How come there are no Jewish creationists? They have the same creation story?

Answer 1

I'm Jewish. I can only speak for myself and not other Jews.

As I've learned more about the Torah, I've learned that the passages in the Torah are intended for me to learn something. The Torah, to me, is like hooks on a coat rack. They support the coat, but they aren't the coat.

My task is to take the lesson contained in the coat and wear it by internalizing the lesson in the passage.

There are 4 main levels of Torah study, but the levels are actually infinite.

Psahat - the simple meaning of the passage. The order of creation, etc. These are just hooks to me.

Remes - hints created mostly by similarities in word usage to hint one passage may be hinting at an explanation for another passage.

Drosh - the lesson to be learned by a passage that we are to internalize.

Sod - the deep mysteries of the Torah largely accessible only to those who read Hebrew and Aramaic as the writtings are only in these languages. To penetrate this level takes deep and extensive doing of the Torah.

Shalom,
Gershon

Answer 2

Oh, there are. We're just less in-your-face about it to the outside world.

With fellow Jews it's another matter. Several well-meaning people have gotten in hot water with the Ultra-Orthodox community because they wrote books about the Big Bang and evolution.

For an example of Jewish creationism, read "The Jewish Theory of Everything", by Max Anteby. If I recall correctly, there's also a book called "Science in the Light of Torah" that has a whole chapter on the unreliability of carbon-dating.

Answer 3

As other Jews have stated their are Jewish creationists, but their has also been a tradition in Judaism not to view many texts in the Bible as literal. One in particular is the story of creation.

Neither creation or evolution is outside the pail of traditional Judaism.

Answer 4

Judaism does not generally take a "dead literal" approach to such things. its COMPLETELY acceptable in Judaism to consider the creation story metaphorical. another approach is a view that what is commonly translated as "day" is actually really supposed to mean "period of time" which would actually allow the entire story to be shifted from an utterly unrealistic 6 day creation to eerily outlining the path from the big bang through the formation of the cosmos, and up through evolution.

which is not entirely incompatible with what the text actually says, and is infinitely easier to swallow.

Answer 5

We usually don't take it as literal, and most of us feel G-d wrote a metaphor or something for what actually happened, since people at that time would be hard-pressed to accept the ideas of bacteria and evolution and things. Let's be real now, right up until the 1600s crop failure was an excuse to burn someone!

We have mixed views about it because everything in our book is openly debated among Jews.

Answer 6

From what I have noticed, Jewish people tend to take the story less literally than Christians. Good for them is how I feel.

Answer 7

I'm sure there are probably some, but likely not as many.

I guess they just look at it differently. Also, many Jews are probably educated enough to realize that attacking evolution does not give Biblical Creationism any merit.

Answer 8

being better educated about the source material, they understand it's poetry and metaphor

just as the original authors intended

Answer 9

I agree with the first reply; we tend to regard it less rigidly and literally. For more info check out http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org/ or http://www.askmoses.com

Answer 10

I would say they do, it is just that they mind their own business and do not try to get in the media spotlight every day.