The Torah Is A Great Science Book!

Last updated on: December 27, 2010 at 7:20 pm by Jeffrey L. Falick

The Torah Is A Great Science Book! 2010-12-27T19:20:00-05:00 Jeffrey L. Falick

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Orthodox kiruv (outreach) merchant Adam Jacobs is at it again. Once again he brings his great wisdom to HuffPost to demonstrate that when it comes to creationism, Jewish fundamentalism is ever so much more sophistimacated than regular old fundamentalism:

What I hope to demonstrate is that Judaism’s understanding of this matter (and many others) is significantly more nuanced, complex and surprising than what is currently believed to be the standard religious gloss on the subject. The truth of the matter is that Judaism is frequently (and unfairly) lumped together with other religious systems that actually have vastly different ways of looking at things.

He begins by bringing in Rambam who famously held that science and Torah can’t contradict each other unless one of them is wrong. And Rambam was pretty successful at proving that. Unfortunately, the cosmological system that he brought into alignment with the Torah was the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian vision of the universe. Jacobs doesn’t mention that.

Then he jumps to Rabbi Isaac ben Shmuel of Akko, who is best known for his theory that the universe is around 15 billion years old. The math is really cute and Jacobs is pretty excited about it:

How did he know this? And how did he posses the temerity to conclude it in the midst of the Dark Ages? Perhaps our fundamentalism is not quite as primitive as is supposed.

Maybe the Jewish Encyclopedia can help us to understand the source of Rabbi Isaac’s knowledge:

He was an expert in composing the sacred names (“ẓerufim”), by the power of which angels were forced to reveal to him the great mysteries….

So his deep knowledge of science was given to him by the angels. They certainly parceled it out sparingly. I wonder why they didn’t explain to any of these rabbis that the earth goes around the sun.

Jacobs finishes his article with some proofs by Gerald Schroeder, who wrote Genesis and the Big Bang. Mark Perakh thoroughly debunked Schroeder a long time ago at Talk Reason.

Then Jacobs sums it up for us:

Bear in mind that true intellectualism requires us to remain open to new ideas that don’t fit neatly into our current worldview. Most people are so wholly invested in their way of thinking that no amount of evidence would suffice to disavow them of it.

…These sources depict an origin of the universe that is clearly, and uncannily, similar to that of modern cosmology and quite unlike the views of some “fundamentalist” religions out there.

Knowing as he does that his secular Jewish targets pride themselves on intellectual approaches and are generally adverse to fundamentalism, he tries to pretend that his type of Orthodox Judaism fits the bill.

Anyone familiar with the biblical account of creation knows that it is impossible to square it with scientific discoveries, notwithstanding any coincidental rabbinical interpretations. That’s why he doesn’t even try to reconcile the “creation” of plants before the sun or of woman from the rib of a man. Could it be that he doesn’t bring up these issues because he’s so wholly invested in his thinking that no amount of evidence would suffice to disavow him of it? Just asking.

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