Fact is that the "priests" were a lot more up to date on science than many of their detractors, who have perpetrated a lot of flimsy intellectual history. Denying that Genesis is a science book is not a 21 st century defense. Read Augustine on Genesis for example.
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By: Bernard Brondoyokh
Posted on: 11/25/2006
There is still this continual refusal on the part of the orthodox of all religions to accept the developments of knowledge; scientific knowledge is replacing the religious and thus the Torah, supposedly a revealed text of ultimate truth. The priests all have a lot of explaining to do, after centuries of mythmaking. But all they offer is more tradition and demands for faith.
By: Benjamin Lowin
Posted on: 8/30/2006
Hodge - the comparison doesnt really work. No rational person would think that a claim was being made that Churchill was a bulldog. But for thousands of years, many (though not all) Jewish commentators have insisted on the literal truth of every word of the Torah, INCLUDING the beginning of Genesis. If you say that no rational person could think that the Torah was making a factual declaration, then why isnt it also true of the story of Sinai? Are we not supposed to think that this was an actual historical event, even though specific concepts like God speaking, etc., must be understood metaphorically, if at all. In other words, you're saying that Genesis CLEARLY employed literary techniques to convey a message, not the historical circumstances of the act of creation. If that is the case, may I believe that Avraham did not actually exist, that the revelation on Har Sinai didn't really happen, or that the story of the Exodus is an extended metaphor for redemption but did not actually happen? Surely we can, but this would be a radical departure from the way these things have been understood for a long time.
Response to Harooni
By: Hodge Johnson
Posted on: 8/9/2006
If someone says that Churchill was a bulldog and this is false (because Churchill was not any kind of dog), do you now say that this person is wrong and can't be trusted about Churchill? When a person refers to the sunset, does that mean that he is ignorant of the scientific view that the sun doesn't actually set?
I do not agree
By: Mark Harooni
Posted on: 8/4/2006
I agree with the article that the point of Torah is not as a text in the sciences. Yet, the fact is that some fact are indeed mentioned which are at odd with scientific understanding. What are we to do then, when we note that the few facts that the Torah utters are totally at odds with our understanding of scientific knowledge? To ignore this discrepency and simply state that the point of Torah is more spiritual, is to miss the real point entirely. If the Torah contains factual errors, then, necessarily, it is not to be trusted in other realms as well.
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