Chapter
one of the book of Bereshit records the creation of the world in a very orderly, succinct manner. On the whole the order of the Torah accords
with the modern science's understanding of the development of the world, as for
example, both agree that humankind was created/ developed at the end of the
creation/ development process. Yet, modern
science has raised several questions regarding chapter one in Bereshit, such as, how could the sun have been
created (day four) after there was already vegetation (day three) and how could
there have been birds (day five) prior to terrestrial animals (day six)?
Religious people have responded to these
questions in various ways. One way is to argue that science and religion deal
with different realms, that science deals with what is in the world, while
religion deals with ethics, how people should act. This distinction is true, but in the case of the
first chapter of Bereshit this approach is unsatisfactory since here the Torah
deals with what is. Thus, religious Jews who ignore questions from science in their
understanding of the first chapter of Bereshit are living their lives with a cognitive
dissonance since the person accepts science in all aspects of his/ her life and
then denies its relevance when dealing with the Torah. A second approach to dealing with the questions
from science is to deny the viability of science in general, or just to deny
the theories of science in reference to the development of the world. Here the
person is being more honest with themselves, but it is foolhardy to deny science,
even if some scientific theories are later found to be false. A third approach is to try to reconcile the
differences between science and the Torah, and this approach has been labeled concordism.
(See Shatz, 2008, for a discussion of
this genre of exegesis.) We will follow this approach and argue that the supposed
contradictions are based on incorrect understandings of the biblical text.
I know that some people (generally adherents to
the first approach) view with disdain the idea of discussing the Torah in light
of modern science since scientific theories change and many times the simple
reading of the Torah is stretched to fit into science. These people prefer to live with their
cognitive dissonance, but I think the danger of ignoring modern science is
greater than the cost of incorporating modern science into the study of the
Torah. If a person ignores all questions
from science and argues that the Torah does not have to accord with science,
then this makes the Torah a piece of literature and not the word of G-d. Is the use of science in explaining the Torah
different from interpreting the Torah based on archaeology or ancient Semitic
languages? It is true that scientific theories change, and this could then mean
that one has to change one’s interpretation of the text, but maybe some
insights will remain. Even if no insights remain, still this is the process of
interpretation, new ideas are suggested, some are accepted and some are discarded. Our claim is not that one can learn science from reading chapter one, but that in all cases where there appears to be a contradiction between science and the Torah, one should not run away from the problem but try to resolve the contradiction. I believe this approach accords with the Ibn Ezra's approach. Amos Funkenstein (1993, p. 125) in his discussion Ibn Ezra's methodology writes:
The
story of creation, according to Ibn Ezra, is not a cosmology….The Genesis-story
does not of course contain wrong cosmological information; it just tells us as
little of it as necessary to understand the place of humans in their sublunar
realm, and that which is told is told "in the language of
humans."
On day four, we will see one example of Ibn
Ezra's attempt at concordism, where
he explains 1:16 due to a question from scientists in his day.
We will
follow the narrative order of the Torah and attempt to integrate scientific
theories (as I understand them) into our explanation of the verses. We will follow the division in the Torah of a
six day creation process, but our understanding is that each day does not refer
to our 24 hour days. Instead, each day
signifies a unit of time, an epoch, in which some act or acts in the creation
process transpired. The lengths of each
day are not equal or even related in some way to the other days, but are
determined by the creation process that transpired in the particular
period. The use of the term day follows
our convention to divide time into twenty four hours, but in chapter one it
only refers to dividing time and not to a twenty four period. With this understanding, the term day in chapter
one is similar to other cases in the Torah (for example, Bereshit 8:21 and Shemot
14:31) where we do not follow the literal meaning of the words, but follow
their figurative connotation.
Day One:
The creation of the universe
What
exactly was the creation process on day one depends on how one understands the
relationship between the first three verses of the Torah. According to Rashi (on 1:1), the first two
verses are subordinate to the third verse, which means that the sole creation
on day one was the light described in verse three and the mayim referred
to in verse two existed prior to the creation of light. (This interpretation
would seem to deny the concept of creatio ex nihlio, but Rambam, Moreh,
II:13,25 writes that this is theologically possible.) This
explanation is slightly varied by Ibn Ezra and can be found in the JPS
translation (Sarna, 1989), Everett Fox (1995) and Robert Alter's (2004)
translations of the Torah. For example,
JPS’s translation is, “When G-d began to create heaven and earth- the earth was
being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind
from G-d sweeping over the water- God said ‘Let there be light’ and there was
light.”
Ramban
(on 1:1) rejects Rashi’s approach
since he claims that if the crucial idea was the creation of light, then verse
three, which records the creation of light, should have been recorded before
verse one. Cassuto (1961) also rejects
Rashi’s approach since he argues that the phrase of verse two “and the land
was” begins a new subject, which means that verse one is an independent
sentence. The King James translation of
verse one, “In the beginning G-d created the heaven and the earth” follows this
understanding.
If 1:1 is "independent"
of 1:3, then there are two approaches to understanding 1:1. Ramban explains
that 1:1 refers to the creation of matter from which all of the universe would
develop. On the other hand, David
Hoffmann (1969, p. 20) and U. Cassuto (1961, p. 20) suggest that 1:1 is an
introductory verse that does not refer to any specific act of creation. With this
approach, the second verse is a description of the world prior to the creation
of the light, similar to Rashi's explanation.
(Of these four commentators, the Ramban attempts to relate his
explanation to Greek science, and Hoffmann (p. 21) makes a brief reference to
incorporating his explanation with science, which indicates their approval of
concordism.)
In recent years, two scientists, Natan
Aviezer (1990) and Gerald Schroeder (1990, 1997), have attempted to interpret chapter one of the
Torah based on the "Big Bang" theory.
This
theory proposes that approximately 13.8 billion years ago there was a great
explosion, which was the beginning of the universe, and since then the universe
has been cooling down and expanding. Aviezer
(p.15) writes that “the passage ‘let there be light’ (1:3) may be understood as
designating the creation of the primeval fireball – the Big Bang- that signals
the creation of the universe.” This
could accord with Rashi's, Hoffmann's and Cassuto's approaches to
1:1-3, and then verses 1:2 would refer to the time before the "Big
Bang." According to the Ramban's approach to 1:1, 1:1 could
be referring to the "Big Bang," and then 1:2,3 are referring to
events after the "Big Bang."
The
question of whether 1:1 or 1:3 refers to the "Big Bang," affects our
understanding of 1:2. If 1:3 is referring to the "Big Bang," then 1:2
cannot contradict science since according to science existence and time begins
with the "Big Bang," and nothing is known of what was beforehand. However, according to the approach that 1:1
refers to the Big Bang, we need to make some attempt to understanding 1:2.
1:2 is a
difficult verse since many terms are unclear. What
does it mean tohu va-vohu? Chaos? Kister (2007, p. 231), writes that
"etymologically it is rather plausible that tohu means desolate and
vohu means empty." Also what
does it mean tehom (the deep?), and merahefet (G-d
hovering?). The term, mayim,
usually means water, but what water was around at that time?
We start
with the term mayim, which also appears in 1:6,7. Aviezer (1990, pp. 21-27 and 2009, p. 39) suggests
that mayim in 1:6,7 refers to ice in space, which potentially could also
apply to 1:2. However, a more promising
approach is from David Hoffmann (1843-1921, p. 30, footnote 31) who quotes anonymous
scholars (in his time) who suggested that the word mayim means gases to
accord with the theory (then relatively new) that initially all the bodies in
space were made of gas. Hoffmann writes
"that if this theory is true, then it would not be difficult to match up
the science with the Torah since it is possible that the primordial water was
gas." Similarly, Avraham Korman
(1980, p. 54) also writes that initially mayim means gas or steam.
We will
follow this approach for all references to mayim in day one and day two,
and then 1:2 means something like "matter was in a disorganized state
consisting of gases." This
explanation could be a description of the universe after the "Big
Bang," where "according to the Big Bang theory, the early universe
was filled with hot plasma – a cauldron of protons, electrons and photons, with
a smattering of other particles," (Loeb, 2006, p. 24).
What is
the darkness referred to in 1:2? If 1:3 is referring to the "Big
Bang", then maybe 1:2 is telling us that the world was dark prior to the
"Big Bang," but if 1:1 is referring to the "Big Bang," then
1:2 is stating that after the "Big Bang" there was a period of
darkness. In fact, there was a period called
the "Dark Ages" from approximately
400,000 years after the "Big Bang" until 100 million years after the
"Big Bang" or even longer until one billion years after the "Big
Bang," when the universe was dark (Loeb, 2006) and then 1:2 could be
referring to this period.
Finally,
the meaning of the end of 1:2 depends on how one understands the phrase the,
"wind of G-d was hovering over the mayim." We understand the
term wind of G-d to mean the force of G-d and hovering to mean non-interfering,
that G-d was letting the gases be.
1:3
records the creation of light. As explained above, this could refer to the
"Big Bang," but if 1:1 is referring to the "Big Bang," then
what was created in 1:3? One possibility (Chagigah 12a, quoted by Rashi on
1:14) is that verse is referring to the creation of the sun. Another possibility is that the verse is
referring to the creation of the first stars, whose formation peaked
approximately 9-10 billion years ago, (Loeb 2006, pp. 24,25).
1:4
records that G-d saw that the light was good, and that G-d separated the light
from the darkness. If one understands that 1:3 refers to the "Big
Bang," then this verse can be understood as referring to the events right
after the "Big Bang." Following
this approach, Schroder (1990, p. 89) writes that the verse refers to electrons
binding with hydrogen and helium, which allowed photons to break free and
become visible. Aviezer (1990, p. 16), writes that 1:4
"may be understood as referring to the decoupling of the light from the
dark fireball-plasma mixture." Or,
maybe the verse is not referring to
any specific physical act but is just noting the change that resulting from the
creation of light in 1:3 as opposed to the darkness in 1:2. 1:4 would then be marking the differentiation
between the areas that were lit by the light recorded in 1:3 and those areas
unaffected by the light, which remained dark. This understanding could accord with the
approach that 1:1 is referring to the "Big Bang."
1:5
records that G-d called the light day and the darkness night. According to the
understanding that the days in chapter one are 24 hours periods, then this
verse would seem to be providing definitions of the terms day and night, and
would accord with the idea that 1:3 recorded the creation of the sun. Yet, if
the sun was not yet created, what can it mean day and night? One possibility is that if 1:3 refers to the
"Big Bang," then the darkness referred to in 1:5 could be to the
period of the "Dark Ages" that occurred after the "Big
Bang." A different possibility is that the verse is not referring to any
physical process. Instead, the terms day and night are a way of
expressing in human terms the change from one period to another period. With this understanding, the term
day in chapter one means an epoch, and 1:5 means that the creation of light
marked the first epoch. The reference to
the darkness, would be to a period where there was few or no acts of creation
and that would be called night. This
dual process of creation and then a pause would then mark off one total period,
a full day.
1:6-8- The creation of our galaxy and/ or the
beginning of the solar system:
1:6 records that G-d said that there would be a
rakia in the midst of the mayim to separate between the mayim
and mayim, and 1:7 records that G-d created this rakia.
In order
to understand what was created on day two we need to know what is meant by the
term rakia? A common interpretation of rakia is firmament, an
extended solid surface or dome, but what does that mean? Daniel Boorstin (1983, p. 294) notes that
"the Greeks developed the notion that the earth was a sphere on which man
lived while the heavens above were a rotating spherical dome that held the
stars and moved with them." This appears to be the basis for the traditional
interpretation of the term rakia, but modern science suggests a
different interpretation.
Ibn Ezra
(on 1:6, see also Sarna, 1989, p. 8) notes
that the root of the word rakia is the same as in va-yeraqu in
Exodus 39:3 (also see Bemidbar 17:3), which records how the gold was hammered
out into sheets by the making of the priestly garments. Accordingly the meaning of the word rakia
is some type act of flattening, and if mayim means gases, as discussed
above, then 1:6,7 would be referring a type of flattening of the gases.
This
flattening suggests two processes. One, Ward and Brownlee (WB, 2000, p. 27)
write, "Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy… Spiral galaxies are disk shaped
(round, but flat if viewed from the side) with branching arms when viewed from
the top. But viewed from the side they are quite flat." Furthermore, our
sun is in a very propitious area of the galaxy since it is not too close
(25,000 light years) from the center where the star density is low, which would
not have allowed life to exist, and it is not on the edge of the galaxy, where
"the abundance of heavy element is probably too low to form terrestrial
planets as large as earth," (WB, p. 29).
Thus, the flattening could be referring to the creation of the galaxy
and the positioning of the sun (our solar system) within the galaxy. I think this idea accords with Schroeder's
(1997, p. 67) explanation that the verses are referring to the creation of the
"disk of the Milky Way, and the sun."
A second
possibility is from Aviezer (1990, pp. 23-27) that the verses are referring to the
development of our solar system and this too involved a flattening process
according to the nebular theory of the origin of the solar system. WB (pp. 44-48) explain:
The formation process began when a mass of
interstellar material became dense and cool enough to grow unstable and
gravitationally collapse into itself to form a flattened rotating cloud – the
solar nebula. As the nebula evolved, it
quickly formed the form of a disk-shaped distribution of gas, dust, rocks
orbiting the proto-sun, a short lived juvenile state of the sun when it was
larger, cooler, and was less massive and was still gathering mass. The planets formed from this nebula, even
though the nebula existed for only about ten million years before the majority
of its dust and gas either formed larger bodies or was ejected from the solar
system…
As the nebula evolved dust, rocks and larger
solid bodies separated from the gas and became highly concentrated, forming a disk-like
sheet in the mid-plane of the solar system, in some ways resembling the rings
of Saturn.
One of the fundamental processed that led to
the production of planets was accretion, the collusion of solids and their
sticking to one another to form larger and larger bodies….The accretion process
was responsible for unique and very important aspects of Earth….If natural
processes in the nebula had acted in a different way, a radically different
Earth might have resulted.
The arrival of the "biogenic elements"
on Earth is a matter of considerable speculation, but it is likely that most of
them came from the outer regions. In the coldest outer regions of the nebula,
water and nitrogen and carbon could condense to form solids. Presolar
interstellar solids carrying the light elements were also preserved in the
region.
The formation of the giant outer planets is
thought to have been particularly effective in scattering volatile-rich
plantesimals from the outer regions of the solar system into the inner solar
systems, the realm of the terrestrial planets…..These materials carry not only
carbon, nitrogen, and water but also relatively large amounts of organic
material, as was first proved when extraterrestrial amino acids were discovered
in Murchison meteorite that fell in Australia in 1969. Life on Earth formed from organic compounds,
and it is possible that prebiotic compounds from the outer solar system
stimulated the first steps toward the origin of life on Earth.
Thus, maybe 1:6,7 are describing the beginning
process of the creation of our solar system through a flattening of the gases
within a nebula, approximately five billion years ago. The separation of mayim or gases
referred to in 1:6,7, would either be to the separation of gases within our
galaxy and other galaxies, the separation of our solar system within our galaxy
or the separation of gasses within our solar system during the forming of planetesimals,
the proto-planets. The other gases would
be the gases outside of our galaxy, outside of solar system or outside of our
planets, and from the Torah's point
of view, this vast area is somewhat inconsequential, and will not be further
discussed.
Cassuto (1961,
p. 33) argues that the separation of mayim that is recorded in 1:7 was
not done by the rakia but was another act of G-d. This would mean that there were two acts of
creation on day two. One, the creation
of the rakia, could refer to the creation of the galaxy/ and or the
beginning of the our solar system and the second creation, the separation of mayim,
could refer to one aspect within this process.
Another
possibility is that according to the nebular theory of the origin of the solar
system the force causing the contraction of the inner center of the nebula was
equalized by gravity, which stopped the nebula from imploding. The second creation in 1:7 could then mean
that G-d introduced the gravitational pull to stop the contraction process
within the nebula, and then there was a separation from the inner center and
the outer gases of the nebula. Planets,
including earth, would eventually form from theses outer gasses, and from their
perspective they are below the center of the nebula that would eventually
become the sun. For example, we perceive
that we are below the sun.
Another possibility
for the second creation referred to in 1:7 is based on the idea that mayim
means literally water. WB (2000, p. 208,
also see p. 261) write, "Earth is about one half of 1% water by weight.
Much of the water arrived amongst the planetesimals that took part in Earth's
formation and accretion." Thus maybe the second half of 1:7 is referring
to water "coming" to the proto-Earth, from the outer regions in the
solar system or other galaxies during the formation of the solar system.
1:8
records that the rakia was called, shamayim, the heavens, and this
could refer to the galaxy or to the solar system or even both. Rashi (on 1:7,
see also Genesis Rabbah, 4:6) notes that 1:8, the concluding sentence of the
second day, does not state "and it was good," which Rashi explains
was because the creation on the second day was not completed. This explanation accords with the idea that the
creation on day two was the beginning of the solar system since the solar system
was not competed until day four.
Day three: The creation of the first life on the
planet
1:9 records that G-d gathered the mayim
into one place, and there appeared yabasha. Afterwards, 1:10 records
that the yabasha was called eretz, land, and the mayim
which had been gathered together was called yamim, seas. The simplest explanation is that these verses
are referring to the formation of the planet earth, that it was divided between
land and waters (seas). (This would not
be continents, just that there existed a land mass, maybe completely covered by
water or gasses.) With this new name, the term mayim in the remainder of
the Torah has been changed from gas to water.
WB (pp. 52,53)
write, "the atmosphere was formed by outgassing from the interior, a
process that released volatiles originally carried to earth in plantesimal
bodies as well as by delivery from impacting comets….The oceans are a byproduct
of outgassing and the formation of the atmosphere. When the atmosphere was very hot, a great
deal of it was composed of steam. Gradually, as the early Earth cooled, the
steam condensed as water and formed the vast oceans we still see
today." This process could be the
reference to 1:9. Also, the appearance
of land is also propitious since if the depths of the oceans were less than
they are today (shallower), then the whole planet would have been covered by
water.
However,
the existence of seas appears to have occurred after the Earth was already
formed which would be after day four. WB (p. 58) write that "perhaps this
process began 4.4 billion years ago.
Yet, for my chronology here, I would need to argue that the process, of
separating gasses from the matter to form the oceans began even earlier at the
plantesimal stage, but the process was a slow one, so that the development of
seas was much later, after the events recorded in day four. 1:9 would then be
referring to just the beginning of the process.
A
different possibility is that the gathering of the water is not to the seas
that we think of above the surface, but to underground water, and this could
have occurred even during the proto-Earth stage. For example, in April 2014, it was announced
that scientists had discovered that there exists a large lake or sea within one
of Saturn's moons, see Chang (2014).
The next
two verses, 1:11,12 ostensibly refer to the creation of vegetation. There are two problems with these verses.
One, how could there be vegetation, if the sun was not yet created? Two, 1:12
seems to be redundant after 1:11 already records that vegetation came into
existence.
With
regard to the first question, various answers that have been proposed to explain
the existence of vegetation before the existence of the sun. As mentioned above, according to the Talmud
(Chagigah 12a, quoted by Rashi on 1:14) the sun was created on the first day
but only placed in its final position on the fourth day, and hence there could
have been vegetation on the third day. Ramban (on 1:14) follows this idea that the sun
was created on the first day but he thinks that initially the sun was above the
heavens and did not light up the earth, and it was only on the fourth day that it
began to illuminate the earth. According
to this idea, there remains the problem how could there be vegetation on the
third day and he explains (on 1:11)
that the plants did not grow on the third day, but that G-d gave the earth the
potential to grow plants. A third answer is from Cassuto (1961, p.
44) who suggests that while the light on the first day was not the sun still it
was sufficient to enable the plants to grow.
Several new
solutions have been proposed based on the idea that day four does not refer to
the creation of the sun. Aviezer
(1990) argues that the sun was created on the second day, before the
vegetation, and then on the fourth day, G-d fixed the position of the sun and
moon. This is a variation of the answer
in the Talmud. With this approach, the
sun again was present on day three to enable the vegetation to grow. Schroeder (1990, pp. 130,131, 1997, p. 67)
also explains that the sun was created on day two, while on day four, G-d made
the sun, moon and stars visible, a variation on the Ramban's idea. He explains that on day three, the "the
atmospheric vapors transmitted radiant energy. The atmosphere, however, was
translucent, not transparent. Therefore individual luminaries were not
distinguishable. It was this diffuse
light that provided energy for this initial plant life." Andrew Parker (2010, p. 21) follows the idea
that the sun was present on day three with all its usual strength, and instead suggests
that on day four eyes began to evolve on organism on the earth (approximately
521 million years ago) which enabled them to see the luminaries. (He explains that the animals referred to in
day five are not the first organisms, but are the animals that appeared in the
Cambrian explosion, 520 million years ago, which he argues occurred because
organism began to see.) These suggestions are difficult since the term
create in 1:16 implies that the sun did not exist before the fourth day.
Other
possible solutions are that the Torah was not following the chronological order
of events, as really the sun was created before the vegetation but its creation
was recorded afterwards. Why would the
Torah record the creation not in its chronological order? Strauss (1997)
suggests that delaying the recording of the creation of the sun until the
fourth day creates a parallelism in the process of creation, see above our
discussion, "Chapter one: A literary pattern?" With this idea, the
literary pattern was more important than the chronological order. One could also claim that this was another
miracle in the Torah that G-d created the vegetation without the sun, though
then would have to explain why G-d did this miracle.
The idea
that the second day only describes the beginning of the development of the
solar system in conjunction with a new discovery suggests another possibility. In 1977, hydrothermal vents were discovered
deep in the ocean, where tube worms and clams lived by these vents in total
darkness. (For a discussion of the discovery and its implication at the site: http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/ventcd from Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution. See also
the Economist, 2011, which reports that Dr. Tina Treude found that deep
seems in the ocean have worms and clams that live based on methane gas coming
up from the earth. Furthermore, shark
eggs and even fossil shark eggs were found in the worms, which suggests that
sharks live and lived off these worms. On August 6, 2014, I visited the
Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC, and saw a video
explaining how life developed in these vents without sunlight.)
WB (2000,
pp. 3-7, 70) write,
The finding of bizarre tubeworms and clams was
completely unexpected, but even this life is conceivable to us, for it exists
in the warmest waters around the volcanic vents. What was not expected, however, was that life
could live not only around but amid, the vents. Within these scalding cauldrons
of superheated water, a rich diversity of microbial entities grow and thrive at
temperatures far too hot for any animal… Life does exist in the hydrothermal
vents of the deep sea, just as it does in other seemingly sterile habitats
where organism have recently been discovered, such as deep underground in cold
basalt, in sea ice in hot springs and in highly acidic pools of water. Because of where they live, the
microorganisms in these uninviting places have been dubbed extremophiles
"creatures that love the extreme:"… Extreme heat, extreme cold,
extreme pressure and darkness….The extremophiles derive their energy from the
breakdown of compounds such as hydrogen sulfide and methane, which fuels their
metabolism. Furthermore, these organisms
evolved early in earth history, and this suggests that the earliest life on our
planet may be chemically fueled rather than powered by light...
Although some of them (extremophiles) fall
within the taxonomic group formally called Bacteria, the majority of these
extremophilic microbes belong to the taxonomic group Archaea…..Most archaeans
are "anaerobic"; they can live only in the absence of oxygen. This characteristic makes them prime candidates
for the first life on Earth, because the newly formed Earth had no free
oxygen…. Although many types of archaeans have been found in hot-water
settings, it is clear that they can live in other subterranean settings,
including within solid rock itself….
Most views of Earth's surface at the time of
the first formation of life paint a very bleak picture. Lethal levels of
ultraviolet radiation polluted the surface, and the impact of giant comets with
Earth periodically vaporized the planet's oceans. The boiling of the seas would have repeatedly
sterilized Earth's surface. But what
about beneath the surface, in the subterranean regions now inhabited by
the extremophilic archaeans and bacteria? These deep Hadean environments may
have served as bomb-shelter like refuges, protecting deep extremophiles from
the fury at the planet's surface. Could the deep subsurface have served not
only as refuge but also as cradle of life early in Earth history? New analyses
of the "Tree of Life" or phylogenetic history of life on our planet
support this possibility.
Accordingly, maybe the reference to grasses and
seeds in 1:11 is referring to these types of extremophilic organisms which
lived without any light and oxygen and hence they could live before the
existence of the sun. These extremophiles
can even be before the archaeans and bacteria as BW (2000, p.74) note that
there were even earlier common ancestors.
Furthermore, since it is possible that these earliest forms of life came
from the outer planets in the solar system, then the verse may not even be
referring to life on Earth.
With
this idea and following our chronology, one would have to claim that these
extremophiles existed on earth (or on other planets) even during the plantesimal
stage before the solar system was fixed on day four. WB (p. 51), note that at present "there
is no direct information about Earth's early history because no rocks older
than 3.9 billion years have survived" the bombardment of Earth from the
large objects that hit the earth from between 4.5 billion year ago to 3.9
billion year ago. I am proposing that these extremophiles existed even prior to
this period.
1:12 refers
to a second development (after va-yehi ken in 1:11). The verse va-tosei in 1:12 means that
the vegetation would come forth on its own, see Ramban on 1:11. The idea being
that 1:11 refers to the creation of the most basic life as a onetime event, and
then 1:12 tells us that from those microorganisms, vegetation would eventually
develop through natural processes without G-d intervening. The
"seeing" of G-d in 1:12 is that G-d "saw" that the process
was beginning.
The fact
that the Torah records the existence of organisms prior to the sun accords with
Leo Strauss' (1997, p. 383, also see Friedman, 2008-2009) contention that
"the most striking characteristic of the biblical account of creation is
its demoting and degrading of heaven and the heavenly lights."
Day four- The creation of sun, moon and stars
1:14-19 seems to record the creation of the sun
and the moon, though neither are named, and the cochavim. Following the idea that day two recorded the
creation of planetesimals, then day four can be understood as referring to the
final stage in the creation of the solar system, when the sun and the moon were
fully formed, approximately 4.6 billion years ago, and 100-200 million years
after the gases in the nebula started to contract. The moon is believed to have
been formed soon after earth was formed (30-100 million years), and can be
included in this epoch.
One
difficulty in the description of the creation on this day is the cochavim
in 1:16 since cochavim are stars, but there is only one star in our
solar system, the sun. Maybe the verse
is referring to G-d ensuring that no other stars would come into our solar
system since a multiple star system would stop advanced life from existing on
our planet. (BW, 2000, pp. 24,25, note that "approximately two thirds of
solar type stars in the solar neighborhood are members of binary or multiple
star systems.") Another possibility (see Ibn Ezra on 1:16) is that the
word cochavim can mean planets, as the ancient Greeks called the
planets, wandering stars as opposed to the fixed stars, and this is how they
are understood in modern Hebrew. (I thank Daniel Billig for pointing this out.)
Bemidbar 24:17 also implies that cochavim can move, which again suggests
planets. Silbermann and Rosenbaum (1934, p. 205), write that Rashi in his
explanation of the verse 24:17 "evidently understood the term cochav
as referring to a meteor." The
parallel term in the verse 24:17, shevet, can also be understood as a
meteor, see Altar, 2004, p. 814, which means that 1:16 could also be referring
to meteors. This definition of cochav as a planet accords with the idea
that day four records the completion of the solar system. Otherwise, one would
have to understand cochavim as referring to stars that were created
outside the solar system but are visible on earth.
Ibn Ezra
quotes a question from science concerning the size of the moon and of the planets. He notes that that according to science the planets
are bigger than the moon, so how could the Torah refer to moon as being one of
the two big lights (1:17)? He answers that the word "big" does not
refer to the measurements of the planets but to the light and from man's perspective
on planet earth, the moon gives more light than the other planets.
Another
difficulty in the description of the creation of the luminaries is that 1:14,15
seem to record the creation of all the luminaries, and then 1:16-18 repeats
this information just in respect to the sun, the moon and the cochavim? Why are the sun, the moon and the cochavim
not included within 1:14,15? Maybe 1:16-18
are not referring to another creation process, but they are to stress that G-d
created the sun, the moon and the cochavim in order that people should
not worship them. If this is true, then 1:14,15 is a more general statement of
the creation of the luminaries and 1:16-18 is more specific.
A second
possibility is that 1:16-18 refer to the creation of the "final touches"
of the solar system, and this is what made the earth into a habitable zone for
complex organisms. The extremophiles (from day three) could live anywhere, but complex
life needs numerous very specific conditions. Some of the conditions are that the earth with
its ellipse had to be the right distance from the sun, not too close and not
too far, the mass of the sun had to be stable for a long enough period that
life could evolve, and the sun could not radiate too much ultraviolet light. (For a full list of conditions, see WB, 2000,
pp. xxvii, xxviii.) All of these factors were set on the fourth day, and then
on the fifth day complex life could evolve from the simple life of the third
day.