Creation question

[Not David]

Don't the Jewish and Byzantine Calendars put the Creation of the Earth around 5/6 thousand years ago?

 

[Halbhh]

Don't the Jewish and Byzantine Calendars put the Creation of the Earth around 5/6 thousand years ago?

That made me curious about the Jewish views, and that is one major viewpoint, of a variety of views, it appears by this listing, when you look at "Classical rabbinic teachings" here (which mentions some other views also):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_evolution

 

[ArmyMatt]

Don't the Jewish and Byzantine Calendars put the Creation of the Earth around 5/6 thousand years ago?

dunno about the Jewish one, but the calculations of the Fathers I think is around 7500 years ago.

 

[Jonaitis]

Having a religious opinion about some future science theory would be really odd.

So would a biblical author, living 3,500 years ago, wrote "day" as referring to thousands of years to an audience who had an education less than that of an 8th grader. Wouldn't you agree? Genesis was written to the level of understanding that his audience could grasp (as well as spiritual significance to the church). I think we are putting too much of our own modern lens on Scripture, when we should be honest with the text, just as we would a early church father and modern science.

 

[Halbhh]

So would a biblical author, living 3,500 years ago, wrote "day" as referring to thousands of years to an audience who had an education less than that of an 8th grader. Wouldn't you agree? Genesis was written to the level of understanding that his audience could grasp (as well as spiritual significance to the church). I think we are putting too much of our own modern lens on Scripture, when we should be honest with the text, just as we would a early church father and modern science.

That's someone else's debate (not one I like to do), to focus on individual words.

To me, getting that narrow, looking at one word, makes me remember:
Ideally, we want to at times listen to the entire chapter with a silent mind, truly listening with all of our heart (without interfering other stuff, like debates or doctrines or some point to prove -- laying those all aside, silencing them). We want the deeper meaning.

We want the wonderful thing that happens to us when we just listen.

---------
If someone wants to discuss the extraneous theories about creation, one idea vs another idea, I want to know the person first isn't concerned about how old the Universe is, for instance -- that it isn't a crucial thing to them, because they have faith in the promises of scripture, in the good news! of Christ, instead of an emphasis on one theory about creation among the many believers have.

If I can see that a person isn't too investing in one theory vs another theory, then I am willing to tell them mine. But, funny thing is, few people have ever asked. It's like few people want to know what anyone else thinks, or is upset to learn what others think. I have found that it's impossible to find 2 people that think the same things when you get into the details. Everyone has a truly unique view, once you get past the basic big picture we all already agree on -- that God created all that is, everything. It's when you go past that you'd not find another person on Earth that agrees on every piece just the same way. We all seem to like to have our own personal idea or feeling about creation, about things the scripture intentionally leaves out. But, in a way, though the particulars of each persons' views are every time unique, at the very same time, I feel they believe just like me. Of all people, I feel closest in feeling about creation to a person I know that thinks the Universe was made to look bigger (or maybe she meant older...or something...) than it is, vaguely. That's so funny, since it's the opposite of my view -- yet I feel the same way about creation: love and awe and love for God. That's how we both feel, with highly different viewpoints about those details.

 

[charsan]

I want to thank the Orthodox answers. I should have said I only wanted Orthodox answers not lectures about how I should view things

 

[Euodius]

death only entered at Adam's Fall. that being said, you can believe in evolution and be in good standing.

But how do you have evolution without death - literal death- before Adam? Evolution is primarily defined by death guiding the development of life. There is a huge cosmological inconsistency by holding both - it is dissonant and inhuman.

 

[Euodius]

Don't the Jewish and Byzantine Calendars put the Creation of the Earth around 5/6 thousand years ago?

This is the year 7528 Annos Mundi by Byzantine reckoning. But that age range is fairly common in world traditions.

 

[Euodius]

So would a biblical author, living 3,500 years ago, wrote "day" as referring to thousands of years to an audience who had an education less than that of an 8th grader. Wouldn't you agree? Genesis was written to the level of understanding that his audience could grasp (as well as spiritual significance to the church). I think we are putting too much of our own modern lens on Scripture, when we should be honest with the text, just as we would a early church father and modern science.

That is rather fallacious. You make a lot of assumptions about the nature of knowledge, then offer a truncated critique on assumed modern enlightenment. This is not honest to the text which offers a whole cosmology which you deny as simply 'uneducated and for the uneducated.' But what have you to say of that cosmology? What of the impact of that cosmology which undergirds the whole of Christian Tradition. What is a story without the plot! Yet, you go further and propose a foreign cosmology! This is hubris! Must we be like Locke and reject the very presuppositions that his whole logic rests on! Do you suggest that theological dissonance is the solution?

Should we have faith only in a metaphorical resurrection too? After all, the primitives did not understand that resurrection is scientifically impossible! What hope is there except in a 'really real' resurrection? What have you said that cannot be applied to whole of Christianity, for the very cosmology of Christianity is now deemed to be primitive - in the most derogatory way.

And for evolution? A cosmology that existed in paganism, one which the whole of the Scriptures is a polemic against, what the Fathers taught against? That found new form in British Imperial Propaganda after it's philosophical resurrection by Schopenhauer? Yes, so this superstitious pagan cosmology may now be deemed enlightened against the backdrop of Christian revelation.

St. Justin (Popovich):
This theology, which bases its anthropology on the “scientific” theory of evolution, is nothing but “contradictio in adjecto” (a contradiction of definition). In truth, it is a theology without God and anthropology without man.

 

[Euodius]

Hi all,

Sorry to bother you all. I have a question what does the Orthodox Church believe about Creation? I thought I saw that evolution was not encouraged and that creation happened as the Bible said but I could be wrong. I am sure I saw debates here and I thought Creation was the opinion of the Church. Anyway I am confused. Thank you for reading my silly post

This is why the Orthodox cannot accept Evolution.
S.V.Bufeev. Why an Orthodox Christian cannot be an evolutionist

Here is also excerpts from Fr. Seraphim's book;
Creatio. English pages.

Here, read Daniel Sysoev's writing about evolution. He is a recent martyr and reliably Orthodox;
Священник Даниил Сысоев. Эволюционизм в свете православного учения.
and
Диакон Даниил Сысоев. Летопись начала.

"The Holy Scriptures speak more truly and more clearly of the world than the world itself or the arrangement of the earthly strata; the scriptures of nature within it, being dead and voiceless, cannot express anything definite. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Were you with God when He created the universe? "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counseller, hath taught Him? (Is. 40:13)" And yet you geologists boast that you have understood the mind of the Lord, in the arrangement of strata, and maintained it in spite of Holy Writ! You believe more in the dead letters of the earthly strata, in the soulless earth, than in the Divinely-inspired words of the great prophet Moses, who saw God." - St. John Krondstadt

 

[ArmyMatt]

But how do you have evolution without death - literal death- before Adam? Evolution is primarily defined by death guiding the development of life. There is a huge cosmological inconsistency by holding both - it is dissonant and inhuman.

I dunno. I believe in evolution after the Fall, but I would not deny communion to anyone who is an evolutionist.

 

[Euodius]

I dunno. I believe in evolution after the Fall, but I would not deny communion to anyone who is an evolutionist.

That's equivocation between the observed post-fall natural processes and the Darwinian/Post-Darwinian Theory of Evolution that people discuss - it's not the same thing.

Most Orthodox 'Evolutionists' that I have talked with admit that they don't believe in Evolution once Evolution is explained. Most of them just parrot what thee propaganda were taught in school - and most things taught in school are not thought out (as designed.) When brought to compare their faith with Evolution (and not some false idea of Evolution they've unconsciously come up with to reconcile these two irreconcilable beliefs (one of which is logically absurd on it's face.)

And it isn't really a question on whether to commune. People are wrong about a lot of things that shouldn't be reason to deny communion.

 

[ArmyMatt]

That's equivocation between the observed post-fall natural processes and the Darwinian/Post-Darwinian Theory of Evolution that people discuss - it's not the same thing.

Most Orthodox 'Evolutionists' that I have talked with admit that they don't believe in Evolution once Evolution is explained. Most of them just parrot what thee propaganda were taught in school - and most things taught in school are not thought out (as designed.) When brought to compare their faith with Evolution (and not some false idea of Evolution they've unconsciously come up with to reconcile these two irreconcilable beliefs (one of which is logically absurd on it's face.)

And it isn't really a question on whether to commune. People are wrong about a lot of things that shouldn't be reason to deny communion.

oh, I agree