13th century rabbi says universe billions of years old

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.

I'm pretty sure that I've heard this mentioned before. Wikipedia mentions it, citing ^ Kaplan, Aryeh (January 1993). Immortality, resurrection, and the age of the universe: a kabbalistic view. Ktav Publishing House. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-88125-345-0.So the claim is more than twenty years old, at the very least.

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Jar, PaulK: Evolutionists are fond of asking creationists - and rightly so - how multiple means of measuring the ages of rocks and fossils give the same answer. And you emphasize: don't tell me why the dates are wrong, tell me why the methods give the SAME answer.

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I therefore say, in like manner, that you have ducked my point: How did a rabbi in the 13th century - 400 years before the telescope, when the Catholics were slaughtering cats to keep them from being used as familiar spirits by witches, who were surely responsible for the Bubonic Plague - analyze Bible commentaries that were already ancient in his time, and get the same answer as modern science?

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On the contrary, I have not ducked your point at all. Getting one approximately right answer from one of a number of poorly-justified calculations is simply not that impressive. Especially when there is at least one alternative number (the age of the Earth) that could be taken as a success.So I say again, all you have offered is a minor coincidence. Unless and until you can provide more there is nothing more to say.

Interesting that he realised that the world was old, and doubtless that was a factor that went into his calculation. But, of course, this also indicates that he did not distinguish between the age of the Universe and the age of the Earth, even though they are quite different.