The Bible opens with a
description of the creation of the universe and all plant and animal life on Earth in a series of Divine acts that come in six stages described as Six Days.
Our
rabbis were divided as to whether this Six Days account was to be taken
literally or not.
Rashi said no. In his second commentary on the first two words of the Bible ברא בראשית, he argues the text cannot be seen as chronological on grammatical grounds, that verse 2 speaks of water before the creation of water on Earth (verse 6-7) and that the Shamayim (heaven/sky) was made by combining the two elements of fire and water as per the ancient concept of the Four Elements (i.e., earth, air, fire and water).
(Note: All 3 arguments are faulty. The first misconception I explained in a previous blog on ברא בראשית and the last is ancient silliness.)
Some
argued, as the Arts Scroll Chumash highlights citing Rashi, that all the
‘physical’ elements of the universe were actually created at the very start
and only placed into their final 'spots' on the day listed. This is in line
with the Talmud Bavli, Chaggigah 12a: section 5[i].
Such an idea would require a phenomenally gigantic 'warehouse’ to store each and every creation item until it was fixed to its appropriate spot in space: Sun, Moon, stars, planet Earth, the sky, etc.
An
ultimate super Ark!
But the Ramban and most commentaries see Chapter 1 and its six day sequence as, in fact, chronological[ii].
The early
Christian view
The early Christian theologians held that the Six Days of Creation narrative was allegorical.
The great Augustine of Hippo (354 CE – 430 CE) sided with the idea all matter was created at the start as the Sun was not mentioned until Day 4 though there was light, and day and night beforehand [iii].
And the much earlier Origen (c. 185 CE – c. 253 CE) noted as proof that chapter 1 is allegorical is that plants: i.e., grass, shrubs and trees, are created on Day 3 while the Sun is listed on Day 4: an impossibility that any farmer would recognize as without the Sun no plant can exist. That is, all plants require warmth from the Sun, and sunlight is the essential catalyst to activate photosynthesis: the process whereby all plants on Earth convert water and nutrients from the soil into the sugars they use as food[iv].
So, no sun for warmth and no sunlight for photosynthesis for plant food, no plants.
Science vs mysticism
As stated in the Art Scroll Chumash citing the Ramban, the ‘details’ of creation are a ‘mystery’ known only to those who master Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah – and they are forbidden to reveal these secrets to the masses[v]. Ramban’s two commentaries to verse 14 highlight this ancient approach citing the rabbinic traditions found in Bereshith Rabbah, ch. 3.[vi]
Early Christian theologians similarly envisioned and focused on the mystical world and, likewise, on angels, Satan: the fallen angel, and the heavenly court[vii]. The question: “How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?” reflects such a mindset[viii].
But, today, solutions
and explanations based on the real physical nature of the universe are
possible.
All thanks to scientific discoveries beginning with Galileo’s first telescope (1609 CE) and his discovery of moons around Jupiter[ix], craters and mountains on our Moon, and that Venus orbits the Sun[x], to the realization that all the stars visible in the night sky are in fact distant suns that are light years away (i.e., a light year is 299,792,458 metres per second = 9.46 trillion kilometers per 3651/4 day year[xi]) and that our solar system of 8 planets that orbit around our Sun is only a tiny speck in our Milky Way galaxy with its 100+ billion suns[xii] and their planets, and that even our vast Milky Way is only a grapefruit size galaxy among multi-millions more in the Universe: marvels hidden from the naked eye on planet Earth and which only the Hubble, Kepler and even more powerful Webb telescopes can best see[xiii].
And, of
course, the mathematics of the cleric Copernicus -- published in 1543 -- revealed
that, contrary to common sense and ordinary observations from the Earth, the
Sun does not obit around planet Earth but the reverse. Our entire ‘solar’
system is centered on the Sun. And the Earth itself spins on its axis
west to east: creating the illusion the Sun goes East to West, the illusion the
stars move similarly, and also the darkness and daylight we call/see as night
and day.[xiv]
Since
the 1960s scientific observations of deep space (using radio telescopes[xv]) have also – finally -- recognized
the Bible’s accuracy: that the entire Universe is not eternal and fixed, but
created from a finite spot and first-moment-in-time from nothing: ex
nihilo as the Bible states (Gen. ch1:1), in what is called the Big Bang
Theory[xvi].
Einstein’s formula, E = mc2, is the key. If speeding up (c2) matter (m) can create enormous nuclear bomb explosions of pure energy (E), then the reverse also holds true.
Massive energy (E) can be transformed into matter (m) spewing forth at great speed (c2) from a single spot and moment.
This is how the universe was created ex nihilo.
Observations from the Hubble and Webb telescopes have shown images of how such original matter first appeared and transformed.
The ‘path’ is found on the wall of every high school chemistry lab: the Periodic Table which lists all 118 gases and solid matter starting with the simplest: Hydrogen (with one proton) and Helium (with 2 protons). Explosive uranium (U) is element #92[xvii].
The very first matter was in the form of gas clouds of mostly hydrogen and some helium which coalesced to become suns: super-hot balls that fuse hydrogen atoms into helium and in the process release immense heat and light energy (remember E = mc2).[xviii] Over time, heavier elements are created such as oxygen and iron[xix].
These ‘remnants’ in turn can coalesce and form new suns from hydrogen and helium and also gas planets such as Saturn and Jupiter and solid planets such as Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury[xxi].
So, in light of the above actual science, how is one to understand Genesis ch 1?
As I have explained in an earlier
blog, the purpose or need for Gen. Ch 1 was to give the Jewish people the
correct understanding that there is only one Deity instead of many gods: gods
who are often petty, jealous and waring, competing gods who treat humans as
play toys and make human life a crapshoot filled with randomness and chaos -- without
a coherent Divine plan, order and justice.
As Gen. ch.1 stresses, God the
Eternal created the universe and all its contents and life forms as a
magnanimous act of Love and with Joy.
God states twice: in verses
10 and 18, בוֹט כִּי "it is
good”, and ends day 6 with:
|
לא וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה, וְהִנֵּה-טוֹב מְאֹד |
31 And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.
|
And as to the creation of humanity,
the text is glowing with Divine Love and a Divine blessing:
Put simply, then, chapter 1 of the Bible
is there to reassure us – psychologically -- that whatever happens to us is
part of a coherent Divine plan rather than the chaos of competing, arrogant and petty gods toying with humans as their playthings.
In
six days and other issues
Now the 6 days need not be 24 hours each. As
Psalm 90 states:
|
ד כִּי אֶלֶף שָׁנִים, בְּעֵינֶיךָ-- כְּיוֹם אֶתְמוֹל, |
4 For
a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, |
As to the sequence of the development of life on Earth,
as accepted by Science today (following Darwin and the Theory of Evolution), it
is consistent with the order of Gen. Ch 1: creatures of the oceans
first, reptiles second, mammals next and humans last.
The listing of birds (Gen. 1:6) before land mammals such
as cattle (Gen. 1:24-25) may seem contrary to Darwinian sequencing but, as
argued previously, birds are the last remnants of the primordial dinosaurs as has now
been recognized[xxii].
The only real stumbling block is Day 4 and the listing of
the Sun, Moon and stars after grass and shrubs and trees appeared and
flourished on Day 3.
I.e., the problem Origen highlighted as an impossibility
that any ancient farmer would have immediately realized.
As the ‘magic’ of photosynthesis is now normally
introduced in grade 4 or 5 elementary classes,[xxiii]
one no longer needs to be an adult farmer to see the text’s problem.
I therefore offer the following solution and explanation
re: Day 4.
What I am about
to suggest may seem radical and shocking but it is based on the actual wording
and priorities as listed in the Day 4 text -- and what we now know about the universe
from modern scientific observations and discoveries.
Q1: What is the focus of the text of Day 4?
This question may seem odd, but it is the key.
The text in its very first verse, verse 14, focuses on the ‘purposes’ and ‘roles’ of the
Sun and Moon and stars to separate daytime and nighttime, to mark cycles and seasons, allow for the
calculation of days and years -- and for
‘special signs’.
Verse 14, then, is NOT about their creation.
Their creation by God the Eternal is only actually
mentioned or referenced much later in verse 16.
Day 4’s final verses, verse 17 and 18, stress again the
key point of separating night from day: a night-day cycle that begins soon
after the first moment of the creation of the universe in verses 3-5:
Now the first focus, verse 14: the
measurement of time, requires that the orbits of the Earth and Sun and Moon
relative to each other to be fixed and permanent.
But we now know this was not always the case.
The Earth spins on its axis and it is that which
makes for us night and day.
When a side of the earth faces toward the sun, the sun’s
fireball of light illuminates that portion of the Earth, and when a portion of
the earth due to the Earth’s rotational spin faces away from the glaring Sun,
there is minimal illumination which we
call night.
The Earth’s rotation and angel of axis have changed
over time as giant glaciers that covered most of the northern hemisphere in
the remoter past slowly melted.[xxiv]
And the Earth’s magnetic field and North and South
magnetic poles have even reverses long ago[xxv]
and even shift today:[xxvi] affecting the Earth’s axis and rotation.
The first above water land mass – a single unit called
by scientists Pangaea – at some point in the remote past suffered deep cracks
into the Earth’s crust and slowly broke up into our five (5) major continents and smaller water
surrounded ‘bits’ as the surface of the planet shifted on what scientists call tectonic
plates.[xxvii]
The split up into 5 major continents that rotated and
moved far apart also had effects on the planet’s motion and rotation[xxviii].
Lastly, the Moon affects the Earth. High and low tide are due to the
gravitational pull of the Moon[xxix]
and its elliptical orbit brings it
closer to Earth at times.[xxx] This orbit also developed slowly over time
under the force of gravity and interaction with the Earth’s pull, other
planets, the Sun and their still adjusting orbits[xxxi].
Put simply, though planet Earth’s rotation and 24 hour cycle has been stable for thousands of years, it is, in fact, the outcome of many factors that slowly ‘fell into place’ over a very prolonged time.
As well, the Moon is not a light of itself or on its own. This is/should have been obvious from its phases: from being ‘invisible’ to waxing slowly to a full circle of light and then fading slowly back to nothing over a 29 ½ day cycle[xxxii].
The Moon only reflects light from the Sun and its phases from no light to fully lit circle and back, are due to its orbit around the Earth and their relative positions to the Sun.[xxxiii]
Q. 2: Why are the names Sun and Moon never mentioned in the five verses of Day 4?
Yes, Day 4 mentions that the Sun and Moon and stars were designed to give light to day and night and that they were created by God the Eternal, but their creation is only mentioned as a secondary point –in passing -- re Day 4.
The names SUN = שָׁ֫מֶשׁ (shemesh) and MOON = יָרֵחַ (yarehach) never appear in the Day 4 text where they are referred to or’ lumped together’ simply as LIGHTS מְאֹרֹת in the repetitive five (5) times they are mentioned in the verses of Day 4.
יד וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, יְהִי מְאֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם, לְהַבְדִּיל, בֵּין הַיּוֹם וּבֵין הַלָּיְלָה; וְהָיוּ לְאֹתֹת וּלְמוֹעֲדִים, וּלְיָמִים וְשָׁנִים. | 14 And God said: 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; |
טו וְהָיוּ לִמְאוֹרֹת בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמַיִם, לְהָאִיר עַל-הָאָרֶץ; וַיְהִי-כֵן. | 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth.' And it was so. |
טז וַיַּעַשׂ אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-שְׁנֵי הַמְּאֹרֹת הַגְּדֹלִים: אֶת-הַמָּאוֹר הַגָּדֹל, לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת הַיּוֹם, וְאֶת-הַמָּאוֹר הַקָּטֹן לְמֶמְשֶׁלֶת הַלַּיְלָה, וְאֵת הַכּוֹכָבִים. | 16 And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars. |
יז וַיִּתֵּן אֹתָם אֱלֹהִים, בִּרְקִיעַ הַשָּׁמָיִם, לְהָאִיר, עַל-הָאָרֶץ. | 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, |
יח וְלִמְשֹׁל, בַּיּוֹם וּבַלַּיְלָה, וּלְהַבְדִּיל, בֵּין הָאוֹר וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ; וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים, כִּי-טוֹב. | 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. |
19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. |
To put it another way, if the intent of the Day 4 text was to describe or focus on the creation of the Sun, Moon and stars, then that should have been stated at the very start of the Day 4 text, i.e., in verse 14 and their proper names given --- but it is not. Only in verse 16 is their ‘creation’ mentioned as LIGHTS..
This is not the Bible’s normal pattern which is to present/highlight the names of created items at their creation: Day and Night (verse 5), Heaven/skies (verse 8), earth and sea (verse 10)
IMPLICATIONS
Put simply, then, Day 4’s first and primary focus is on measuring time using the pre-existing light of the Sun, Moon and stars.
It is the tendency, the human eagerness to learn of the Sun and Moon’s creation, that has led to this misreading of the Day 4 text and its unique primary focus on time markers.
It is ignoring the sequence of the Bible
text and its unusual word choices that has led to the incorrect impression
the Sun and Moon and stars were created on Day 4.
After all, our ancestors were totally ignorant
of the complexity and real steps in the design and building of the universe:
that the stars -- others suns in the multi-billions (yes,
billions) --- came first, and all asteroids and comets and planets and moons:
whether solid rock or gaseous balls, came about much, much later. (Astronomers
calculate the universe in our time of 24 hour day, as 13.8 billion years old, our Sun as 4.6 billion years old and our Earth and other solar planets as much
younger.[xxxvii])
Only once the ancient view of Ptolemy and Aristotle[xxxviii]
that all elements of the universe travel in mathematically perfect circle
orbits and perfect spheres, is replaced by elliptical orbits and Newton's Law
of Gravity, does the idea --the possibility -- that changes over time can come
into play.
The ever developing and changing universe our modern Hubble and even better Webb telescope reveal.
Finally, the proposed careful reading of Day 4
also solves the key issues that have long perplexed our ancient rabbis and medieval
commentaries, and Christian theologians:
Q: How can there be a cycle of "night and day" on Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3
before the
creation of the Sun?
Conclusion
In the last few
centuries and especially with the technological breakthroughs re: telescopes of
the 20th and now 21st centuries CE, human understanding
of the physical universe, space, our solar system and the Earth all impact on
how we should understand the Bible’s creation account of Gen. ch 1.
The order of life
on Earth as presented by modern science: with plants coming first and
thereafter animal life beginning in the sea and ascending, ultimately, to
mankind, is consistent with the Genesis chapter 1 account.
And, as Psalm 90
suggests, a day in the eyes of God the Eternal may not just be 24 hours long.
The Day 4 text is
the only real problem if the verses are seen as describing the day the Sun and Moon
and stars were created – after Day 3’s plant life: which required sunlight for
warmth and photosynthesis.
As argued above,
the focus of Day 4’s text is not on the creation of the Sun and Moon and stars,
but their roles as markers of day vs night, the 24 hour day duration, the
approximately 30 day moon months, and 3651/4 day solar year -- all finalized
on Day 4.
Only when the
Earth’s rotation on its axis became fixed, only when the recently created Earth
satellite which is the Mmoon developed its own fixed elliptical orbit, and only
when the Earth – in alignment with the seven other planets – developed a fix
elliptical orbit around the Sun, can the Day 4 roles -- of measuring time – occur.
FINAL WORDS
In every
generation people of faith in God the Eternal and the Bible as
His Divine words seek to better understand the Holy text and any anomalies and
points of confusion.
Among Jews, that
has meant relying on their knowledge of Jewish oral traditions, ancient, Medieval and more modern rabbinic written
sources and on the logic and insights of their own minds.
When mysticism is
a prominent mindset, mystical solutions emerge.
But when, as in
the present, scientific knowledge re: life on Earth, the structure of the super
microscopic atom on the one hand and the extent and structure of the entire
universe on the other has become better understood and made visible, the
Bible’s text re: Creation: Genesis chapter 1, must be understood in a new
light.
The quest for
Divine truth requires it.
My suggestions
above in light of current scientific knowledge and careful attention to the
actual words of the Biblical text: the precise order and language choices, indicate
to me that Day 4 of Creation has been ‘misread’ for centuries out of an
eagerness to find the creation of the all-important Sun in Day 4’s text.
But, as I believe
I have proven, the Sun was not created on Day 4. It was created long beforehand on Day 1, alongside
the billions of other very distant suns that twinkle in the night sky as stars.
Day 4 is about
arranging and finalizing orbits and gravitational forces so that the Earth’s
rotates on its axis, so that we have a 24 hour cycle of Day and Night relative
to the Sun, a 3651/4 day solar year, and a moon cycle from pitch black to a fully
visible circle and back in 29 1/2 Earth days.
The science of the
ancients, of Ptolemy’s Geocentric universe which Aristotle endorsed and made
widespread --and which has been accepted down to Modern times, were all based on observations
with the naked eye ‘landlocked’ to planet Earth, and the idea that the circle
and sphere shapes were nature’s norm of geometric perfection.
Reality was/is not
that simple or mathematically ‘perfect’.
The ellipse, in fact, is the standard motion of planets around
their sun and also of moons around their anchor planets. And galaxies by and large
swirl in spirals[xxxix].
Only with this
level of scientific understanding (thanks mostly to the invention of
telescopes) can we today send men to the Moon without missing that oversized
rock.
And only with such
scientific truth can we really understand the Bible text of Genesis Chapter 1 as God’s word.
Q. Why does
the Bible ch.1 hide the full truth?
When we try to
explain to a child a complex idea or rule, we give the child the basics within
his or her ability to understand. If a child is walking on a street curb as if
on a tightrope, we warn him or her they might fall and get hurt. We do not go into the Law of Gravity.
And the same
applies when someone – even an adult -- uses a scale to see how much they
weigh. Also the Law of Gravity.
Similarly, God the
Eternal and the ultimate Creator, when giving the Torah to the Children of
Israel to share with the world -- in the middle of the 2nd century
BCE -- faced a similar dilemma.
Even with the
great civilizations and engineering feats of the nations from Mesopotamia to
Egypt -- even with their professional astronomical calculations -- the true
nature of the universe and of the Earth’s orbit, etc. were not visible to the
naked eye of anyone ‘locked down’ to our planet.
To tell them that the
stars – in the billions – are also suns with orbiting planets and moons, that
Jupiter alone has 80+ moons, and that our solar system is not only elliptical
and centred on our Sun, but consists of 8 planets and many asteroids, etc.
would not have been believed.
These truths were
beyond human observation and human comprehension until more recent times and
the invention of the telescope.
[i] Art Scroll Chumash, Stone Edition, 7th
ed., 1997, commentary to verses 14-19, p. 5.
[ii] Ibid.,
verse 1, p. 3.
[iii] See https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/anthro/Previous_Lectures/sustain/AugustineCosmology0.html
[iv] https://www.inspiritvr.com/general-bio/cell-biology/complete-process-of-photosynthesis-study-guide
[v] Art Scroll Chumash, Stone Edition ,introductory
commentary, p. 2. See also Ramban’s
commentaries to Genesis verse 1 at https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.1.1?lang=bi&with=Ramban&lang2=en
[vii] See https://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/anthro/Previous_Lectures/sustain/AugustineCosmology0.html
[viii]
Wikipedia sees this ‘question’ as a late anti-Catholic spurious
criticism, but acknowledges that Thomas
Aquinas writing c. 1270 in his Summa Theologica
includes discussion of several questions regarding angels and their corporeal
state. See Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_many_angels_can_dance_on_the_head_of_a_pin%3F
[ix] Jupiter has 80 orbiting moons and there are over 200 in
our solar system. See https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/in-depth/#:~:text=Jupiter%20has%2080%20moons.,moons%20are%20awaiting%20official%20names
and https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/overview/#:~:text=Earth%20has%20one%20moon%2C%20and,asteroids%2C%20also%20have%20small%20moons.
[x] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/307/galileos-observations-of-the-moon-jupiter-venus-and-the-sun/
[xix]
See documentary videos at https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/ep-1-the-beginning
and https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/ep-2-the-end
[xxi] See https://astronomy.com/magazine/ask-astro/2021/12/ask-astro-the-universe-is-full-of-dust---whats-it-made-of#:~:text=These%20materials%20are%20primarily%20born,within%20galaxies%2C%20or%20interstellar%20dust.
and https://www.space.com/35526-solar-system-formation.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_dust
[xxiv]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
and https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2021/05/19/melting-glaciers-shifted-earths-axis/
[xxvi]
https://www.nature.com/articles/d43978-022-00128-8#:~:text=Over%20the%20last%20century%2C%20the,the%20past%2022%2C000%20years1.
[xxx] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides06_variations.html#:~:text=The%20elliptical%20orbits%20of%20the,average%20ranges%20in%20the%20tides.
[xxxi]
All these
changes are to be found in the seminal work by Alfred Wegener, The Origin of Continents and Ocean, 1922. (Translated from the
Third German Edition by J. G. A. Skerl, New York, 1924, E. P. Dutton and Co.)
[xxxii]
See https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/earths-moon/lunar-phases-and-eclipses/#:~:text=These%20eight%20phases%20are%2C%20in,month%20(every%2029.5%20days)
[xxxiii] Diagram from https://www.space.com/62-earths-moon-phases-monthly-lunar-cycles-infographic.html
[xxxvii]
https://www.ips-planetarium.org/page/age#:~:text=Current%20measurements%20yield%20an%20age,billion%20years%20for%20the%20Universe and re the Sun, https://www.space.com/58-the-sun-formation-facts-and-characteristics.html
[xxxviii] The ‘scientific’ idea that the Earth was/is at the centre, the geocentric model, dates back to the first century Ptolomy and was accepted and propagated by Aristotle in his astronomical writings and drawings. See http://ogdentrust.com/assets/general/Earth-and-Space-Research-Cards.pdf and https://www.schoolphysics
.co.uk/age14-16/Astronomy/text/Theories_of_the_solar_system/index.html
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