We know about Christian and Muslim varia…
We know about Christian and Muslim variants of creationism. But what of the other great monotheistic tradition, Judaism?
Is there such a thing as ‘Jewish creationism’? If not, why not?
We know about Christian and Muslim variants of creationism. But what of the other great monotheistic tradition, Judaism?
Is there such a thing as ‘Jewish creationism’? If not, why not?
Elizabeth, 
shams, 
thabet, and 4 others are discussing.
AA 10:37 am on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Hmm…I thought creationism is part of old testament, no?
Matt 12:33 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
(As an aside, the “Old Testament” is a Christian book. The Torah, Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible are Jewish books. The words in them are similar, though not the same. More importantly, the tradition of “how to read” them is very different, so that some of the passages mean very, very different things to each group. “An eye for an eye” is a classic example, which in Christianity is about vengeance – and bolsters a Christian belief that Jews are vengeful – but in Judaism is actually about lenience.)
thabet 12:44 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
You just saved me typing the same thing!
The text itself isn’t the whole tradition. ‘Reading’ the text and practice are just as important.
AA 1:26 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Thanks. It makes sense. I was only referring to the six-days creation story which I believe has its roots in Judaism? (and I wouldn’t even be surprised if the roots go prior to monotheism altogether).
Matt 2:07 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
The story is in Exodus, which is part of the Hebrew Bible and also included in the Old Testament. Of course, the Jewish tradition for reading the text is very nuanced and complicated, since that’s the personality of Judaism — which says that the text is very complicated and difficult to understand. My own belief is, though there obviously is “fundamentalism” among Jews, that Judaism doesn’t lend itself well to fundamentalism.
You’re right, though, that similar stories do exist in many religions from the same area. And less similar stories that are still pretty similar exist in all sorts of religions. One of the basic functions of religion is to answer the question, “Why are we here?” There’s a Hindu story of the gods churning the milky ocean.
To continue asides, Judaism predates monotheism. Originally, there was one higher G-d and many lesser gods. Over time, the other gods disappeared from the stories we tell and the Jewish G-d, orignially one of the lesser gods, became the G-d of all. In 5,000 years, of course, change happens.
Lawrence of Arabia 2:36 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
The creation story is in Genesis/Bereshith.
AA 2:53 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Totally agree. But I am not clear on the hierarchy the term lessor/higher implies. If G-d is transcendent and if other gods symbolize that transcendent G-d (as in Hinduism) than that doesn’t really make the transcendent G-d any higher (he’s already declared as such, the One above all else).
Anyways, in Ismaili Muslim theology and according to the Nasir Kusraw tradition, as per Shafique Virani….”genesis of the cosmos, shared by the Abrahamic faiths, does not concern the creation of the physical universe. Rather, the tradition refers to the genesis of a spiritual cosmos governed by God’s emissaries. This creation commenced with Adam, who represented the first day…and continued with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus….The cycles of creation were brought to their completion by Muhammad”
PDF Article here
Just sharing one of the many interpretations, in case if you’re not aware.
Matt 6:25 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
D’uh! Genesis. Yeah. The one I meant. Thanks
thabet 3:11 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Matt, what are your experiences on this question? I’m less interested in the validity of either side of the argument (though feel free to debate it in here), more on how different religious groups respond to certain issues — in this case evolution.
abunoor 3:49 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Of course, there are different ways of reading the bible not just between Jews and Christians but between different trends within both Judaism and Christianity.
Matt 6:50 pm on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Oh, of course. Protestantism and Catholicism are pretty different. Catholicism is a religion for “deep thinkers” interested in stuff like precedent in theological writing. Jesuit schools where they believe in creationism also teach evolution, because they’d rather have people with strong faith than a brainwashed flock. Protestants (though Protestant sects are more diverse than the unitary Catholic Church, so I’m more hesitant to make crude generalizations) are mostly into personal revelation. (Strikes me as “truthiness,” but I don’t judge.) And when you look at Reform versus Orthodox Judaism, well, Reform views the Bible as the creation of humanity with a bunch of good ideas in it. So they’re very different there. But I think it’s safe to say that only the fringiest of Jews reject that the Oral Law, together with study and debate, is necessary to understand the Written Law. I’m sure that goes back way before the Talmuds, but that stuff was certainly codified in the Talmud by at least 300 AD.
But, as far as my experience, thabet, I can really only cite very broadly shared theology in Judaism (and some historical context). I can even confuse Genesis and Exodus from time to time. My experience was being raised a deeply assimilated Jew and growing up to realize there was very basic stuff about me I never thought about, as if I’d never looked in a mirror. Today I practice Buddhism. I just don’t like seeing Judaism folded into Christianity. It’s a form of erasure, making us invisible, which is kinda how I got to where I am.
abunoor 11:46 am on June 28, 2010 Permalink
I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “creationism” here Thabet. Do you just mean rejection of evolution as commonly understood in the scientific community or something broader. There is opposition to evolution among many Orthodox Jewish scholars (less so among Conservative and Reform Jews for obvious reasons). Although some Modern Orthodox or other individual thinkers have tried to advocate for theistic understanding of evolution along with non-literal readings of Genesis. Here’s Wikipedia on Jewish views of evolution.
abunoor 11:53 am on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Here’s an interesting article which relates a survey taken of those who identified as orthodox Jews who were found sitting in a Kosher section of a New York city public college cafeteria.
The survey found Creationist belief to be extremely widespread among this population. Also, as the author points out, this survey would not have included the most ‘conservative’ aspects of the Orthodox population which would shun secular education altogether or at least reserve the daytime for Talmud study.
thabet 11:56 am on June 28, 2010 Permalink
Thanks, this is more what I was interested in: the reception amongst Jewish groups to evolution and the surrounding baggage; and whether they had developed a response (e.g. the creationist ‘movements’ amongst Muslims and Christians).
abunoor 11:57 am on June 28, 2010 Permalink
By the way, I think there’s a lot of information in the article I linked to relevant to Thabet’s question but no doubt the source is biased and intends to cast doubt upon orthodox belief and practice of religion by showing it is not compatible with science, which to the authors of the magazine is obviously the highest truth.
I obviously reject their attempts to do so and even more so the tone with which they do it, regardless of my own views on evolution.
Elizabeth 12:36 pm on July 12, 2010 Permalink
I agree, abunoor, about the bias of the article. Saying that “By definition Jews who accept evolution are not Orthodox.” is simply wrong. What he’s saying can be applied to ultra-orthodox Jews, but definitely not to orthodox ones.
Elizabeth 8:14 pm on July 10, 2010 Permalink
Creationism does exist in Judaism in various forms. I think it’s not widely talked about because the majority of Jews in the US and in general are not orthodox and hence see no conflict between evolution and a book that was created by humans with limited knowledge, as Matt mentioned.
As for those who do see a conflict (orthodox and ultra-orthodox) there are three major trends, as far as I see it. Both of these communities accept the Torah as the word of God, yet none interpret it literally as Evangelical Christians do. It is accepted that some of the things written in the Torah are allegorical, including the creation of the world (Ramban, Maimonides and others accepted this centuries ago).
The more extreme way of dealing with evolution is to dismiss it outright, forbid teaching it and look at it as a sinful secular doctrine. This is an approach taken by some ultra-Orthodox rabbis, which is evident in ultra-orthodox schools in Israel (don’t know about the US), which don’t teach science at all. Another approach is to deal with the arguments of evolution and try to disprove them, often relying on criticism by gentiles (creationists or not) and even post-modernists.
The third approach, which I find the most interesting, is an attempt to use the latitude in interpreting the Torah to try and combine some elements of evolution into the biblical description of creation. However, all those who seek to combine them state that the basic proposition of evolution that the world was created with a big bang in a random fashion is incompatible with the Jewish doctrine (God created the world for a purpose) and often use the argument from design to make their point. The people who wish to make evolution (and science in general) compatible with Judaism state that while evolution is just a theory that has many holes in it, the proven scientific facts about mutations of genes and selection do not go against the scripture and some even go as far as to state that they’re hinted to in the scripture.
thabet 8:11 pm on July 11, 2010 Permalink
Many thanks, Elizabeth.
shams 4:34 am on July 12, 2010 Permalink
Shukran, Elizabeth that was interesting.
The third approach seems sort of ghazalian.
Ghazali’s many worlds model arose as a refutation of the Aristotelian eternal universe.
Elizabeth 12:37 pm on July 12, 2010 Permalink
I agree, shams. Very nice quote, and as you know Maimonides (among others) was greatly influenced by al-Ghazali.