In addition to appeals to biblical authority, young-earth teachers often appeal to historical tradition, arguing that a young-earth understanding of Genesis was the majority view of Jewish authorities and the Christian church until modern times, after which efforts to compromise with Darwinism brought in old-earth interpretations. As I hope to demonstrate here, however, ancient and medieval scholars held nuanced views of creation, at least some of which would definitely not find acceptance with modern young-earth advocates.
Jewish Tradition
Jewish rabbinical literature reveals differing opinions on how creation came about and how long ago it took place. Some scholars, such as Josephus, held strongly literal views of the Genesis account that are much in line with the views of modern young-earth organizations, while others took a more figurative, even mystical, view of it, particularly the authors of the Talmud and the Kabbalah.[1] Often, these views were intertwined in some way.
In his book On the Account of the Creation of the World as Given by Moses, the Jewish philosopher Philo (who lived c. 20 BC to AD 50) writes:
And he [Moses] says that the world was made in six days, not because the Creator stood in need of a length of time (for it is natural that God should do everything at once, not merely by uttering a command; but by even thinking of it); but because the things created required arrangement; and number is akin to arrangement; and, of all numbers, six is, by the laws of nature, the most productive…And he allotted each of the six days to one of the portions of the whole, taking out the first day, which he does not even call the first day, that it may not be numbered with the others, but entitling it one, he names it rightly, perceiving in it, and ascribing to it the nature and appellation of the limit.[2]
In his Allegorical Commentary on Genesis, Philo restates his view that the days of Genesis should not be perceived as six literal days:
It would be a sign of great simplicity to think that the world was created in six days, or indeed at all in time; because all time is only the space of days and nights, and these things the motion of the sun as he passes over the earth and under the earth does not necessarily make…When, therefore, Moses says, ‘God completed his works on the sixth day,’ we must understand that he is speaking not of a number of days, but that he takes six as a perfect number.[3]
Some Jewish authorities held to a concept of successive ages—or ‘Sabbatical cycles’—of creation, of which this present universe is only a part, meaning that there were various creations prior to the creation described in Genesis. The Genesis Rabba, a midrash (interpretive teaching), which dates to c. AD 450, reflects this thinking when it states: “Other worlds were created and destroyed ere this present one was decided on as a permanent one.”[4]
This belief in Sabbatical cycles may be reflected somewhat in tractate Shabbath of the Babylonian Talmud, which is a compilation of Jewish commentaries on the Torah. The Talmud dates back to the first few centuries after Christ, and is considered highly authoritative in Judaism. The Talmud records a belief that 974 generations existed prior to Adam:
R. Joshua b. Levi also said: When Moses ascended on high, the ministering angels spake before the Holy One, blessed be He, ‘Sovereign of the Universe! What business has one born of woman amongst us?’ ‘He has come to receive the Torah,’ answered He to them. Said they to Him, ‘That secret treasure which has been hidden by Thee for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created. Thou desirest to give to flesh and blood!’[5]
In tractate Sanhedrin, the Talmud declares: “For six thousand years the world will continue, and in the seventh it will be destroyed.”[6] Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan (1934-1983), who held a bachelor’s degree in Physics, commented extensively on this statement. Referencing the Sefer HaTemunah—a Kabbalistic work attributed to first-century Jewish rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah—Kaplan notes that “this seven-thousand year cycle is merely one Sabbatical cycle. Since there are seven Sabbatical cycles in a Jubilee, the world is destined to exist for forty-nine thousand years.”[7]
Kaplan goes on to discuss the implications of this view. Assuming Adam was created at the start of the sixth Sabbatical cycle, the universe would have been 42,000 years old at the time of his creation (7,000 x 6). Comparatively, this is not far off from the young-earth view, but Kaplan asks us to consider another possible interpretation that changes the picture dramatically: namely, the opinion of medieval rabbi Isaac of Akko, who suggested that the 42,000 years prior to Adam’s creation should be considered as “divine years” rather than human years because they preceded the creation of man:
This has some startling consequences, for according to many Midrashic sources, a divine day is 1,000 earthly years long, and a divine year, consisting of 3651/4 days, is equal to 365,250 earthly years.
Thus, according to Rabbi Isaac Akko, the universe would be 42,000 x 365,250 years old. This comes out to be 15,345,500,000 years, a highly significant figure. From calculations based on the expanding universe and other cosmological observations, modern science has concluded that the Big Bang occurred approximately 15 billion years ago. But here we see the same figure presented in a Torah source written over seven hundred years ago![8]
As startling as this is coming from a medieval source, one might well wonder where we can find any indication of its validity in the actual text of Genesis. Rabbi Kaplan suggests a possible solution may be found by comparing Genesis 1:27, where God appears to create both man and woman at the same time, with Genesis 2:18-22, where God creates Adam first and, sometime later, creates Eve from Adam’s side. Kaplan notes that the Talmud delves into this question, and that the rabbis reconciled the matter with the explanation that “God created man and woman simultaneously in thought, but created Adam first and then Eve in actual deed.”
Thus, it may be that the seven days of creation took place over 15 billion years ago, before the Big Bang. This represented the creation of the spiritual infrastructure of the universe, which the Talmud refers to as “creation in thought.” The universe then developed according to God’s plan, guided by the spiritual infrastructure He had created.[9] [10]
The medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides (c. 1135 to 1204) commented on the Genesis creation account in such a way as to underscore the rabbinical tradition that God actually created everything at once but later explained it to man within the context of six days. In book two, chapter twenty-nine, of his influential (and controversial even then) Guide for the Perplexed (written c. 1190), Maimonides leads into this issue with a discussion of figurative elements in the Genesis account, explaining that the Jewish sages kept the true meaning of the text to themselves:
The account given in Scripture of the Creation is not, as is generally believed, intended to be in all its parts literal. For if this were the case, wise men would not have kept its explanation secret, and our Sages would not have employed figurative speech [in treating of the Creation] in order to hide its true meaning, nor would they have objected to discuss it in the presence of the common people. The literal meaning of the words might lead us to conceive corrupt ideas and to form false opinions about God or even to entirely abandon and reject the principles of our Faith.
It is therefore right to abstain and refrain from examining this subject superficially and unscientifically. We must blame the practice of some ignorant preachers and expounders of the Bible, who think that wisdom consists in knowing the explanation of words, and that greater perfection is obtained by employing more words and longer speech. It is, however, right that we should examine the Scriptural texts by the intellect, after having acquired a knowledge of demonstrative science, and of the true hidden meaning of prophecies. But if one has obtained some knowledge in this matter, he must not preach on it, as I stated in my Commentary on the Mishnah (Hagigah ii. 7), and our Sages said distinctly: From the beginning of the book to this place—after the account of the sixth day of the Creation—“it is the glory of God to conceal a thing” (Prov. xxv. 2).[11]
Maimonides noted the belief of some Jewish scholars that time somehow existed before creation, and that “God built worlds and again destroyed them,” but he took issue with those interpretations, believing there was a better explanation for apparent difficulties in the Genesis text:
You must know that the particle et in the phrase et ha-shamayim ve-et ha-arez (“the heavens and the earth”) signifies “together with”: our Sages have explained the word in the same sense in many instances. Accordingly they assume that God created with the heavens everything that the heavens contain, and with the earth everything the earth includes. They further say that the simultaneous Creation of the heavens and the earth is implied in the words “I call unto them, they stand up together” (Psalm xlviii.). Consequently, all things were created together, but were separated from each other successively…In Bereshit Rabba, our Sages, speaking of the light created on the first day, according to the Scriptural account, say as follows: these lights [of the luminaries mentioned in the Creation of the fourth day] are the same that were created on the first day, but were only fixed in their places on the fourth day.[12] [13]
Thus, we see that there were various nuanced views of creation (including old-earth interpretations) present in Judaism well before the time of Darwin and the modern advent of evolutionary theory. Moving on, we will see similar thinking evidenced in the works of early Christian writers as well.
The Early Christian Fathers
Justin Martyr, who lived from AD 100 to 165, held a view of creation that appears similar to the concept of primordial “chaos,” stating in his First Treatise:
We have been taught that He in the beginning did, of His goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of unformed matter…[14]
This is such a brief reference that it’s difficult to ascertain exactly what Justin meant when he referenced “unformed matter.” It might be that, as with some of the Jewish sages, Justin believed that God created undifferentiated matter first, and then fashioned the familiar creation from it in the days that followed.[15]
Clement of Alexandria (AD 150 – 215) notes the reference in Genesis 2:4 to “the day that the Lord God made heaven and earth” and states that “the expression ‘when they were created’ indicates an indefinite and dateless production.”[16] Clement felt that the days of creation represented a hierarchy within creation rather than an actual sequence in time:
For the creations on the different days followed in a most important succession; so that all things brought into existence might have honor from priority, created together in thought, but not being of equal worth. Nor was the creation of each signified by the voice, inasmuch as the creative work is said to have made them at once. For something must needs have been named first. Wherefore those things were announced first, from which came those that were second, all things being originated together from one essence by one power. For the will of God was one, in one identity. And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist.[17]
Origen (c AD 184 – 253) is notable among the early Christian writers for his belief that much of what is found in early Genesis may be allegorical in nature (along with a host of other events recorded in scripture). Indeed, he wrote that God had “arranged that certain stumbling blocks, as it were, and offences, and impossibilities, should be introduced into the midst of the law and the history…for the sake of the more skillful and inquisitive, in order that they may give themselves to the toil of investigating what is written, and thus attain to a becoming conviction of the manner in which a meaning worthy of God must be sought out in such subjects.”[18] In regard to Genesis in particular, Origen writes:
For who that has understanding will suppose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtaineth life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.[19]
The prolific and vastly influential fifth-century Christian writer Augustine of Hippo (AD 354 to 430) favored a somewhat figurative view of the days of Genesis, although he felt that the biblical genealogies required that the creation took place only a few thousand years ago. Writing in The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Augustine commented that the text of Genesis was deliberately written in a manner that was not entirely clear in order to provoke believers to ponder its meaning. For this reason, he counseled Christians to “choose the interpretation” they were best able to understand.[20]
Like Philo before him, Augustine believed that the creation actually took place all at once (per Genesis 2:4), and was figuratively divided into six days. In part, Augustine thought this configuration emphasized the ‘perfection’ of the number six, but he also believed that the division was divinely ordained for the sake of the readers of scripture, who could not grasp a simultaneous creation “unless the narrative proceed slowly, step by step.”[21]
In his later, monumental, and best-known work, The City of God, Augustine revisited the Genesis account, and expressed some perplexity in regard to the days of creation, a perplexity he never resolved to his complete satisfaction:
What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say! We see, indeed, that our ordinary days have no evening but by the setting, and no morning but by the rising, of the sun; but the first three days of all were passed without sun, since it is reported to have been made on the fourth day.[22]
As we’ve seen from the preceding excerpts, past Jewish and Christian scholars alike held differing opinions on the Genesis creation account, with nearly all affirming that the account is at least partially figurative.[23] With respect to the Early Church Fathers specifically, young-earth teachers have pointed out that the fathers believed in a recent creation due to the biblical genealogies, and that is certainly true; however, there are some very important things we should keep in mind when determining how much weight ancient and medieval opinions regarding the Genesis creation account should carry in the modern creation debate.
Next in this series: The Weight of Traditional Views
[1] “Kabbalah” is a term that refers to a collection of Jewish writings having to do with “the esoteric or mystic doctrine concerning God and the universe, asserted to have come down as a revelation to elect saints from a remote past, and preserved only by a privileged few.” (http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3878-cabala)
[2] Philo, A Treatise on the Account of the Creation of the World, as given by Moses. Early Jewish Writings.com.
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book1.html
[3] Philo. The First Book of the Treatise on the Allegories of the Sacred Laws, after the Work of the Six Days of Creation. Early Jewish Writings.com.
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/text/philo/book2.html
[4] The Beresith, or Genesis Rabba. Sacred Texts.com.
http://sacred-texts.com/jud/mhl/mhl05.htm
[5] The Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, 88b. http://www.halakhah.com/shabbath/shabbath_88.html
[6] Michael Rodkinson, trans. The Babylonian Talmud, Ultimate Bible Reference Library.com. Volume VIII (XVI), Tractate Sanhedrin, Part II (Haggada), p. 302.
[7] Aryeh Kaplan, Immortality, Resurrection, and the Age of the Universe: A Kabbalistic View (KTAV Publishing House, 1983), p. 6. The Early Church Fathers did something similar in assuming that each day of the creation week prophesied a thousand-year “age” of fallen man, with the Millennial Kingdom age represented by the seventh day. Thus, man would live in his fallen state for 6,000 years and Christ would return at the beginning of the seventh millennium from Adam.
[8] Kaplan, Immortality, Resurrection, and the Age of the Universe, p. 9.
[9] Ibid, pp. 10-11.
[10] In his book Sefer Yitzirah, Rabbi Kaplan points out another interesting connection between the interpretations of Rabbi Isaac of Akko and modern scientific discoveries. Appealing to the notion that one “divine day” equals 365,250 human years, Kaplan notes that one seven thousand year period “would consist of 2,556,750,000 earthly years…very close to the scientific estimate as to the length of time that life has existed on earth.” Aryeh Kaplan, Sefer Yitzirah: The Book of Creation (San Francisco: Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.), p. 186.
[11] M. Friedlander, trans., Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1904), p. 211.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp116.htm
[12] Ibid., p. 213.
[13] Ibid. Maimonides also disputed the idea of an eternal creation, noting “Every religious man rejects this.”
[14] The First Apology of Justin, Chapter X.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/justinmartyr-firstapology.html.
[15] Kaufmann Kohler, Emil G. Hirsch, “Creation,” Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906. Jewish Encylopedia.com.
http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4730-creation
[16] Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Mischellanies. Early Christian Writings.com. Book VI, Chapter XVI.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/clement-stromata-book6.html
[17] Ibid.
[18] Origen, De Principiis, Book IV, Chapter 15.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/origen125.html
[19] Ibid., Chapter 16.
[20] Augustine. The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Volume 1, in Johannes Quasten, Walter Burghardt, and Thomas Lawler, eds. Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), pp. 43-44.
[21] Ibid, p. 142.
[22] Augustine, The City of God, Book XI, Chapter VI.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XI.6.html
[23] Granted, this is but a brief survey, covering only some of the highlights of historical opinion and for the purpose of demonstrating that the early Jewish and Christian writers were not uniform in their understanding of Genesis.
