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Does TaNaKh teach mistaken geology or cosmology, and does that undermine its reliability?

Which of the following do you consider to be factually, literally true:

  • The earth's flatness

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The waters resting above the sun, the stars, and the heavens that have poured onto the earth

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The earth's plants were created before the sun was.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other answer / N.A.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    2
  • This poll will close: .

Rakovsky

Active Member
Tanakh's blessed predictions about Messiah, the Messianic era, and the resurrection of the dead are very appealing. In fact, belief in Messiah and the resurrection are two of the thirteen fundamental principles of Judaism laid out by Rabbi Maimonides. Yet does the Tanakh when intentionally describing the facts of geology and cosmology sometimes make mistakes? And if so, does this in turn undermine the reliability of its future predictions? That is, if the writers were severely mistaken in their factual beliefs and understanding of real events that occurred thousands of years before their time, as well as basic reality in their own, then does this make their factual predictions of the future far less reliable?

Let me address first some potential geological & cosmological mistakes.

Portayals of a Flat Earth
Tanakh describes the earth as being in the form of a "circle" ("hug" in Hebrew) rather than a "ball", and it describes its form as like clay under a seal (a seal stamps clay in a flat circle). The earth has "ends", "corners", and "foundations". The earth is "stretched out" (something flat stretches out), it's "stretched out over nothing", and one can "stretch a measuring line across it" (as opposed to "around it"). It can also be seen from a single point in space (like only a flat object can).

Below are some of the many verses that describe the earth this way:

The earth has ends and can be seen from a single point in space:
Job 28:24 (JPT translation) For He looks to the ends of the earth, and He sees under all the heavens.

Like a flat object, the earth's middle is a single point above ground, and the tree standing on that point can be seen from all points on earth, even its "ends":
Daniel 4 (JPT) [The king saw] a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was tremendous. The tree grew and became strong, and its height reached the sky, and its appearance [was seen] to the end of all the earth.

The earth is like a clay circle stamped under a flat seal, has corners, and can be measured with a line over/across it, as opposed to around it:
Job 38 (JPT):
Who placed its measures if you know, or who extended a line over it?
...
To grasp the corners of the earth so that the wicked shall be shaken from it?
The seal changes like clay and they shall stand like a garment.
מִי שָׂם מְמַדֶּיהָ כִּי תֵדָע אוֹ מִי נָטָה עָלֶיהָ קָּו:
...
יגלֶאֱחֹז בְּכַנְפוֹת הָאָרֶץ וְיִנָּעֲרוּ רְשָׁעִים מִמֶּנָּה:
תִּתְהַפֵּךְ כְּחֹמֶר חוֹתָם וְיִתְיַצְּבוּ כְּמוֹ לְבוּשׁ:
I welcome you to compare the Hebrew above with the JPT translation that I provided, since other translations put it a bit differently.

The plants' creation before the sun's, the heavens' firmness, and the waters above them
In Genesis 1, the earth's plants are created before the sun, which is made on Day Four of Creation. The heavens are "beaten out" like a hard metal sheet, the sun and stars are fastened in them, and above them rests a body of liquid water (AKA the "water canopy"). The earth also sits on top of a mass of underground water. Then, according to Genesis, during the Great Flood, windows in the heavens opened and the waters poured down enough and burst up enough to flood the earth over the tallest mountains. Psalm 148 (JPT) also talks about the waters above the heavens:
  • Praise Him, highest heavens and the water that is above the heavens.
  • They shall praise the name of the Lord, for He commanded and they were created.
The Great Flood and Noah's Ark
In the Great Flood, the water rose over the earth's tallest mountains for over a month, killing all animals and humans except for those whom Noah saved with his ark. The saved were Noah's families and the pairs of every animal kind on earth. After the flood, the animals and humans on board repopulated the earth.

This is hard to square with our knowledge of reality. The Great Flood happened about 1000 years before Moses' time, based on the Tanakh's chronology. We know from archeology that the indigenous Peruvians had a major civilization already 1700 years before Moses' time, and that Mesoamericans had settled their own region for millenia before then. It's hard to think that 1000 years before Moses these major cultures were wiped out and then humans returned there from Noah's descendants and restored the exact same culture with the same human DNA.

Even greater difficulty arises with the animals. Did flightless birds live in New Zealand for centuries before Noah's time, then get saved in Noah's Ark, regain their ability to fly, and then fly back to New Zealand where they lost their ability to fly again? Or maybe they rafted back and forth on driftwood? There are so many problems with taking this story factually that it looks like it is not factually true.

What are some possible responses to these depictions?


One is Inerrancy, whereby all such expressions are either (A) literally true no matter how unrealistic they sound, (B) figurative expressions and manners of speech, or (C) only meant as allegories. In such an explanation, there are no instances when the authors intended something factually true that later turned out to be factually mistaken.

So in order to promote their (A) Literal Factuality, one could point out that some scholars believe that there are masses of water underneath the earth.
Massive Underground 'Ocean' Probably The Source Of Our Surface Seas
Massive Underground 'Ocean' Probably The Source Of Our Surface Seas Kids News Article
transition-zone-large-medium.jpg


In order to interpret (B) the verses as figurative expressions, one can point out that "to the ends of the earth" is an expression used even today in common speech, even though today people no longer believe that the earth is flat. Hence, such expressions could have been used in Tanakh without the writer actually considering the earth to be flat.

And to propose (C) that the stories are only meant allegorically, one could propose that Noah is an allegorical figure, his ark is allegorical, and the flood is allegorical. I am not aware of any place in Tanakh that spells out that "The Story of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood is nonfiction". I suppose that theoretically the stories of Job or Jonah could have been allegorical, just like the Song of Solomon might not have intended to narrate a real event where a doe literally looked through a window for her beloved. And in that case, I suppose that theoretically Noah's story could have been inserted as an allegory in the Tanakh's history of Abraham's ancestors.

Still, none of these answers seems to fully deal with the problem I posed at the message's beginning. The passages are very hard to all read as literally true. The earth isn't literally flat, it's hard to imagine the plants on earth as made before the sun, and it's hard to square Noah's Ark story with geology and biology. Occasionally, figures of speech do turn up in literature, but the expressions of a flat earth are given so frequently and expressions of the earth being a sphere are nonexistent, so it seems likely that sometimes the writer was expressing his understanding of a flat earth when he wrote these expressions.
Finally, the stories of Creation and Noah's Ark are narrated in a straightforward way as part of a chronology that leads to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses, so the plain reading suggests that it is meant as a real history of the Israelite nation's real ancestors.

However, let's say that the many references to a Flat Earth, the Creation story, or Noah's Ark are figures of speech or fictional allegories about the past or about the present reality. This conclusion then raises a question for me whether the appealing blessed promises about the future like Messiah's arrival, his blessed era, and the resurrection are also an array of figurative, metaphorical expressions and allegories. If the writers were factually mistaken or only allegorized the distant past and present reality, could the same easily be true about the blessed eschatological future?

Such an idea however that the Messiah concept or resurrection were only mistakes or only allegorical fictions would contradict Maimonides' principles that are recited in the Yigdal in this form:

I believe by complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he tarry in waiting, in spite of that, I will still wait expectantly for him each day that he will come

I believe by complete faith that there will be a resurrection of the dead at the time that will be pleasing before the Creator, blessed be His name, and the remembrance of Him will be exalted forever and for all eternity.
Maimonides' 13 Principles of Jewish Faith


Footnote:
The reason I put this thread in the Judaism section is because the Tanakh is a Jewish sacred book. I am not asking the question in the thread rhetorically, nor am I proposing a particular solution. Rather, I prefer the blessed promises to be factually true and would like to see if such issues can be addressed successfully.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
The reason I put this thread in the Judaism section is because the Tanakh is a Jewish sacred book.
The Tanach is a sacred Jewish Book, but so is the Oral Torah and that is what we look to when trying to understand the Tanach. As a Christian, lacking belief in the Oral Torah you won't get many satisfactory answers here. Our entire approach to the nature of the Written Torah and its function is different than yours. So I think it should be obvious that you aren't going to get answers that will work for you. I recommend looking to your own tradition and clergy who are familiar with Christian theology and philosophy to find the answers you are searching for.

As a side note, your quote from Yigdal is actually just a quote of two of the Maimonides Principles of Faith. Yigdal is a liturgical poem.
 

Rakovsky

Active Member
Dear Tumah,
Thank you for your answer to me. I understand that the Oral Torah is what you look to in order to understand Tanakh, and even though I am not Jewish, I also find it helpful when trying to understand Tanakh. This is because Talmud has centuries of traditions, especially those involving interpretations of Tanakh. I welcome you to talk more about how your approach to the nature of the Written Torah and its function is different, and then how to use Talmud in order to better understand the teachings on geology and cosmology. You are also correct that Yigdal is quoting Maimonides' Principles of Faith.

So to address this important need, let me present some rabbinic discussions on the Talmud on the flat earth question.
Dan Rabinowitz writes on the Talmud and the topic of the earth's flatness:
The Babylonian Talmud ("BT") clearly held the Earth was flat.
R. Azariah de Rossi, in his Me'or Enayim .. explains that there a various passages in the BT which assume a flat earth.... De Rossi quotes the BT Baba Basra "the world is like an exadera [three sides are closed] and the north side is open. When the sun reaches the nothwestern side, it bends back and goes above the sky." De Rossi explains that "anybody who understands this passage correctly realizes that . . . the sun's circuit is not from above to below . . . and they agree that the nightly darkness is not caused by the sun being at that time below the horizon . . . this is all calcluated on the basis that the earth is flat and that the heavens only cover it like a roof of the exadera."

[But De Rossi] notes that the Jerusalem Talmud as well as Berashis Rabba seem to imply the earth is round...
The Vilna Gaon is recorded as stating the earth must be flat in order to properly understand the verse in Job (38:13) "that it might take hold of the ends of the earth."
the Seforim blog: A Flat or Round Earth and the Zohar

The Aishdas website quotes more passages on this. The Gemara in Chagiga 12b sees the earth as resting on pillars:
R' Yossi said: Woe to those who see but do not know what they see and stand but do not know on what they stand. On what does the land stand? On pillars, as it says (Job 9:6) "Who shakes the earth in its place and its pillars tremble." The pillars [stand] on water... the water on the mountains... the mountains on wind... the wind on storm... Storm is supended in the arm of G-d...

The sages said: [The land stands] on 12 pillars... Some say: On 7 pillars... R' Elazar ben Shamua said: On one pillar and its name is tzaddik, as it says (Proverbs 10:25) "A righteous one (tzaddik) is the foundation of the world."
However, the Aishdas essay proposes that it was meant metaphorically and not literally, asking:
why does R' Elazar ben Shamua give the pillar the name tzaddik - a righteous person? This is a clear sign for those who did not already detect it that this passage is an Aggadata. The passage is a metaphor meant to teach an ethical lesson...
http://www.aishdas.org/toratemet/en_shape.html
Personally, it is not so clear to me that the name tzaddik for the pillar shows that this was meant only metaphorically, although I can see the ethical lesson.

Pesachim 94b records this debate between Israelite and gentile scientists' views:
The sages of Israel say, "During the day the sun travels below the sky and at night it travels above the sky." The wise men of the nations say, "During the day the sun travels below the sky and at night it travels below the earth." Rabbi [Yehuda HaNassi] said, "Their words seem [more correct] than ours because the underground streams are cold during the day and warm at night."

The Aishdas essay adds:
Bamidbar Rabbah 13:17 says that the world is like a ball...

In Bere**** Rabbah 63:14 we find the following anonymous statement. "'Then Yaakov gave to Esav bread and lentil stew.' Just like a lentil is made like a wheel, so the world is made like a wheel." While the term "wheel" could mean that the earth is flat but round like a wheel, the comparison to a lentil tells us that the implication is that the world is spherical. Similarly, in Esther Rabbah 1:7 R' Pinchas tells us, "The world is made like a crown."
To me, calling the earth a "ball" means that the earth is a globe, but to say that it is like a lentil bean, a wheel, or a crown all suggest that it is flat or disc-like.
all-about-beans-green-lentils.jpg

Lentils

In Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology, Heinrich Walter Guggenheimer cites a rabbinical commentary on the Great Flood, saying, "The waters were 15 cubits over the earth, they diminished by one cubit every 4 days, one and a half handwidth per day."

Guggenheimer comments:
It appears that the author of Seder Olam subscribes to the theory of a flat earth, therefore he attributes equal sinking of the water level to all days. For a spherical model, the first days would yield slower sinking than the last days. For a spherical model, the first days would yield slower sinking than in the last days. Spherical shape of the earth is explicitly mentioned in the Talmud of Jerusalem Abodah zarah 3:1, fol. 42 c but not in the Babylonian Talmud.
Indeed, if the earth is a round globe, then scientifically it is hard to conceive where the waters came from or how they so quickly receded. If they came from the sky, then before the flood they would seem to have massive weather effects (the opposite of global warming?) and if it evaporated so quickly, the earth would seem to have been boiling. Alternately if they rose from and sunk back into the globe, then it's curious what would make the waters gush up so strongly.

Berakhot Chapter 1 notes about the Tanakh's reference to the "circle of the earth":
Thus [Rabbi Ḥatzna] agrees with Rabbi Ḥiyya following Rabbi Yehudah. For it has been taught in the name of Rabbi Yehudah: "The 'density of the sky' is a journey of fifty years; an ordinary man walks forty miles a day. During the time it takes the sun to plough through the 'density of the sky' (a journey of fifty years) a man walks four miles. So you are implying that the 'density of the sky' is one tenth of the day. And just as the 'density of the sky' is a journey of fifty years so too is the depth of the earth and the depth of the abyss a journey of fifty years". What is the [biblical] basis for this? — "He who sits on the circle of the earth"; and it is written: "the circle of the heavens goes"; and it is written: "when He set the circle of heaven upon the abyss". 'Circle' and 'circle' are a gezerah shavvah.

Rabbi Simchah Roth writes for his Jerusalem Talmud Study Group, on the website BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, that this reflects belief in the earth's flatness:
In order to understand this passage it is perhaps useful to give a brief resume of what seems to me to be a typical understanding the sages had of the nature of the cosmos.

The sages imagined the cosmos to be geocentric. That is to say that the cosmos consists of a flat Earth above which is the sky and below which is the abyss ("the waters which are under the Earth"). The sky is like a convex sphere above the Earth. Imagine the flat earth as a serving platter and the sky above it as a domed lid. The sky has two extremities, to the east and to the west. Every day the sun rises in the east, travels across the sky in a westerly direction, sets in the west, and then travels back to the east during the night underneath the abyss. We cannot see the sun during the night because it is travelling beneath the Earth, under the abyss. At the eastern and western extremities of the sky is an area called the 'density of the sky', a fuzzy area in which the light from the sun can be partially seen as it passes through. It seems that they saw the sky as being particularly dense at its eastern and western extremities, thus obscuring much of the sun's light. Above the visible sky are other skies, or firmaments, seven in all. In each of these firmaments is located one of the visible celestial phenomena: the moon, the sun, the moveable stars (i.e. planets) and the fixed stars.
Tractate Berakhot of the Talmud of Eret—-Israel: 0012

Jeremy Brown, whose book on rabbinical cosmology was promoted by Rabbi Sacks, writes:
There are other rabbis in Talmud who address the structure of the earth and the cosmos. Rabbi Natan noted that the stars do not seem to change in their positions overhead when walking far distances. The assumption underlying his explanation for this observation was that the earth is flat. Covering the earth was an opaque cap referred to as the rakia, which is most commonly translated as the sky or firmament. Rava, a fourth-century Babylonian sage who lived on the banks of the river Tigris, determined this cap to be 1,000 parsa in width, while Rabbi Yehudah thought that he had over-estimated this thickness. There were others who added to the picture of the sky; Resh Lakish announced that it actually was made up of seven distinct layers. Given this model, there would have to be a place where the opaque cap touched the earth, a place that Rabbah bar Bar Channah claimed to have touched.
Bava Basra 74a ~ Where Heaven and Earth Touch
 

Akivah

Well-Known Member
What I don't get is why some people believe that the bible, which has just one paragraph describing the creation of the Universe, presume that this is a scientific book?
 

Rakovsky

Active Member
What I don't get is why some people believe that the bible, which has just one paragraph describing the creation of the Universe, presume that this is a scientific book?
Dear Akivah,
I understand your point. The Bible is a spiritual book about man's (and particularly Israel's) relationship with the Lord. A main issue that I am trying to ask about in the OP is: If the Creation and Flood stories of the past, as well as the other descriptions of the earth are only spiritual allegories, then could the same thing be true about the depictions of the future too, like the Messianic era and the Resurrection?

If there was no literal Creation of Man directly out of the Earth's clay, then perhaps there will be no literal Raising of Man out of the graves in the Earth either, even though those past and future events are narrated numerous times in the Tanakh?
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
If there was no literal Creation of Man directly out of the Earth's clay, then perhaps there will be no literal Raising of Man out of the graves in the Earth either, even though those past and future events are narrated numerous times in the Tanakh?
Or, the Tanakh took West Semitic cosmology, demythologized it, and invested it with a monotheistic and egalitarian core -- all the while avoiding the tiresome verbosity that too often plagues threads such as this.
 

Rakovsky

Active Member
Or, the Tanakh took West Semitic cosmology, demythologized it, and invested it with a monotheistic and egalitarian core -- all the while avoiding the tiresome verbosity that too often plagues threads such as this.
Dear Jayhawker,
I sympathize with what you are proposing:
the Tanakh took West Semitic cosmology, demythologized it, and invested it with a monotheistic and egalitarian core -- all the while avoiding the tiresome verbosity
I can see that, because in Babylonian cosmology for example we read about how Marduke chopped in half the goddess Nammu, thus dividing the waters of Creation - the heavenly and oceanic waters. By leaving out the part about the water goddess Nammu, the Hebrew version demythologized an earlier Akkadian mythologic cosmology, leaving a monotheistic core.

Nonetheless, the question I am raising in this thread is whether this demythologized Creation story that we are left with is factually real. So for example, while the West Semitic myth about Nammu personifying the primordial waters has been rejected, is the accepted part - such as the Water Canopy or theory of a giant heavenly body of liquid water - still factual?

And then if we say that the accepted result was either a false cosmology that was mistakenly thought to be true or else only meant as an allegory, then does that mean that the story of the future Resurrection could also be mistaken or only allegorical?
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
And then if we say that the accepted result was either a false cosmology that was mistakenly thought to be true or else only meant as an allegory, then does that mean that the story of the future Resurrection could also be mistaken or only allegorical?[/QUOTE]
What story of the future Resurrection (sic)?
 

Akivah

Well-Known Member
If the Creation and Flood stories of the past, as well as the other descriptions of the earth are only spiritual allegories, then could the same thing be true about the depictions of the future too, like the Messianic era and the Resurrection?

That's one possibility.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
If you don't quote me, I won't know that you've responded unless I happen to look here.
Dear Tumah,
Thank you for your answer to me. I understand that the Oral Torah is what you look to in order to understand Tanakh, and even though I am not Jewish, I also find it helpful when trying to understand Tanakh. This is because Talmud has centuries of traditions, especially those involving interpretations of Tanakh. I welcome you to talk more about how your approach to the nature of the Written Torah and its function is different, and then how to use Talmud in order to better understand the teachings on geology and cosmology. You are also correct that Yigdal is quoting Maimonides' Principles of Faith.

So to address this important need, let me present some rabbinic discussions on the Talmud on the flat earth question.
Dan Rabinowitz writes on the Talmud and the topic of the earth's flatness:
R. Azariah de Rossi is one commentary. And certainly not everyone's favorite.

I know of no such attribution to the Vilna Gaon, nor was I able to find it in the source listed (Gilyoni HaShas, Shabbat, 74a). I know a contemporary of his who described a round earth and provided two introductions to a certain book based on whether the geocentric or heliocentric model was correct.

The Aishdas website quotes more passages on this. The Gemara in Chagiga 12b sees the earth as resting on pillars:

However, the Aishdas essay proposes that it was meant metaphorically and not literally, asking:
Personally, it is not so clear to me that the name tzaddik for the pillar shows that this was meant only metaphorically, although I can see the ethical lesson.
No, the name of the pillar is not tzaddik. Its saying that the tzaddik (righteous person) is the pillar. In other words its the merit of the righteous person that supports the world's existence.

Pesachim 94b records this debate between Israelite and gentile scientists' views:
This is a famous passage and answers are provided by commentaries.

The Aishdas essay adds:

To me, calling the earth a "ball" means that the earth is a globe, but to say that it is like a lentil bean, a wheel, or a crown all suggest that it is flat or disc-like.
all-about-beans-green-lentils.jpg

Lentils
I agree.

In Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology, Heinrich Walter Guggenheimer cites a rabbinical commentary on the Great Flood, saying, "The waters were 15 cubits over the earth, they diminished by one cubit every 4 days, one and a half handwidth per day."

Guggenheimer comments:

Indeed, if the earth is a round globe, then scientifically it is hard to conceive where the waters came from or how they so quickly receded. If they came from the sky, then before the flood they would seem to have massive weather effects (the opposite of global warming?) and if it evaporated so quickly, the earth would seem to have been boiling. Alternately if they rose from and sunk back into the globe, then it's curious what would make the waters gush up so strongly.
This doesn't present a problem for me, being as the whole incident was miraculous in nature.

Berakhot Chapter 1 notes about the Tanakh's reference to the "circle of the earth":


Rabbi Simchah Roth writes for his Jerusalem Talmud Study Group, on the website BET MIDRASH VIRTUALI of the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel, that this reflects belief in the earth's flatness:
This is a Conservative Judaism website.

Jeremy Brown, whose book on rabbinical cosmology was promoted by Rabbi Sacks, writes:

Bava Basra 74a ~ Where Heaven and Earth Touch
This is one approach that is offered by commentaries in understanding these types of passages. But Rabbi Saks notwithstanding, those that I have read denounce it.
 
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