13th century rabbi says universe billions of years old

What predictions, other than the age of the universe, can we derive from this number crunching? Cam we conclude that the earth itself is nearly 15 billion years old?

That's not what the paragraph you quoted said.

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to get 15,340,500,000 years for the age of the universe when Adam was created.

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Of course the Torah is not the literal truth, but I am not sure 'twisted rationalization' is a fair labeling. The age of the universe is of course known to us, and the fact that the earth is greater than 6000 years is also evident. We might well accuse the author of the article or rationalizing. But can such accusations readily by applied at the time of Isaac of Akko who lived the 13-14th century? I don't believe estimates of the earth's age being even in the millions of years were prevalent or scientifically based prior to the 1800s and some of those scientific estimates turned out to be bad science. So what would Isaac have been rationalizing?

Genesis 1:1

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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

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Given the known extent and range of human belief, for example people still believe that the earth is stationary, not making something impossible to believe has to be close to the lowest standard for credibility possible.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.