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Author Topic:   13th century rabbi says universe billions of years old
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 46 of 60 (777966)
02-13-2016 8:43 AM
Reply to: Message 45 by Percy
02-13-2016 7:18 AM


Re: Torah disproved on Gen. 1:1 ?
quote:
Can anyone site me an undisputed scientific fact that proves conclusively beyond any possibility of doubt that it's not invisible virtual turtles all the way down?
I was waiting for someone to write something like this.
I thought "Let me see. Will it be the flying spaghetti monster or is that too old? Will it be the invisible pink unicorn or the floating teapot between Mars and Jupitar?"
Surprise! We have a new one - the invisible virtual turtles. Or is that old?
quote:
Seriously, science never proves anything "conclusively beyond any possibility of doubt." Science is tentative about everything.
That's a good point. Of course I could have just said that when it was said "We know the Torah is not literally true" or however it was put.
Then again someone could have just as easily said "Actually, we don't KNOW that it is not true, particularly about the least poetic statement in the chapter, that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
quote:
Even what seem to us as undoubted scientific axioms and are treated thus in almost all scientific endeavors are questioned in some scientific quarters, such as that scientific laws are the same across all time and space.
Attempts to resolve the contradictory notions of science and religion usually take one of three avenues:
  1. Science and religion will eventually become mutually consistent through scientific and religious study, a la Thomas Aquinas.
  2. Science is useful and important, but where science and religion differ religion must take precedence, a la the Oxford school of thought.
  3. Separate magesteriums a la Stephen Jay Gould (and probably some earlier philosopher). They govern separate realms that need not ever meet and need not ever be reconciled.
I sense you're inflexible concerning a conservative literal interpretation of Genesis, and that means you're left with number 2, because number 1 will never happen (when tried the result is religious restrictions on scientific efforts and ideas a la the Spanish Inquisition and Galileo) and number 3 must be unacceptable to you (and isn't realistic anyway).
--Percy
No I am not inflexible really. Most of the statements after verse 1 are poetic and obviously spoken from the standpoint of one who is human with human order in view.
Verse 2 - "And the earth was empty and without form, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
I am flexible enough to recognize that the speaker is talking from a human standpoint in a world suited for human life and order. It was a mess - in terms of man's existence. It was without form - in terms of our human existence. It was dark, chaotic - in terms of human existence.
This appears to me to be local and poetic as if a man was seeing a vision. But the first statement is just an identifier of where all time, space, matter came from. And we cannot say we know it is not literally true.
It is put well, IMO, by Jay Pye Smith in about 1839
"That the first sentence is a simple, independent, all-comprehending axiom, to the effect: that matter, elementary or combined, aggregated or organized, and dependent, sentient, and intellectual beings have not existed from eternity, either in self continuity or succession, but had a beginning; that their beginning took place by the all-powerful will of one Being, the self-existent, independent, and infinite in all perfection; and that the date of that beginning is not made known."
Edited by Admin, : Fix quote of list items.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 45 by Percy, posted 02-13-2016 7:18 AM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by Percy, posted 02-13-2016 9:10 AM jaywill has not replied
 Message 48 by NoNukes, posted 02-13-2016 11:26 AM jaywill has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 47 of 60 (777967)
02-13-2016 9:10 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by jaywill
02-13-2016 8:43 AM


Re: Torah disproved on Gen. 1:1 ?
To more directly answer your question from your Message 38:
Jaywill in Message 38 writes:
Can anyone site me an undisputed scientific fact that proves conclusively beyond any possibility of doubt that God did not create the heavens and the earth in the beginning ? ( Gen. 1:1).
Science is not a process of accepting everything that hasn't been disproved. Proving most arbitrary claims false isn't possible anyway. If someone claimed there were intelligent beings living on a planet circling a star in the Andromeda galaxy, it could never be disproved.
Science accepts that for which a consensus has developed around a framework of understanding that interprets a body of evidence. But it is important to realize that something isn't true just because a consensus has formed. Rather, in science a consensus develops around that which is likely true, because it is believed that only things that are likely true could successfully navigate the numerous scientific obstacles raised by efforts at verification, replication and persuasion.
Scientifically, the best that can be said for Genesis is that much of it isn't contradicted by current scientific understanding. Like novels about real places and real people, many things are true, many things could be true, and many things are not true.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by jaywill, posted 02-13-2016 8:43 AM jaywill has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 48 of 60 (777968)
02-13-2016 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 46 by jaywill
02-13-2016 8:43 AM


Re: Torah disproved on Gen. 1:1 ?
hat's a good point. Of course I could have just said that when it was said "We know the Torah is not literally true" or however it was put.
Yes, you could have just said that. That would have been more of a challenge. I suppose my response would be that both the description of the sky as a dome, and the discussion of events that occurred on Day 4 are quite unlikely to be literally true. Nor is the order of events on Day 4 with respect to events of Days 2 and 3 literally true.
Beyond the creation stories and the Flood and post Flood descriptions, there is very little in the Torah that is even within the realm of science to contradict or confirm. But there is plenty of poetic language that is not intended to be taken literally.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 46 by jaywill, posted 02-13-2016 8:43 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 49 by OrthodoxJew, posted 02-14-2016 10:21 AM NoNukes has replied
 Message 54 by jaywill, posted 02-15-2016 8:27 AM NoNukes has replied

  
OrthodoxJew
Junior Member (Idle past 2954 days)
Posts: 7
From: Jerusalem, Israel
Joined: 01-25-2016


Message 49 of 60 (778001)
02-14-2016 10:21 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by NoNukes
02-13-2016 11:26 AM


Regarding the claim that so many theologians have commented on the age of the universe that one of them had to be right (or at least close), I don't claim to be an expert on comparative religions. I'm not aware of any that claim the universe is old (except for the Greeks, who said it was infinitely old), but I could be wrong. If indeed there are, as implied, hundreds of different estimates running the gamut from a few thousand years to, let's say, the trillions, I would have to concede your point.
All I claimed, as a Jew, was isn't it interesting that, within Judaism, a very respected opinion is not only close, but very close, and (as far as I know) nobody else is even in the ballpark.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by NoNukes, posted 02-13-2016 11:26 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 50 of 60 (778006)
02-14-2016 1:12 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by OrthodoxJew
02-14-2016 10:21 AM


If indeed there are, as implied, hundreds of different estimates running the gamut from a few thousand years to, let's say, the trillions, I would have to concede your point.
I think you responded to me because I was the last poster to the forum, but I agree with your reasoning if, in fact, the calculation of 15 billion years was actually made at a relevant time (meaning prior to any scientific evidence or opinion on the age of the earth). I don't know if you demonstrated that to be true. There really don't see to lots of different estimates floating around.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by OrthodoxJew, posted 02-14-2016 10:21 AM OrthodoxJew has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22391
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 51 of 60 (778016)
02-14-2016 2:30 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by OrthodoxJew
02-14-2016 10:21 AM


OrthodoxJew writes:
All I claimed, as a Jew, was isn't it interesting that, within Judaism, a very respected opinion is not only close, but very close, and (as far as I know) nobody else is even in the ballpark.
It's interesting only in the same sense that numerology is interesting.
--Percy

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 Message 49 by OrthodoxJew, posted 02-14-2016 10:21 AM OrthodoxJew has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 52 of 60 (778021)
02-14-2016 3:58 PM
Reply to: Message 49 by OrthodoxJew
02-14-2016 10:21 AM


Regarding the claim that so many theologians have commented on the age of the universe that one of them had to be right (or at least close), I don't claim to be an expert on comparative religions. I'm not aware of any that claim the universe is old (except for the Greeks, who said it was infinitely old), but I could be wrong.
Well, the Hindus came up with dates from the billions to the trillions. I came across this quote in Wikipedia:
Twenty-four centuries before Isaac Newton, the Hindu Rig-Veda asserted that gravitation held the universe together. The Sanskrit speaking Aryans subscribed to the idea of a spherical earth in an era when the Greeks believed in a flat one. The Indians of the fifth century A.D. calculated the age of the earth as 4.3 billion years; scientists in 19th century England were convinced it was 100 million years. --- Dick Teresi, Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science
I don't know how reliable this Teresi chap is, but if he's right then his Indians were closer to the age of the Earth than your rabbi was to the age of the universe.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 49 by OrthodoxJew, posted 02-14-2016 10:21 AM OrthodoxJew has not replied

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 53 of 60 (778027)
02-14-2016 6:15 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by Dr Adequate
02-14-2016 3:58 PM


I don't know how reliable this Teresi chap is, but if he's right then his Indians were closer to the age of the Earth than your rabbi was to the age of the universe.
There are lots of claims that the Hindu Rig Veda made an assortment of scientific findings. None of them bear even a moments scrutiny. If Teresi's other claims are of similar quality, then he is not reliable.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 52 by Dr Adequate, posted 02-14-2016 3:58 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 54 of 60 (778046)
02-15-2016 8:27 AM
Reply to: Message 48 by NoNukes
02-13-2016 11:26 AM


Re: Torah disproved on Gen. 1:1 ?
quote:
Yes, you could have just said that. That would have been more of a challenge. I suppose my response would be that both the description of the sky as a dome, and the discussion of events that occurred on Day 4 are quite unlikely to be literally true. Nor is the order of events on Day 4 with respect to events of Days 2 and 3 literally true.
This is the complaint that the making of the sun is mentioned after the description of light. But the word for the fourth day lights is not the same as that for "light" in the second verse.
The term is more like "light-holders" or "light-bearers".
Anyway, the Recovery Version has this translation:
"And God said, Let there be light-bearers in the expanse of heaven to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. (v.14)
And let them be light-bearers in the expanse of heaven to give light on the earth, and it was so. (v.15)
So what the seer could have seen in this succession of visions is a general diffuse light on the second day but a more localized and embodied light-holder/s on the fourth day.
Verse 16 -
"And God made two great light-bearers, the greater light-bearer to rule the day and the lesser light-bearer to rule the night, and the stars." (v.16)
What was a diffuse and sheet like glow could have been now seen more definitely as a localized concrete source - a light-bearer. And the word there is not that God CREATED them but MADE them. Though some overlap of the two words might be argued for in the Hebrew Bible, not every instance may mean synonymous meaning.
So, Nonukes, I understand that the seer saw the sun, the moon and the stars as light-bears that God had made on the fourth day. At present I lean towards a view that God showed the prophetic seer this preparation of the world in seven visions or "days."
I don't have a literal problem with the Bible saying God created the sun after there was an evening and morning in the two previous days. What was a diffuse light may have just appeared to become definite light-bears, localizing the light so that he could clearly see its source.
And it would not be untrue that to him God MADE them on the fourth day.
quote:
Beyond the creation stories and the Flood and post Flood descriptions, there is very little in the Torah that is even within the realm of science to contradict or confirm. But there is plenty of poetic language that is not intended to be taken literally.
Alright. Alright. I give up. I win (smile).
I came to the Old Testament through the the New. First the integrity of Jesus won my confidence that He was above reproach. Then I noticed that so much of the Old Testament He took seriously. So slowly I decided that if it was good enough for Jesus (including the flood) then it must be true.
I came to Genesis by first being subdued that the integrity of Christ was reliable. Then it was a process of accepting what Christ accepted. I think what I should get from the account is that the world was judged and an ark of Noah saved men and land beasts.
The ark is a type of Christ. And Christ's salvation includes justified humans and extends to the environment and even the planet. He has created it for His eternal purpose. So the rainbow of mercy seen after the flood assures that He will not totally destroy the human environment which He did create for His eternal purpose.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : succinctly changed to definitely
sense changed to seen

This message is a reply to:
 Message 48 by NoNukes, posted 02-13-2016 11:26 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 55 by NoNukes, posted 02-15-2016 1:27 PM jaywill has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 55 of 60 (778058)
02-15-2016 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by jaywill
02-15-2016 8:27 AM


Re: Torah disproved on Gen. 1:1 ?
This is the complaint that the making of the sun is mentioned after the description of light. But the word for the fourth day lights is not the same as that for "light" in the second verse.
It is a complaint that there is any discussion of night and day at all before the existence of the Sun. This discussion is too far off of the topic, so this will be my last response along these lines. Maybe in another forum.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by jaywill, posted 02-15-2016 8:27 AM jaywill has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 56 by jaywill, posted 02-17-2016 9:34 AM NoNukes has seen this message but not replied

  
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 56 of 60 (778122)
02-17-2016 9:34 AM
Reply to: Message 55 by NoNukes
02-15-2016 1:27 PM


Re: Torah disproved on Gen. 1:1 ?
quote:
It is a complaint that there is any discussion of night and day at all before the existence of the Sun. This discussion is too far off of the topic, so this will be my last response along these lines. Maybe in another forum.
It is far from the topic. But I too have a last word on the fourth day.
I don't think that for the seer to speak of the evening and morning before the sun appears to have been MADE ... [ not created (bara) but made (asah) ] is not really unscientific.
By modern standards of cosmological talk it may be perculiar. But so would it be to speak of "sunrise" when the sun does not really rise. The earth rotates.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

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OrthodoxJew
Junior Member (Idle past 2954 days)
Posts: 7
From: Jerusalem, Israel
Joined: 01-25-2016


Message 57 of 60 (778209)
02-18-2016 10:32 AM
Reply to: Message 56 by jaywill
02-17-2016 9:34 AM


It should be obvious from the mention of evenings and mornings before the Sun was made that the Bible is not speaking of literal days as we know them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 56 by jaywill, posted 02-17-2016 9:34 AM jaywill has not replied

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 Message 58 by NoNukes, posted 02-18-2016 10:42 AM OrthodoxJew has not replied
 Message 59 by caffeine, posted 02-18-2016 3:07 PM OrthodoxJew has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 58 of 60 (778212)
02-18-2016 10:42 AM
Reply to: Message 57 by OrthodoxJew
02-18-2016 10:32 AM


It should be obvious from the mention of evenings and mornings before the Sun was made that the Bible is not speaking of literal days as we know them.
Well, if you think this is on topic...
We don't even need to go that far. jaywill's own interpretation is non-literal. Somehow he has managed to substitute the words unscientific, which of course is a completely separate question.
Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions? Scott Adams

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by OrthodoxJew, posted 02-18-2016 10:32 AM OrthodoxJew has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 59 of 60 (778244)
02-18-2016 3:07 PM
Reply to: Message 57 by OrthodoxJew
02-18-2016 10:32 AM


It should be obvious from the mention of evenings and mornings before the Sun was made that the Bible is not speaking of literal days as we know them.
And yet this fact was not obvious to the medieval rabbis to whom you ascribe so much prescience about the true nature of the universe. Nahmanides explains to us:
quote:
And know that the days that are mentioned in the act of creation were, in the creation of the heavens and the earth, real days - composed of hours and minutes, and they were six like the six days of the week, like the simple understanding of the verse
The references to evening and morning is, for him,
quote:
...hinting to that which will be in the firmament after the placing of the luminaries in the firmanent of the skies.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 57 by OrthodoxJew, posted 02-18-2016 10:32 AM OrthodoxJew has not replied

  
Eliyahu
Member (Idle past 2260 days)
Posts: 288
From: Judah
Joined: 07-23-2013


Message 60 of 60 (787609)
07-19-2016 7:26 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by PaulK
02-03-2016 7:50 AM


It's sort of interesting that one of them came up with roughly the right age. However, the underlying reasoning seems somewhat dodgy, and I don't see anything to lift it up above the level of a minor coincidence.
Bs"d
Would it still be a minor coincidence when a 12th century rabbi spells out the big bang?
.
.
"All the peoples walk each in the name of his god, but as for us; we will walk in the name of Y-H-W-H our God forever and ever!" Micah 4:5

"According to scientific rules, in order for critics to disprove the Torah codes, they would have to find fatal flaws in each of the six papers presenting a different approach and a different code. This happened five years ago, and to date not a single flaw was found in any of these papers. Therefore, for all intent and purposes, the Torah codes have been scientifically proven, and the debate is over."
Harold Gans, mathematician and professional code breaker

This message is a reply to:
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