I was impressed by the level of sophisticated responses to the teaching evolution question. The classic Hertz Chumash has an appendix to his commentary on Breishis that summarizes very nicely a rational Jewish view on evolution. The end of the first volume of the English version of Rav Kasher's Toras Shleimah has an anthology of Jewish sources both opposed to and in favor of evolutionary ideas.

One could take the view that evolution helps resolve the biggest textual problem in the Torah. The words "Let Us Make Man" have been a thorn in the side of Monotheists since the time the Torah was translated and probably even from the time it was given.

If one ignores Oral traditions (as many people do, both Jewish and Non-Jewish) or creative exegesis and uses simple rules of Biblical interpretation such as "Ayn Mikra Yotzay Midei Pshuto-A Passuk never completely loses it's literal meaning" or even approaches to interpretation that would be used in any main stream academic institution one could use the rule of "a text interprets itself" and simply ask what previous mentioned noun would indicate what an ambiguous pronoun that follows it is talking about.

In this instance the ambiguous pronoun "Us" is preceded by the previous topic mentioned in the Torah of the creation of animals. This would indicate that God is referring to the animal kingdom when using the word "Us". If one accepts the concept of evolutionary theory then it is quite possible to explain that this what the Torah could be referring to.

A scholar questioned this idea on the grounds that he would find it hard to believe animals would be used to help create a being that would end up destroying the animals, but that is a separate moral issue related to man's stewardship of animals unrelated to the simple meaning of the text.

If one were to describe the key components in the makeup of man, perhaps the body and soul could be described as half animal like and half God like.

This is an example of how sometimes a theory in Science actually can help resolve a problem in understanding the Torah.

Shalom,

Elisha Paul



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2016 02:55PM by mlb.