Dinosaurs and Evolution

my mama

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 11:57 am

My child is obsessed with dinosaurs and we went to the Museum of Natural History to see the fossils and it was so fascinating.

I came up with a couple of theories to reconcile science with the Torah (not the other way around).

1. They say some dinosaurs were already extinct by the time the later dinosaurs 'evolved'. We know that time and space is a creation like any other, meaning that the first "Friday" when Hashem created the animals might have been millions of years in our times.

2. The same goes for fish and sharks and whatnot. Science claims that sea life was around millions of years before any land mammals. They were created on "Thursday" which according to my first point could have lasted for millions of years.

3. The fact that the world appears to be billions of years old could have two reasons, A) Hashen did not create a brand new baby world. The world was created already matured, the trees were already bearing fruit etc. B) the Mabul aged the world greatly as well.

Last edited by my mama on Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:13 pm; edited 1 time in total

bigsis144

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 1:51 pm

Do you actually want to talk about the science (ie get corrected if your scientific understanding is flawed, just to clarify what the scientific position is regardless of whether that makes your reconciliation still work), or are you happy with the answers you have found?

Rappel

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 1:55 pm

I sometimes wonder if the giants referred to in the Torah are dinosaurs. Like, who says that they had humanoid shape? We just know that they talked, were ridiculously tall, monstrous, seemed to be able to recreate with humans, and that there were very few by the time Avraham came around, and none after David.

Considering we haven't found any human skeletons that were 20 feet tall or more... Well, why not?

mushkamothers

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:04 pm

1. The lubavitcher rebbe has a letter on this here about carbon dating
https://www.chabad.org/library.....n.htm

2. We do indeed have evidence of human bones that are gigantic, they've just been erased. Lots of newspaper reports from early 1800s

3. Considering that nobody has ever seen a complete dinosaur and just put them together as fossils... the whole thing could be a myth ie who says there are as many different types as they claim

BH Yom Yom

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:05 pm

Wednesday (Yom Revi’I) was when the stats, planets, sun and moon were created.

Thursday (Yom Chamishi) was when the birds and sea life were created. Not sure if dinosaurs would fit into the Yom Chamishi category as some scientists now say that dinosaurs apparently were similar to birds than reptiles. If they were reptiles then Yom Shishi (Friday) would make more sense, since that’s when land animals were created, as well as Adam and Chava.

my mama

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:10 pm

bigsis144 wrote:

Absolutely. I think it's fascinating. Like I said it's just theories I came up with.

my mama

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:12 pm

Rappel wrote:

Well, there are the Neanderthals, I'm not sure if there is actual proof of them existing, but I've read a couple of interesting articles about them

On that note I recently saw an article that there is proof that Neanderthals and humans had se×, I learned in school that one of the reasons for the Mabel was interspecies se×, I.e. different animals, humans and animals, and humans and giants. And one of the major issues with the humans and giants having se× was that when a human woman got pregnant she needed to abort because her body was not large enough to handle the pregnancy, and it was happening so often that the streets were littered with aborted fetuses.

Last edited by my mama on Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:47 pm; edited 1 time in total

my mama

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 2:13 pm

BH Yom Yom wrote:

Yes, I got confused with Thursday, Friday. I'll update my OP.

Zahava94

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 3:17 pm

The best way I've found to reconcile apparent contradictions between scientific discovery and the Torah's account of creation, as well as additional stories found within it that relate to natural history, is to understand that the Torah is not a history book. It is a guide book, meant to impart lessons and rules to live one's life by, and therefore, not all historical references or details need to be literal. It isn't the stories themselves that are concrete, it is the lessons we learn from them. Consequently, we can potentially accept any scientific version of past events, no matter if it relates to dinosaurs, the age of the universe, or evolution, without casting doubt on the veracity of the Torah, so long as we accept that God orchestrated it all.

This method avoids the issues of forcing phenomena to match with the Torah's account of everything, like Dr. Gerald Schroeder attempts to do in his books, or cherry picking data that seems to match while ignoring anything else.

BH Yom Yom

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 4:19 pm

my mama wrote:

This is fascinating. I would love to learn more about that - any ideas where to look?

b.chadash

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 4:36 pm

There is another theory, based off a midrash in Tehillim that says that Hashem created and destroyed 974 worlds before our present one. Why and how is a whole other discussion. But the theory goes that He took remnants of the previous worlds to build our present one. That's why it appears to be thousands (or millions) of years older.
Rabbi Tatz has a fascinating shiur on this entitled something like "The 974 worlds.

I don't think the belief in dinosaurs necessarily contradicts Torah. They may have died out during the mabul.

But also, so much of what's considered "science" is educated guesswork. We have lived through enough history in the
scientific era where we have seen how so many scientific "facts" have been disputed by later scientists. Even more so, at any time, you can find respected contemporary scientists who believe in diametrically opposite beliefs. (And they all have the "evidence" for their positions.)

So I'm not sure why there is such a panic whenever science seems to come out with new "evidence" that seems to contradict Torah.

mushkamothers

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 5:00 pm

my mama wrote:

This is tickling my memory, of a giantess woman with a regular man, and the kids were ostracized? Like was this the family of orpah or something?

my mama

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 5:02 pm

BH Yom Yom wrote:

This is fascinating. I would love to learn more about that - any ideas where to look?

Honestly no idea. There are many articles about humans and Neanderthal copulation that I found with just a cursory google search. The pre-Mabul part I don't know what the sources are.

my mama

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 5:12 pm

mushkamothers wrote:

This is tickling my memory, of a giantess woman with a regular man, and the kids were ostracized? Like was this the family of orpah or something?

If Orpah was a giantess wouldn't Rus have been too?

iluvy

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 5:16 pm

mushkamothers wrote:

This is tickling my memory, of a giantess woman with a regular man, and the kids were ostracized? Like was this the family of orpah or something?

I think that might be Harry Potter 😆

Orpah was the mother of 4 giants

Rappel

Thu, Jun 29 2023, 6:09 pm

my mama wrote:

Those were the נפילים, and after the מבול we hear of the ענקים. Not necessarily the same kind of being.