Creationism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===Judaism=== {{Main|Jewish views on evolution}} For [[Orthodox Judaism|Orthodox Jews]] who seek to reconcile discrepancies between science and the creation myths in the Bible, the notion that science and the Bible should even be reconciled through traditional scientific means is questioned. To these groups, science is as true as the [[Torah]] and if there seems to be a problem, [[Epistemology|epistemological]] limits are to blame for apparently irreconcilable points. They point to discrepancies between what is expected and what actually is to demonstrate that things are not always as they appear. They note that even the root word for 'world' in the [[Hebrew language]], {{lang-hbo|Χ’ΧΧΧ|Olam|label=none}}, means 'hidden' ({{lang-hbo|Χ Χ’ΧΧ|Neh-Eh-Lahm|label=none}}). Just as they know from the Torah that God created man and trees and the light on its way from the stars in their observed state, so too can they know that the world was created in its over the six days of Creation that reflects progression to its currently-observed state, with the understanding that physical ways to verify this may eventually be identified. This knowledge has been advanced by Rabbi [[Dovid Gottlieb]], former philosophy professor at [[Johns Hopkins University]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2015}} Relatively old [[Kabbalah|Kabbalistic]] sources from well before the scientifically apparent age of the universe was first determined are also in close concord with modern scientific estimates of the age of the universe, according to Rabbi [[Aryeh Kaplan]], and based on Sefer Temunah, an early kabbalistic work attributed to the first-century [[Tannaim|Tanna]] [[Nehunya ben HaKanah]]. Many kabbalists accepted the teachings of the [[Sefer HaTemunah]], including the medieval Jewish scholar [[Nahmanides]], his close student [[Isaac ben Samuel of Acre]], and [[David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra]]. Other parallels are derived, among other sources, from Nahmanides, who expounds that there was a [[Neanderthal]]-like species with which Adam mated (he did this long before Neanderthals had even been discovered scientifically).<ref>[[#Aviezer 1990|Aviezer 1990]]</ref><ref>[[#Carmell & Domb 1976|Carmell & Domb 1976]]</ref><ref>[[#Schroeder 1998|Schroeder 1998]]</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Tigay |first=Jeffrey H. |date=Winter 1987β1988 |title=Genesis, Science, and 'Scientific Creationism' |url=http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jtigay/sci.htm |journal=[[Conservative Judaism (journal)|Conservative Judaism]] |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=20β27 |issn=0010-6542 |access-date=2014-03-21}}</ref> [[Reform Judaism]] does not take the Torah as a literal text, but rather as a symbolic or open-ended work. Some contemporary writers such as Rabbi Gedalyah Nadel have sought to reconcile the discrepancy between the account in the Torah, and scientific findings by arguing that each day referred to in the Bible was not 24 hours, but billions of years long.<ref name=slifkin>The Challenge of Creation: Judaism's Encounter with Science, Cosmology, and Evolution, Natan Slifkin, Zoo Torah, 2006</ref>{{rp|129}} Others claim that the Earth was created a few thousand years ago, but was deliberately made to look as if it was five billion years old, e.g. by being created with ready made fossils. The best known exponent of this approach being Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.<ref name=slifkin/>{{rp|158}} Others state that although the world was physically created in six 24-hour days, the Torah accounts can be interpreted to mean that there was a period of billions of years before the six days of creation.<ref name=slifkin/>{{rp|169, 170}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page