be a firmament’, ‘Let the waters be gathered together’, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation’, ‘Let there be lights’, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms’, ‘Let the earth bring forth’; the second group comprises three pronouncements that emphasize God’s concern for man’s welfare (three being the number of emphasis), namely, ‘Let us make man’ (not a command but an expression of the will to create man), ‘Be fruitful and multiply’, ‘Behold I have given unto you every plant yielding seed’. Thus we have here, too, a series of seven corresponding dicta.

(f ). The terms light and day are found, in all, seven times in the first paragraph, and there are seven references to light in the fourth paragraph.

(g). Water is mentioned seven times in the course of paragraphs two and three.

(h). In the fifth and sixth paragraphs forms of the word ? hayya [rendered ‘living’ or ‘beasts’] occur seven times.

(i). The expression it was good appears seven times (the seventh time very good).
(j). The first verse has seven words.

(k). The second verse contains fourteen words twice seven.

(1). In the seventh paragraph, which deals with the seventh day, there occur the following three consecutive sentences (three for emphasis), each of which consists of seven words and contains in the middle the expression the seventh day:

And on ? God finished His work which He had
done, and He rested on ? from all His work which
He had done.
So God blessed ? and hallowed it.

(m). The words in the seventh paragraph total thirty-five five times seven. To suppose that all this is a mere coincidence is not possible.

§ 6. This numerical symmetry is, as it were, the golden thread that binds together all the parts of the section and serves as a convincing proof of its unity against the view of those—and they comprise the majority of modern commentators—who consider that our section is not a unity but was formed by the fusion of two different accounts, or as the result of the adaptation and elaboration of a shorter earlier version. According to the prevailing view, the division of the work of creation in the original text differed from that found in the present recension, eight—or ten—creative acts, or seven days of work (man being formed on the seventh), or some other scheme being envisaged; only in the last redaction, it is assumed, was the division into six days of work introduced and the idea of the Sabbath added. The final edition is attributed by most scholars to the source P; the different theories concerning the source of the first version need not detain us here. I have already dealt with this matter fully in the second part of my essay, ‘La creazione del mondo nella Genesi’ (the creation of the world according to the Book of Genesis), published in Annuario di studi ebraici, Vol. i (1934) pp. 47–49. The reader who wishes to delve more deeply into the subject will find there the requisite details as well as a bibliography; here a summary account of the position must suffice. Following are the main arguments advanced by the scholars referred to:

(1). Internal contradictions: the existence of day and night before the creation of the luminaries; the presence of plants before the sun came into being.

(2). Signs of inconsistency and the absence of a unified system in the phrasing and formulation of the account: sometimes the expression and it was so is used, sometimes a different wording; on most of the days we are told it was good, but not on the second day; the acts of creation are described in different ways (at times God issues an order and His order is carried out; at other times it is He who creates or makes; on other occasions still He commands the elements to form the creatures).

(3). The distribution of the acts of creation over six days is not balanced, for the works of the first three days do not properly correspond to those of the last three days. Thus we have: 1. Light 2. Heavens 3. Earth (including vegetation) and sea 4. Luminaries 5. Fish and birds 6. Living creatures on land, and man

(4). The use of antiquated words and concepts. Not one of these contentions, however, is tenable in the face of critical examination. On the problem of the existence of day and night and plant-life before the formation of the luminaries, see below on i 14. With reference to the variations in phrasing and formulation, I have shown (in Tarbiz, xiii, pp. 205–206, sec. 2, [Hebrew], and subsequently in Keneseth, dedicated to the memory of H. N. Bialik, viii, pp. 126–127, sec. 15 [Hebrew]) that, in contrast to the style of epic poetry, which is prone to word-for-word repetition, it is a basic principle of Biblical narrative prose not to repeat a statement in identical terms; with fine artistic sense, the narrator likes to alter the wording or to shorten it or to change the order of the words when reverting to any subject (except when dealing with technical matters like the work of the Tabernacle, the sacrifices of the princes, or the genealogies). Concerning the expressions and it was so and that it was good, see below the detailed annotations on the verses where they occur or are omitted. As for the three different ways of describing the acts of creation, it should be noted, firstly, that, quite apart from the point made previously regarding the characteristics of narrative prose style, these linguistic variations could serve to prove the existence of different versions only if it had been possible to employ each type of wording in all instances; in such circumstances the choice of one mode of expression in preference to the other two could be construed as typical of a given recension. Actually, this is not the case. In regard to the light, which was but an immaterial phenomenon so long as it was independent of the luminaries, neither the second nor the third form of wording was applicable, and so the Bible had necessarily to use the first form. Similarly, in respect of the gathering of the water into one place, which represents only movement and not the creation of a new element, the first mode of expression had, perforce, to be chosen. Furthermore, the three ways of portraying the creative process cannot be considered of equal value. On the contrary, that which God creates or makes is of a higher order than what is formed by the elemental forces of nature. Bearing all this in mind, we cannot but conclude that throughout the section the three different modes of expression are used according to a systematic plan. When referring to non-material things, such as the creation of light or the gathering of the waters, the first mode, as stated, is inevitably chosen. In depicting the fashioning of new material entities, the second or third type of phrasing, according to the category of creation, is employed. Thus the second type—to wit, the creation or making by God—serves for the highest forms of being, namely, the firmament, the luminaries and man (there is a difference of degree even between making and creating, as we shall see later on verses 2–3); the combined second and third forms of expression are used for living creatures (fifth and sixth days); the third by itself is applied to plant-life. As to the distribution of the acts of creation over six days and the culmination of the process on the seventh day, reference to the ancient examples of similar schemes in the literatures of the East, to which I alluded above (at the beginning of § 3), will suffice to convince us at once that there are no grounds whatsoever for attributing the division adopted in our text to a later redaction. Regarding the parallelism between the first three days and the last three days, it will be clear from my commentary that only the version before us provides a completely harmonious balance, viz: 1. Light 2. Sea and Heaven 3. Earth (with its plants) 4. Luminaries 5. Fish and Fowl 6. Land creatures and Man In so far as the archaic expressions and concepts are concerned, they are fully explained by our hypothesis regarding the Israelite tradition of epic poetry that antedated the Torah account.