Jewish Views On Evolution - Orthodox Scientists Respond To Darwin

Orthodox Scientists Respond To Darwin

Several Modern Orthodox Jewish scientists have interpreted creation in light of both modern scientific findings and rabbinical interpretations of Genesis. Each of these scientists have claimed that modern science actually confirms a literal interpretation of Torah. All of them accept the scientific evidence that the age of the Earth and the age of the universe are on a scale of billions of years, and all of them acknowledge that the diversity of species on Earth can be explained through an evolutionary framework. However, each of them interprets certain aspects of evolution or the emergence of modern humans as a divine process, rather than a natural one. Thus, each of them accepts an evolutionary paradigm, while rejecting some aspects of Darwinism. Shai Cherry writes, "While twentieth century Jewish theologians have tended to compartmentalize science and the Torah, our Modern Orthodox physicists synthesized them.

• Nathan Aviezer, a physicist who trained at the University of Chicago, allows for divine guidance within an evolutionary paradigm in the transmutation of species over time, including the emergence of modern man from homo erectus. As a physicist, he interprets the six days of creation as broadly referring to large periods of time, an interpretation for which he cites rabbinic sources, including Maimonides and Nachmanides. For Aviezer, the evolutionary framework applies, except where the Hebrew verb bara (create) is used. To Aviezer, "It is particularly meaningful that Modern Man is intellectually and culturally so vastly superior to his closest relative, the extinct Neanderthal Man, even though both species are very similar." He explains this through a literal interpretation of Genesis 1:27 — "And God created Man in His image."

• Gerald Schroeder, an MIT trained physicist, believes that modern science contains nothing inimical to a literal reading of Genesis. Indeed, modern science allows one to understand the "true literal meaning of the Creation narrative." To Schroeder, it is Einstein's relativity, the "distortion of time facing backwards in a forward rushing cosmos," that accounts for the compression of time in a 15-billion year-old universe into six days of creation. To Schroeder, the emergence of modern man can be dated to the beginning of writing. Archeologists date the first writing, he notes, "at five or six thousand years ago, the exact period that the Bible tells us the soul of Adam, the neshama, was created." To Schroeder, who cites the Targum of Onkelos, Adam was the first man who could write, and the creation of Adam from more primitive man was a divine ensoulment.

• Judah Landa, a physicist and teacher at, among other institutions, the Yeshiva of Flatbush, takes a completely different approach. To Landa, genetic mutation is not a random process, but a divinely guided one that only appears random to humanity. "Evolution was designed and guided, just as the putting together of words and sentences into book forms is accomplished only by design and guidance. A book is designed by its author, evolution was (and continues to be) designed by the laws of nature (which in turn, were designed, we believe, by God). Where Landa differs from Darwin is in his rejection of the Darwinian notion that evolution has no purpose. Landa does not claim that there is proof of a final purpose for life; he merely asserts that science cannot rule one out. He writes, "God may very well have designed the laws of the universe and the earliest forms of matter and energy with particular life-forms as end-products in mind. Evolution and natural selection may be the vehicles he chose and designed to achieve His purposes." Like Aviezar and Schroeder, Landa reconciles science with the biblical account of Genesis, taken literally, but he does so through literary interpretation.

• Daniel E. Friedmann, an engineering physicist and CEO of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (an aerospace corporation), has demonstrated an alignment between the dates of key events as described in Genesis Chapters 1 and 2 with dates derived from scientific theory and observation, thus solving the perceived discrepancy between the biblical and scientific timelines. In his book The Genesis One Code, he shared his formula for converting "Bible time" to years as we know them in calculating the age of the universe, the sun, and life on Earth. Without any modifications, the formula consistently produces results that match scientific estimates.

Shai Cherry, Professor of Jewish Thought at Vanderbilt University, remarks that these Modern Orthodox scientists have rejected the approach taken by Jewish theologians. Theologians have tended to use later writings, such as Midrash and Kabbalah, to reconcile modern science with Genesis. The Orthodox scientists, by comparison, have largely ignored Jewish theology, in favor of a fundamentalist and literalist interpretation of Genesis. Yet in their writings, each of them seeks to reconcile science with Genesis. Cherry speculates, "They were targeting an American Jewish community that privileges science over Torah as a source of scientific knowledge. If Genesis could be shown to have anticipated Darwin or Einstein, then the Bible would regain an aura of truth that it had been losing since the advent of biblical criticism and modern science."

According to Cherry, the books of Aviezar, Schroeder, and Landa have each sought to strengthen Orthodox Jewry in a time of mounting secularization. Aviezar and Schroeder sought to prove that Genesis anticipates the findings of modern science, and thus increase its status. By contrast, Landa sought to remove a barrier to Orthodox commitment, by proving to secular Jews that Orthodox Judaism and modern science are compatible. At the same time, he sought to persuade students in his own Orthodox community that the study of science is not incompatible with commitment to Orthodoxy.

Nathan Robertson a researcher in Biophysics has also released a book titled "The First Six Days" which reconciles the scientific theory of the beginnings of the universe and life with the biblical account of creation. Rabbinical sources are sited from Nachmanides (Ramban) and Rashi along with kabbilistic interpretations of Genesis. Nathan reconciles darwinian evolution with the biblical account and states that at deeper levels of understanding of the biblical text and of scientific theory, the two worlds overlap. "As one studies Science to deeper levels and also tries to study Bereshis to deeper levels, both principles begin to converge on each other."