The Science of God
I went to a lecture by Dr. Gerald Schroeder yesterday, author of "The Science of God" and others (I don't know if you've read or know about him, Dad). He was at the very least an interesting guy and a good lecturer. Engaging and willing to answer questions and let the lecture develop from there. He's Jewish, and the main point of his books seems to be outlining how scientific observation (and in particular quantum mechanics, space-time expansion and metaphysics) can easily fit with a non-literalistic reading of the Torah, or the Bible, and even explain things about Biblical ideas. The overall impression I got from him was that he wasn't going to throw out scientific observation if it didn't fit the Torah, since he's an MIT physicist himself. Rather, he would re-evaluate Talmudic interpretation.
One thing he mentioned in passing but which I'd never heard of before was that there is some debate about the translation of the first word of Genesis 1:1. בראשת (bereshiyt) is usually translated as "in the beginning," but many Biblical Hebrew scholars, and Dr. Schroeder, apparently, are convinced that the actual translation is more like "with wisdom." Interesting.
Overall, I liked it, particularly the metaphysical stuff he talked about. But I don't think I was as amazed as others were. Nari was impressed, and Anna and another girl I know named Maddie thought it was unbelievable. I think for Anna it was because she grew up in a Baptist environment and although she's broken away from it, she had never heard anything about how science is perfectly compatible with most religious thought. She'd never even heard the concept of the six days of creation being longer than six literal days (as yom in Biblical Hebrew can mean an unspecified length of time). For me, some of the arguments weren't entirely new.
One thing he mentioned in passing but which I'd never heard of before was that there is some debate about the translation of the first word of Genesis 1:1. בראשת (bereshiyt) is usually translated as "in the beginning," but many Biblical Hebrew scholars, and Dr. Schroeder, apparently, are convinced that the actual translation is more like "with wisdom." Interesting.
Overall, I liked it, particularly the metaphysical stuff he talked about. But I don't think I was as amazed as others were. Nari was impressed, and Anna and another girl I know named Maddie thought it was unbelievable. I think for Anna it was because she grew up in a Baptist environment and although she's broken away from it, she had never heard anything about how science is perfectly compatible with most religious thought. She'd never even heard the concept of the six days of creation being longer than six literal days (as yom in Biblical Hebrew can mean an unspecified length of time). For me, some of the arguments weren't entirely new.
5 Comments:
Very cool. Yes, I've heard of him but not read him. He has a website that promotes and sells his book. I did know that he wasn't a literalist and assume that's why I don't know very much about him. In my circles the guys who are reasonable don't get talked about as much.
Was Anna raised fundamentalist Baptist? If you spend a lot of time with her over the coming months it would be interesting to watch how, and if, her worldview is actually changed by something like this. I've always believed that people are rational as a default and will react positively to this kind of info. Of course that position gets tested pretty strenuously sometimes.
I suppose this is obvious, but the above comment was from Dad. Love, Mom
I changed my password, so from now on any comments are from me. This sounds like a very interesting lecture & an author worth reading. What country is he from? Your Hebrew study is going to be illuminating in a lot of ways. Thanks for sharing it. Mom
He's originally from the US, but emigrated to Israel.
Actually, my Hebrew studies may not help so much in these instances. Biblical Hebrew is different from modern Hebrew, a result of Eliezer Ben Yehuda's modifications to the language to make it speakable in modern-day life (lots of words never made an appearance in the Bible, so ben Yehuda basically made stuff up, or mixed and matched other words, and usages change when it's a spoken language).
If I was translating this stuff just from what I know, I would have said "yom" means day, period, because it does in modern Hebrew. And "bereshiyt" incorporates "be" (in) with "rosh" (head or beginning), so I would have said "in the beginning" is a pretty good approximation.
It's weird because there are some people in the ulpan who have taken Biblical Hebrew, and so know a good bit of it, but can't speak the language, because Biblical Hebrew really isn't spoken. And because it's just different from modern Hebrew.
And about Anna. Yeah, she was raised in a pretty fundamentalist environment, but she strikes me as having broken away from it long ago (she's way too smart for that, and from the sound of it, so are a lot of her other relatives). She's also lived here before, like I said, so she's been out in the world enough to know how crazy fundamentalist Baptism is.
But that doesn't necessarily translate to learning more about science. She actually hasn't officially been to college yet (she's starting at HU as a freshman), although she's been in nursing school and taken classes.
Mom's strict! :) I forgot to say congratulations about being published to you on the phone, Dad. So congrats! I can't wait to read it.
Post a Comment
<< Home