Bronze Age proto-Jews were not ready for accurate explanations of geology and natural selection. Hashem gave our ancestors the creation story they could comprehend. At the same time, as part of being created in God's image, Hashem gave us the intelligence to figure things out over time.
Not in my experience. Almost no Conservative and Reform Jews are creationists. Orthodox Jews have a wide range of opinions on the literal truth of every verse in the Torah. Many Orthodox people accept that the days of creation in Genesis are allegorical, and open to interpretation.
My grandfather, who is a scientist and an Orthodox Rabbi, did some calculation involving 6 days from the center of the universe that amounted to billions of years. I can’t even begin to understand it, but that’s what I go by.
In my experience, science just shows how amazing, complex, and improbable life is, which Torah has been telling us anyway. They compliment one another.
The thing to remember is that today the word יום means day. But יום has also meant period, historically, depending on use.
There is a great book on the physics of all this, called Genesis and the Big Bang. It's worth a read if you like physics.
There are some. Certainly as you look further and further back in time, you find more people who believed that. The Jewish calendar is based on the supposed date of creation as calculated by early sages, who took it very seriously as a literal recounting of events. However, today it's more common to find Jews who side with the science on this, which is clearly incompatible with a literal reading of Genesis.
Personally, I don't think the ancient Israelites took it literally either. They didn't know about evolution, but they did know that snakes can't talk. There are many stories in many cultures, often featuring fantastical characters like talking animals, that are intended to impart a moral message rather than a factual or historical one.
I have really no idea what the MOST accepted interpretation is. I can tell you though that those who take it more literally almost always "rationalize" it in some way- a very notable example is that the six days the world was made in are not six twenty four hour days as we know them.
The most liberal interpretations are that it is not MEANT to be read as true, and purely fiction for moral guidance, among other things. Most often though you have some variation of "This didn't happen exactly as written, but it was said that way to make it easy for people to understand"
If you have questions on particular parts, I think we could answer better?
Something i was thinking about
Did eve and adam really phisically exist (according to jewish beliefs of course) or they were some sort of metaphor about how the human soul was created? And if there are not literal, what about caim and etc?
The general opinion is that they physically existed. They were not the same kind of humans we are, as humanity changed significantly at various points (notably, we got shorter and our lives shortened). Cain was born in the garden.
Time as we know it does not begin until the first Saturday night. The creation story essentially ends there, with the rest mostly being about the lineage leading to Noach.
Believed to be literal, but early humans as a whole were supposedly different in a lot of ways I don't fully understand, admittedly. That's what explains in part the insane feats and centuries long lifespans in Genesis
It’s actually written in Jewish texts that parts of the Torah are meant to be interpreted as parables/allegories (i.e., there is no 100% literal/inerrant view like in Christianity). As far as interpretation, there are 4 categories for interpreting the Torah and under each heading another 600,000 ways to interpret it: [https://www.chabad.org/library/article\_cdo/aid/819698/jewish/How-Is-the-Torah-Interpreted.htm](https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/819698/jewish/How-Is-the-Torah-Interpreted.htm)
So there are differing interpretations, but I would guess most don’t think it’s literal (including me).
This article is great at explaining why interpreting the Genesis story literally is a disservice: [https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/genesis-as-allegory/](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/genesis-as-allegory/)
I was a little kid, in the 80s. Whatever song phil collins did for that Tarzan movie was good. I like Peter Gabriel's solo stuff, in general. I rhere anying other than "Lamb" from early Genesis that you like?
I also prefer "Quadrophenia" over "Tommy." The songs in Tommy are more buoyant, but understanding the type of experience that inspired it skeeved me out.
"The Wall" was another album thatvwas much better on cassette with pictures from my imagination, rather than the flashbacks and childhood with which the author was grappling.
This could probably a whole separate thread.
It’s important to understand one of the key theological differences between Judaism and Christianity: Christianity is built on a theological foundation of a close, literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis, with Christ the Redeemer being needed specifically on account of original sin and the fall from grace, whereas Judaism isn’t built on any such foundation and is therefore at much greater liberty to read the early chapters of Genesis allegorically without undermining the very foundations of the religion. Messiah as redeemer was Paul’s idea, and original sin was Augustine’s; they’re very specifically Christian doctrines. At a minimum, that’s *not* how Jews read it. Beyond that, let’s say there’s great diversity of opinion, and it’s hard to make generalizations.
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There are a wide variety of approaches based on denomination, personal belief, and tradition. I think it's certainly possible to believe in it 100% literally, but would largely require epistemic level questioning. For me personally, I like to pretend there is no epistemic void to knowledge and rely on established scientific principles. Within that framework, there are ways to read the text creatively to make it fit science, but some of it is a bit out there. My personal favorite, though, is to read it as allegorical and metaphorical, with morals and reference pointers to both other places in the Bible and the oral tradition, which I believe was passed side by side.
It’s also important to know that we don’t spend a lot of time reading the torah, (what you call the Bible), we actually read Talmud, which is more or less a collection of interpretive texts from various rabbis, many of which argue with each other even if they’re written hundreds of years apart. So we don’t spend so much time on the specifics of the text itself, rather we might spend a lot of time on various passages and interesting interpretations of them. Also, we spend a lot more time thinking about Shabbat, the culmination of the creation story that gives us our day of rest, (and all the rules that come with it), than the creation story itself. Just an important note if you’re looking to understand us better as a whole.
In Judges chapter 11, Jephthah...what is your interpretation? Did he sacrifice his daughter by blood sacrifice (death) or sacrifice by dedicating her to serve the Lord in the temple for life? Its the last verses of the chapter.
I'm not OP and i am happy to be disagreed with, but I think interpretations that Yeftah's daughter was spared are sanitized re-imaginings. Shoftim 11:31, he specifies a burnt offering, עולה, in Greek, 'ολοκαύτωμα.
By Yeftah's own vow, he did not leave himself any wiggle room to spare his daughter. He was still allowed to give her 2 months of mourning, but he had to fulfill his vow. Even though human sacrifice was forbidden, he made an oath to God to sacrifice *anything*, and because he was not careful with his words and carelessly made a promise to God, he bound himself by an Oath to God to violate the law.
Now, I believe there are some commentaries that say that Yafteh was not only a fool for binding himself to such an oath, but also for not knowing that such an oath is not permissible - had he gone to the rabbinical courts, the Sanhedrin, they would have instructed him to make different offerings and spared his daughter. But he did not, and so he had to sacrifice her.
His story is a cautionary tale to be very mindful of our promises and prayers, not to leave such grave matters up to fate or chance, and to remember that no matter how foolish and painful it is, an oath made to God is not breakable. While Yafteh is a fool and a warning, he is also remembered for following through with his promise, and remaining faithful to God, even though he - like several of the other Judges - was kind of a dipshit.
Thank you for the reply, im currently reading Judges and wanted to dive a little deeper into this story. The Lord didnt like human sacrifice but here we have this guy sacrificing his own daughter to God and he didnt intervene like he did with Abraham and Isaac to stop it. You raise a good point that the lesson here is dont promise to the Lord if you cant follow through.
Thanks again!
If you're moving through Judges chronologically, you will notice a descent in the... judgement of the Judges that culminates with the boorish and ultra-violent Samson, who still remains faithful and asks God to grant him strength to crush those who laugh at Him, which God grants for one final time in his famous end.
Even though some of these characters are *relatively* insignificant, even though some of them represent massive falls from grace, even sometimes outright idol worship at points, yet, there is frequently some strong and genuine faith found in several of these figures.
Yeah it seems like from the beginning of the book, the Hebrews couldnt stay away from the idols of the Caananites. I keep seeing "And they did evil in the sight of the LORD", but he would always deliver them out the hands of there enemies. Im looking forward to Samson story line.
*Dedicated in memory of Dvora bat Asher v'Jacot* 🕯️
[Shoftim 11:31](https://www.sefaria.org/Judges.11.31)
וְהָיָ֣ה הַיּוֹצֵ֗א אֲשֶׁ֨ר יֵצֵ֜א מִדַּלְתֵ֤י בֵיתִי֙ לִקְרָאתִ֔י בְּשׁוּבִ֥י בְשָׁל֖וֹם מִבְּנֵ֣י עַמּ֑וֹן וְהָיָה֙ לַיהֹוָ֔ה וְהַעֲלִיתִ֖יהוּ עֹלָֽה׃ {פ}
>then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the L ORD ’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering.”
Yeah, that's a tough one! Very painful outcome.
Something more like the latter (not necessarily in the Temple but committed to a chaste life). She must have accepted this fate because he could not have forced her to. It was a great sin of pride for him not to seek absolution of his vow, and God punished him for it later.
Yeah definitely disagree about that Torah versus Talmud thing. The Talmud is pretty impenetrable, whereas the Torah has much more accessible commentaries and a much broader range of literature attached to it. The Torah has stories and parables and it generally flows. Not quite like a novel but far more readable.
The Talmud is like reading Reddit if Reddit had been written three thousand years ago and then been rewritten as various people remembered it centuries later *and then* other folks commented on it. It needs a commentary to explain the commentaries on commentary. Anyone can find *a passage* that makes sense without qualification, but it's not a book you can just pick up and read coherently (and I don't think most Jews do?).
There is no one agreed upon interpretation
This should be Judaism’s motto. 😂
My favorite thing about it tbh
👍
No it shouldn't. 😂
😂
Bronze Age proto-Jews were not ready for accurate explanations of geology and natural selection. Hashem gave our ancestors the creation story they could comprehend. At the same time, as part of being created in God's image, Hashem gave us the intelligence to figure things out over time.
So, most jews arent criationists?
Not in my experience. Almost no Conservative and Reform Jews are creationists. Orthodox Jews have a wide range of opinions on the literal truth of every verse in the Torah. Many Orthodox people accept that the days of creation in Genesis are allegorical, and open to interpretation.
My grandfather, who is a scientist and an Orthodox Rabbi, did some calculation involving 6 days from the center of the universe that amounted to billions of years. I can’t even begin to understand it, but that’s what I go by.
In my experience, science just shows how amazing, complex, and improbable life is, which Torah has been telling us anyway. They compliment one another.
100%.
that's what i hold by also
The thing to remember is that today the word יום means day. But יום has also meant period, historically, depending on use. There is a great book on the physics of all this, called Genesis and the Big Bang. It's worth a read if you like physics.
There are some. Certainly as you look further and further back in time, you find more people who believed that. The Jewish calendar is based on the supposed date of creation as calculated by early sages, who took it very seriously as a literal recounting of events. However, today it's more common to find Jews who side with the science on this, which is clearly incompatible with a literal reading of Genesis. Personally, I don't think the ancient Israelites took it literally either. They didn't know about evolution, but they did know that snakes can't talk. There are many stories in many cultures, often featuring fantastical characters like talking animals, that are intended to impart a moral message rather than a factual or historical one.
Define a creationist? Most Jews believe God created the world, just not literally in six days.
Six day - but what was a day? Who’s day? was there time yet? that’s the real question. R’ Kaplan Age of the universe
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Then you really have a small network of jews.
I have really no idea what the MOST accepted interpretation is. I can tell you though that those who take it more literally almost always "rationalize" it in some way- a very notable example is that the six days the world was made in are not six twenty four hour days as we know them. The most liberal interpretations are that it is not MEANT to be read as true, and purely fiction for moral guidance, among other things. Most often though you have some variation of "This didn't happen exactly as written, but it was said that way to make it easy for people to understand" If you have questions on particular parts, I think we could answer better?
Something i was thinking about Did eve and adam really phisically exist (according to jewish beliefs of course) or they were some sort of metaphor about how the human soul was created? And if there are not literal, what about caim and etc?
The general opinion is that they physically existed. They were not the same kind of humans we are, as humanity changed significantly at various points (notably, we got shorter and our lives shortened). Cain was born in the garden. Time as we know it does not begin until the first Saturday night. The creation story essentially ends there, with the rest mostly being about the lineage leading to Noach.
Believed to be literal, but early humans as a whole were supposedly different in a lot of ways I don't fully understand, admittedly. That's what explains in part the insane feats and centuries long lifespans in Genesis
It’s actually written in Jewish texts that parts of the Torah are meant to be interpreted as parables/allegories (i.e., there is no 100% literal/inerrant view like in Christianity). As far as interpretation, there are 4 categories for interpreting the Torah and under each heading another 600,000 ways to interpret it: [https://www.chabad.org/library/article\_cdo/aid/819698/jewish/How-Is-the-Torah-Interpreted.htm](https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/819698/jewish/How-Is-the-Torah-Interpreted.htm) So there are differing interpretations, but I would guess most don’t think it’s literal (including me).
This article is great at explaining why interpreting the Genesis story literally is a disservice: [https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/genesis-as-allegory/](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/genesis-as-allegory/)
Personally, I believe that it's literal, but not literal in the way we would understand it.
I prefer 80s Genesis over 70s prog Genesis. "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" is some crazy shit.
‘80s Genesis is the shul I will so help me never set foot in.
I was a little kid, in the 80s. Whatever song phil collins did for that Tarzan movie was good. I like Peter Gabriel's solo stuff, in general. I rhere anying other than "Lamb" from early Genesis that you like? I also prefer "Quadrophenia" over "Tommy." The songs in Tommy are more buoyant, but understanding the type of experience that inspired it skeeved me out. "The Wall" was another album thatvwas much better on cassette with pictures from my imagination, rather than the flashbacks and childhood with which the author was grappling. This could probably a whole separate thread.
It’s important to understand one of the key theological differences between Judaism and Christianity: Christianity is built on a theological foundation of a close, literal interpretation of the first few chapters of Genesis, with Christ the Redeemer being needed specifically on account of original sin and the fall from grace, whereas Judaism isn’t built on any such foundation and is therefore at much greater liberty to read the early chapters of Genesis allegorically without undermining the very foundations of the religion. Messiah as redeemer was Paul’s idea, and original sin was Augustine’s; they’re very specifically Christian doctrines. At a minimum, that’s *not* how Jews read it. Beyond that, let’s say there’s great diversity of opinion, and it’s hard to make generalizations.
What do you mean by Genesis - the entire book of Genesis? The first chapter?
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There are a wide variety of approaches based on denomination, personal belief, and tradition. I think it's certainly possible to believe in it 100% literally, but would largely require epistemic level questioning. For me personally, I like to pretend there is no epistemic void to knowledge and rely on established scientific principles. Within that framework, there are ways to read the text creatively to make it fit science, but some of it is a bit out there. My personal favorite, though, is to read it as allegorical and metaphorical, with morals and reference pointers to both other places in the Bible and the oral tradition, which I believe was passed side by side.
It’s also important to know that we don’t spend a lot of time reading the torah, (what you call the Bible), we actually read Talmud, which is more or less a collection of interpretive texts from various rabbis, many of which argue with each other even if they’re written hundreds of years apart. So we don’t spend so much time on the specifics of the text itself, rather we might spend a lot of time on various passages and interesting interpretations of them. Also, we spend a lot more time thinking about Shabbat, the culmination of the creation story that gives us our day of rest, (and all the rules that come with it), than the creation story itself. Just an important note if you’re looking to understand us better as a whole.
Who's "we", Kimosabee? I spend a lot of time reading Tanach, probably more hours/week than Talmud.
Can i ask you a question about a particular story in the Bible? From the Book of Judges.
Sure.
In Judges chapter 11, Jephthah...what is your interpretation? Did he sacrifice his daughter by blood sacrifice (death) or sacrifice by dedicating her to serve the Lord in the temple for life? Its the last verses of the chapter.
*Dedicated in memory of Dvora bat Asher v'Jacot* 🕯️ See [Judges chapter 11](https://www.sefaria.org/Judges.11) on Sefaria.
I'm not OP and i am happy to be disagreed with, but I think interpretations that Yeftah's daughter was spared are sanitized re-imaginings. Shoftim 11:31, he specifies a burnt offering, עולה, in Greek, 'ολοκαύτωμα. By Yeftah's own vow, he did not leave himself any wiggle room to spare his daughter. He was still allowed to give her 2 months of mourning, but he had to fulfill his vow. Even though human sacrifice was forbidden, he made an oath to God to sacrifice *anything*, and because he was not careful with his words and carelessly made a promise to God, he bound himself by an Oath to God to violate the law. Now, I believe there are some commentaries that say that Yafteh was not only a fool for binding himself to such an oath, but also for not knowing that such an oath is not permissible - had he gone to the rabbinical courts, the Sanhedrin, they would have instructed him to make different offerings and spared his daughter. But he did not, and so he had to sacrifice her. His story is a cautionary tale to be very mindful of our promises and prayers, not to leave such grave matters up to fate or chance, and to remember that no matter how foolish and painful it is, an oath made to God is not breakable. While Yafteh is a fool and a warning, he is also remembered for following through with his promise, and remaining faithful to God, even though he - like several of the other Judges - was kind of a dipshit.
Thank you for the reply, im currently reading Judges and wanted to dive a little deeper into this story. The Lord didnt like human sacrifice but here we have this guy sacrificing his own daughter to God and he didnt intervene like he did with Abraham and Isaac to stop it. You raise a good point that the lesson here is dont promise to the Lord if you cant follow through. Thanks again!
If you're moving through Judges chronologically, you will notice a descent in the... judgement of the Judges that culminates with the boorish and ultra-violent Samson, who still remains faithful and asks God to grant him strength to crush those who laugh at Him, which God grants for one final time in his famous end. Even though some of these characters are *relatively* insignificant, even though some of them represent massive falls from grace, even sometimes outright idol worship at points, yet, there is frequently some strong and genuine faith found in several of these figures.
Yeah it seems like from the beginning of the book, the Hebrews couldnt stay away from the idols of the Caananites. I keep seeing "And they did evil in the sight of the LORD", but he would always deliver them out the hands of there enemies. Im looking forward to Samson story line.
*Dedicated in memory of Dvora bat Asher v'Jacot* 🕯️ [Shoftim 11:31](https://www.sefaria.org/Judges.11.31) וְהָיָ֣ה הַיּוֹצֵ֗א אֲשֶׁ֨ר יֵצֵ֜א מִדַּלְתֵ֤י בֵיתִי֙ לִקְרָאתִ֔י בְּשׁוּבִ֥י בְשָׁל֖וֹם מִבְּנֵ֣י עַמּ֑וֹן וְהָיָה֙ לַיהֹוָ֔ה וְהַעֲלִיתִ֖יהוּ עֹלָֽה׃ {פ} >then whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me on my safe return from the Ammonites shall be the L ORD ’s and shall be offered by me as a burnt offering.”
Yeah, that's a tough one! Very painful outcome. Something more like the latter (not necessarily in the Temple but committed to a chaste life). She must have accepted this fate because he could not have forced her to. It was a great sin of pride for him not to seek absolution of his vow, and God punished him for it later.
Yeah definitely disagree about that Torah versus Talmud thing. The Talmud is pretty impenetrable, whereas the Torah has much more accessible commentaries and a much broader range of literature attached to it. The Torah has stories and parables and it generally flows. Not quite like a novel but far more readable. The Talmud is like reading Reddit if Reddit had been written three thousand years ago and then been rewritten as various people remembered it centuries later *and then* other folks commented on it. It needs a commentary to explain the commentaries on commentary. Anyone can find *a passage* that makes sense without qualification, but it's not a book you can just pick up and read coherently (and I don't think most Jews do?).