tabick science in br

Science in Bereishit Rabbahby Jeremy Tabick

Heavens (shamayim)—for people wonder (mishtomemim) about them, saying, “What are they

made of?” “Are they made of fire?” “Are they made of water?”1

This observation from Bereishit Rabbah (henceforth, BR) 4:7 could have been written by a

scientist. Wonder is certainly the animating principle behind much scientific observation.2 The

fact that this wonder is also encapsulated in a pun on a Hebrew word reminds us that this is, in

fact, from an exegetical work.

However, it is hard to read accounts of creation—even if science is not their goal—and avoid

asking scientific questions. What are the heavens made of? How was the world created? How big

is it? Was there a time before it was created? These are what I call “scientific questions”,

questions, at core, asking: “how?” How does it work? How was it put together? And so on. These

are distinct from religious (or mythological) questions, which at core are “why?” questions. Why

was the world created? Why is the world made in this way? These are asking for meaning and

human context.3 The goal of Genesis 1-2, I would argue, is set in a “why?” framework: The

creation story culminates in the Shabbat day (2:1-4), as an answer to why the world was created

in seven days. Similarly, the act of division, so central to God’s creation, is supposed to emulated

by priests and Israelites.4 Genesis situates us as human beings, and (to speak anachronistically)

as Jews, in the cosmos.

As a work attempting to explain the Genesis story, it seems likely that BR also has religious

questions as its goal. That does not mean that, in answering those questions, it does not pose

answers to scientific questions as well. For example, Genesis, by revealing that the heavens are

made of water, implicitly explains how rain falls from the sky. There is also meaning implicit

here—water is a symbol of chaos,5 and dividing the waters shows that our world is a bastion of

order amid a sea of chaos—but nonetheless Genesis’ answer to a scientific question (“How does

rain fall?”) is still present in its mythological imagery.

Therefore, this is the question I set out to answer: What answers does BR give to some

scientific questions about the cosmos? And, based on those answers, what can we learn about its

attitude to science more generally?

Science in Bereishit Rabbah Jeremy Tabick

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To answer the second question, we need to compare the science of BR with roughly

contemporary science. The easiest places to compare are therefore Greek or Roman authors

whose roll is to ask these same “how?” questions. This leads us to three works: Plato’s Timaeus,

a foundational work of ancient science;6 Pliny’s Natural History, the temporally closest and most

comprehensive Roman scientific work to the time of BR; and Philo’s On the Creation of the

World, who is unique here in that he too is writing a commentary of the biblical text, making

comparison to his ideas of science perhaps even more instructive, since we know he was also

well-versed in Greek knowledge.7

We will therefore proceed with some scientific questions that BR answers, and compare its

answers to those of the other three authors (where possible). Due to time and space constraints,

only the first six chapters of BR have been surveyed, and out of those only four questions have

been distilled, so conclusions should be viewed tentatively.

What is the order of creation?

If there is nothing else Genesis 1-2 is clear about, it is the order in which things were created.

First there is light, then there is the firmament, and so on, day-by-day. It is not surprising that

other authors would come up with different orders of creation since it is an important and

contentious topic, which Pliny, for example, denies even happened (2:1). What might be

surprising, however, is the amount of disagreement about it by the rabbis in BR.

One possibility to explain this issue is that what these derashot are really exploring is a

religious question of “Which one is more important?”, rather than a scientific question of

“Which one was first?” This is something that BR, Timaeus, and On Creation all agree on: If

something is created earlier, you should assume it is better. Primacy in order suggests supremacy

in fact. For example, Timaeus (p. 453) makes sure we know that the order in which he discusses

a topic does not reflect on its importance, thereby revealing an assumption that it normally

would, if not for this disclaimer:Now God did not make the soul after the body, although we are speaking of them in this order;

for having brought them together he would never have allowed that the elder should be ruled by

the younger…

Philo (45) also goes out of his way to explain this, and the related problem of why humanity


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is created on the last day of creation when surely they are not the least important:8

And on the fourth day, after he had embellished the earth, he diversified and adorned the heaven:

not giving the precedence to the inferior nature by arranging the heaven subsequently to the earth,

or thinking that which was the more excellent and the more divine worthy only of the second

place…

Once again, another motive is at stake, not supremacy; and yet, Philo is compelled to

mention this precisely because supremacy is what you would have assumed.

These BR passages certainly seem to be wrapt with this question of values. However, we will

not discount the possible scientific content of their discussions until we have analysed them, for

if there were merely a discussion of the relative merits, it could be phrased in a way that does not

hinge on order of creation (e.g. Gadol shamayim me-aretz etc.). Several times in BR 1-6, the

relative orders of different matters are discussed;9 here we deal with three examples.10

(i) Earth and heavenBR 1:15

Beit Shammai say: The heavens were created first; but Beit Hillel say: The earth was created first.

According to the opinion of Beit Shammai, it is like a king who made himself a throne and

afterwards a ὑποπόδιον (footstool), as it is written, “The heavens are My throne and the earth is

My footstool” (Isaiah 66:1). According to the opinion of Beit Hillel, it is like a king who built a

palace: after he built the lower parts, he builds the upper parts, as it is said, “On the day God

made earth and heaven” (Genesis 2:4)…

Rabbi Yohanan in the name of the Sages: With regards to creation, heavens came first; with

regards to completion, the earth came first.

Rabbi Shimon said: I am shocked that the fathers of the world could disagree on this matter!

Rather, they were together like a pot and its lid—“I called to them and they stood

together” (Isaiah 48:13).

The key to the disagreement here in the verses is that heaven and earth often appear in one

order and often in the reverse. In particular, Genesis 1:1-2:4 opens with “heaven and earth” and

closes with “earth and heaven”. This is likely a poetic structure rather than a contradiction, but

BR does not read it this way. One of them is right (Beit Hillel vs. Beit Shammai), or else there is

some kind of compromise position (Rabbi Yohanan/Sages vs. Rabbi Shimon).

Timaeus (p. 451) describes how “in the beginning of creation [God] made the body of the


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universe to consist of fire and earth.” Given for him the heavens are made of fire (see below),

and the earth (obviously) of earth, it seems that he thinks heaven and earth were formed

simultaneously at the beginning.11 Philo (13) goes further and thinks that everything was created

at once, despite the careful order in Genesis: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… (my emphasis)

Of course God can—and did—create the world at once. But Moses expressed it sequentially

in order to emphasise its ordered nature. This helps us put Rabbi Shimon in context: He appears

to have the scientific answer, and one which is possible to reconcile with the biblical text. This

might go some way to explain his surprise that his forebears disagreed.

(ii) Light and worldBR 3:1

Rabbi Yehudah says: Light was created first. This is like a king who wanted to build a palace but

he had a dark place. What did he do? He lit lamps—a φανός (torch/lamp)—to know where he

would fix the θεµέλιος (foundation). So light was created first.

Rabbi Nehemiah says: The world was created first. This is like a king who builds a palace and

decorates it with lamps.

—so far the explanation of Rabbi Yudan.

Rabbi Pinhas came and [said in the name of] Rabbi Yehudah son of Rabbi Simon [in the name of]

Rabbi Hanun in the name of Rabbi Shmuel son of Rav Yitzhak: “The opening of your word

illuminates” (Psalm 119:130)—from the opening of your mouth, we have had light: “And God

said, ‘Let there be light’…”

The Torah specifically calls out the creation of light, as quoted. What it does not do is name

the creation of the world (olam), but only earth and heaven; other elements of the world,

according to Genesis, like the depths and waters, preexisted. This allows this argument to get off

the ground: Is there some kind of primordial light the preexists the world, or was the world

created at the beginning of creation, after which it was infused with light?

It is hard to match this up with any known scientific theory. Philo understands “light” as


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equivalent to the element of “fire” (see next section). For either Philo or Timaeus, to say that fire

preexists the world, where fire is one of the primary constituents of the world, would be

nonsense. It is possible, however, to understand this in light of Philo’s metaphorical

understanding of light as “reason”, for the incorporeal world did indeed preexist the corporeal

world.12 This is certainly possible, but the absence of any version of the word “reason”, or this

idea in general in BR, seems difficult.13

Thus, I think the best way to understand this discussion is from an entirely internal

perspective, with no reference to Platonic philosophy nor natural history. Its cue comes only

from the biblical text where “light” is the key term (not “fire” as it is in the scientific texts), and

where the olam is never explicitly created.

(iii) Everything(?) is created at the beginning

In BR 1:14, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Yishmael disagree on how to read the et’s in the first

verse of the Torah.14 Rabbi Akiva gives an uncharacteristically minimal interpretation, that the

direct objects—“et the heavens” and “et the earth”—emphasise that they are not gods, which is

based clearly in grammar.15 In response, Rabbi Yishmael takes him to task and brings a

characteristically Akivan approach, understanding the et’s as including something not mentioned

explicitly:“For no empty word comes from you” (Deuteronomy 32:47)—and if it is empty, it is from you

(i.e. your fault)!—for you do not know how to explain. Rather, “et ha-shamayim”—to include the

sun, moon, stars, and planets; “et ha-aretz”—to include trees, grasses, and the Garden of Eden.

Almost all of these inclusions are explicitly created in Genesis on later days;16 therefore, it

seems clear that the point of this midrash is to locate these elements of creation on day one

instead. One possibility is that, by including these specific elements, one is supposed to

understand that it is the earth and everything in it, and the heaven and everything in it that was

created on day one. Were this to be true, then its similarity to Philo would be obvious: Rabbi

Yishmael would be saying that all creation happened on day one and subsequent days were only

for arranging it into order.

There is nothing in the words of the midrash itself, however, that forces us to understand

Rabbi Yishmael’s list as inclusive of everything, for it is hard to explain why he mentions these


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specific items. What about light? Seas? Animals? Why does he not mention these other very

important creations, also created in the Torah later on? Alternatively, why didn’t he just say “to

include all?” Thus, it appears to me that a stronger read is that he means these items—and these

items alone—were created on day one.

If so, what is the connection between them? It seems that the items are the “adornments” of

the heaven and earth. Perhaps, then, he means to say: Don’t think the heaven alone was created

on day one, but the heaven and everything in it (with the notable exception of birds); so too for

earth (with the notable exception of animals—in both cases, excluding creatures that are mobile,

not “set” into the earth or heaven). What does he gain by including these items on day one? One

possible advantage is that a problem in the text is resolved. After all, how was there light on day

one before the sun had been created (on day four)? So Rabbi Yishmael: The sun was too created

on day one; God perhaps only set it in the sky on day four.

Additionally, any explanation of this passage has to take into account of the items that are not

mentioned in the creation story at all, being: (i) planets, and (ii) Eden. Planets might be implicitly

included in “stars”,17 but perhaps its absence seemed jarring to Rabbi Yishmael, part of a culture

that takes astrology of the planets very seriously.18 Eden is, perhaps, the midrash’s tout de force,

since a straight read of the first two chapters of Genesis could easily lead one to think that the

latter story involving Eden contradicts the former one. Thus, including Eden in day one serves to

smooth over the transition from one story to the next.

In conclusion, then, it seems that Rabbi Yishmael’s derash too is directed at internal

problems in the text, and a comparison with Philo’s more radical understanding of the Genesis

text is less instructive than it looked at first blush.

How big is the sky? What is in it?

Scientific sources envisage the earth at the centre of a giant sphere that makes up the world

(e.g. Pliny 2:2; Plato, pp. 454-6). This is also very clear from observation, it being much more

difficult to discern that it is the earth that revolves around the sun rather than the other way

round.

By contrast, the view of BR is not clear. On the one hand, it uses words like “upper” and

“lower” (e.g. 1:15), “above” and “below” (e.g. 1:10), and has a sense of sof ha-olam (e.g. 6:7),


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which, on the surface, could imply a flat world. On the other hand, these could be figures of

speech, and make as much sense in a spherical world as in a flat one: Above/upper, lower/below

could be away from the centre and closer to the centre. Similarly, the end of the world could be

the full radius of the circle. Based only on the biblical text, one could imagine that BR would

think that the world is a flat disk with a great arch above it, as is likely for Genesis 1.19 It is also

possible that the authors of BR simply did not think much about this, as was likely for non-

scientists. The fact that traditions like BR 1:10 exist, forbidding one from investigating what is

above and below, may help this attitude.

Nonetheless, there are elements of BR’s understanding of the size of heaven and the

placement of the sun and moon (in 6:6) which are very surprising in light of the Greek and

Roman parallels: 1. They try to calculate the size of the heavens; 2. They seem to posit that the

sun and moon are on the same plane; 3. They suggest that each of these heavens are equidistant

in size and distance.BR 6:6

Where are the sphere of the sun and the moon placed? In the second heaven, as it is said, “God

put them into the firmament of the heaven” [i.e. not the heaven, another heaven above it]…

And where are all of their host [the stars and planets] placed? In the second firmament that is

above the heavens.

From the earth to the firmament is five-hundred years’ walk; the thickness of the firmament is

five-hundred years’ walk; and from firmament to firmament is five-hundred years’ walk.

The midrash attempts to calculate the size of the heavens, the higher heaven being the same

distance and size as the lower one. One of the very first thing Pliny says in his account of

cosmology is to ridicule exactly this activity—such calculations are futile because the world is

impossibly large (2:1). This aligns BR with the unscientific rabble that Pliny dismisses.

However, he does actually include many others’ estimations of the comparative distances

between different heavens (meaning for him, planes in which the seven main celestial bodies

move). When he does so (2:19ff), he says, correctly, that the heavens are not equidistant from

each other, but, for example, the moon is nineteen times closer than the sun.

Thus it is even more surprising that the midrash puts the sun, moon, and stars on the same

heaven. It can be easily seen that this is not the case—they have orbits of different lengths! Pliny

indeed has a whole discussion on this (2:6ff), as does Timaeus (p. 455). Philo (113) too knows of


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these same seven heavens, each corresponding to a celestial body:The planets too, and the corresponding host of fixed stars, are arrayed in seven divisions…

There are two options for interpretation here: Either BR pays absolutely no attention

whatsoever to the movement of the sun and moon (for if they did, they would clearly see that

they move on different planes), or their cosmology of “heaven” and “firmament of heaven” is a

distinct one from the seven heavens discussed in the Greek and Roman literature. One support of

the latter could be that, for the scientific view, the thickness of these heavens is not discussed,

and in fact they are almost certainly flat. Here, perhaps, wee see an unrelated cosmology of

dividing the heavens in two, rather than seven, with each firmament covering a vast distance.20

Regardless of which view is correct, this clearly shows an ignorance of, or disinterest in, the

answers of contemporary science and observation. Instead, once again, BR is focussed on

exegesis—shemei/rakia shamayim implies that there are two.

What are the heavens made of?

Both Pliny and Timaeus agree that the heavens are made of fire: E.g. Natural History. 2:4,

“…topmost the element of fire, source of yonder eyes of all those blazing stars”; Timaeus pp.

458-9, “Of the heavenly and divine, he created the greater part out of fire (πυρός), that they

might be the brightest of all things and fairest to behold…” This seems clear: The heavens hold

the heat- and light-giving parts of creation, so they are made of the heat- and light-giving

element. Also, an observer would see that flames rise and disappear, flying upwards towards

heaven. This is a clear consensus, one which is easy to find and to corroborate.

Philo thus has an issue. His task is not only to talk about science but also to explain the

Torah, and fire is not mentioned at all in Genesis 1-2. How can it be one of the fundamental

building blocks of the universe and it never be mentioned?

His solution is to equate “fire” (not mentioned) with “light” (φάος, prominently mentioned).

Philo, 7:29 begins his description of the creation of the incorporeal world:In the first place therefore, from the model of the world, perceptible only by intellect, the Creator

made an incorporeal heaven, and an invisible earth, and the form of air and of empty space: the

former of which he called darkness, because the air is black by nature; and the other he called the

abyss, for empty space is very deep and yawning with immense width. Then he created the


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incorporeal substance of water and of air, and above all he spread light, being the seventh thing

made; and this again was incorporeal, and a model of the sun, perceptible only to intellect, and of

all the lightgiving stars, which are destined to stand together in heaven. (my emphasis)

Deftly, Philo locates the keywords in Genesis 1:1 into his description of a good, Timaeus-

inspired, four-element science. The role of fire according to Timaeus and Pliny is played in

Philo’s account by light.21 This is not a difficult equation, by any means. But also note the

location of the water: It is not in the heavens, it is between the heavens and the earth. This

precisely coheres with Timaeus’ and Pliny’s understanding.

Philo is thus in sharp contrast to a tradition in the name of Rav in BR 4:7:“God called the firmament ‘heaven’.” Rav said: Fire and water.

Rabbi Abba son of Kahana in the name of Rav: The Holy Blessed One took fire and water and

packed22 each in the other, and from them was made heavens…

Rabbi Pinhas in the name of Rabbi Levi: It [the verse]23 comes and overcomes it! “He sets the

rafters of his lofts in the water” (Psalm 104:3)—thus, they are water.

As we saw in earlier midrashim, the sensible observations of the world are not under

discussion here. Rather, what is at stake is a sound of the Hebrew word shamayim.24 What’s the

difference between mayim and shamayim? It must be the addition of esh at the beginning.

In addition to punning, Rav is also presenting a fusion of the scientific and biblical views of

what comprises heaven. From the biblical point of view, his hiddush is to include fire—the

heavens are explicitly made of water; from Timaeus’ point of view, the fire is completely

reasonable, and it is the water which is extremely surprising. In this context, Rabbi Pinhas/Rabbi

Levi takes the extra step: He takes his cue entirely from the biblical text, and pays no attention to

science nor observation.

Perhaps a sort of compromise position between these two emerges in BR 4:2:Rabbi Hanina said: Fire came from above and dried up the surface of the firmament.

Rabbi Hanina gets to have the biblical text and scientific thought. Yes, the firmament was

laden with water; but then the fire came from above (whence it belongs, in the Greek scheme)

and dried it up. Genesis 1 is correct, the heavens were made of water, but now they are

predominantly fire.

This is an extremely constructive point of comparison between known science and BR, one

which, again, is overall decided in favour of Scripture over observation, though Rav and Rabbi


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Hanina both attempt to mediate between the two.

Was there a time before creation?

In BR 3:7, two rabbis seriously entertain the idea that there was time before creation, and

maybe even worlds:Rabbi Yehudah son of Rabbi Simon said: “Let there be evening” it is not written here, but “It was

evening.” This implies that there was an order of time before this.

Rabbi Abahu said: This implies that the Holy Blessed One created worlds and destroyed them

until He created this one. He said: This is for Me; those are not for Me.

Like in our previous example, both of them are against the grain of the Greek and Roman

writers under survey here. For example, Pliny (2:1) says of such talk: “It is madness, downright

madness, to go out of that world, and to investigate what lies outside it just as if the whole of

what is within it were already clearly known”. So too Philo (171):“For there are some persons who believe that there are many worlds, and some who even fancy

that they are boundless in extent, being themselves inexperienced and ignorant of the truth of

those things of which it is desirable to have a correct knowledge.”

When Timaeus discusses the existence of time before creation (p. 456), he is in good

company: “For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was

created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also.” In a comment that sounds

like it is arguing directly against BR above (and coming down on the side of Timaeus), Philo

says (26-27):Moses says also; “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth:” taking the beginning to

be, not as some men think, that which is according to time; for before the world time had no

existence, but was created either simultaneously with it, or after it; for since time is the interval of

the motion of the heavens, there could not have been any such thing as motion before there was

anything which could be moved; but it follows of necessity that it received existence

subsequently or simultaneously. It therefore follows also of necessity, that time was created either

at the same moment with the world, or later than it—and to venture to assert that it is older than

the world is absolutely inconsistent with philosophy. But if the beginning spoken of by Moses is

not to be looked upon as spoken of according to time, then it may be natural to suppose that it is

the beginning according to number that is indicated; so that, “In the beginning he created,” is

equivalent to “first of all he created the heaven…”


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To this, what would Rabbi Yehudah son of Rabbi Simon say? It seems like he would point to

the verse, regardless of logic. Rabbi Abahu has no explicit verse, but nonetheless, to go against

an apparently strong scientific consensus suggests that he was ignorant or dismissive of said

consensus.

Conclusions

Pliny is close to what we would consider a “scientist”: He relies on observation above all else

in order to answer “how?” questions. Timaeus also has a cosmology that can accurately explain

observations, though one gets the impression that he is more focussed on the explanatory power

of a phenomenon than its observation in nature. Philo and BR, on the other hand, have the

primary task of exegesis of the same text. However, in many respects, their answers to scientific

questions, and indeed their approaches to science, could hardly be more different.

While Philo takes many cues from the exegesis (such the equation of the Torah’s light with

Timaeus’ fire), at the end of the day he proposes a cosmos fundamentally in line with Timaeus’,

as other scholars have noticed.25 BR, on the other hand, has been shown here several times to

contradict clearly observable phenomena (e.g. the sun and moon on the same sphere, the lack of

care when discussing distances between the spheres), and accepted scientific data (e.g. the

heavens are made of fire and water, the time before creation. In every case surveyed here, when

BR diverges from such phenomena, it is from a cue from the biblical text, either in Genesis or

elsewhere (e.g. the firmament separating the waters, or Hebrew language more generally such as

the puns of shamayim).

There are of course areas in which BR is in broad agreement (of those surveyed here: that the

heavens is also made of fire, but there are other examples not included in this analysis).26 Those I

found occur either when the biblical text outright supports this conclusion,27 or at the very least

does not contradict it (e.g. the Torah never says that heavens are not made of fire). Moreover, the

terms of the discussion have nothing to do with scientific observation, and everything to do with

the peculiarities of the biblical text.

So from this limited pool of evidence, does BR care about science? Broadly, it seems that the

answer is no. The authors of the midrashim analysed here were generally either consciously

disinterested in, or ignorant of, scientific data that they could have known. While Philo


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consistently harmonises the two cosmologies, BR shows little-to-no interest in doing so. No

doubt more evidence and research would enrich this conclusion and help us understand why it is

the case.


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Notes

1 All translations of Bereishit Rabbah are my own. I have always followed the Theodor-

Albeck text, and citations are of the traditional form and numbering, as indicated in Theodor-

Albeck.2 The question of whether the heavens are made of fire or water is an important one,

discussed below.3 I am indebted to Rabbi Shmuel Lewis for this helpful framework and terminology, lecture at

Conservative Yeshiva, Summer 2012.4 For a clear and concise summary of this read, see Shai Held, pp. 4-6.5 See previous note. Also, for example, Jon Levenson, Creation and the Persistence of Evil

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), and Timothy Beal, Religion and Its Monsters

(London and New York: Routledge, 2002).6 I will endeavour to quote passages under the name of the speaker, Timaeus, rather than the

author, Plato. This seems to me prudent as, set as a narrative, it seems difficult to know for

certain the connection between what Timaeus says and what Plato actually believes.7 Halevy, p. 1, n. 5. Citations from Timaeus follow the page numbers in Lovett’s translation.

Citations from Pliny are given Book number: Paragraph number, based on Rakham’s translation.

His cosmology is localised in book 2, thus all citations here are of the form 2:X. Citations from

Philo are only from On the Creation of the World, based on the standard numbering used by

Yonge.8 For the latter, see Philo, 77ff.9 Halevy’s claim (p. 11) that BR thinks that the world was created instantaneously is

insufficiently proven. Firstly, she only quotes three passages; even if those passages

unequivocally agree that creation was simultaneous, this does not necessarily have any bearing

on other midrashim in the book. Secondly, one of the derashot she quotes includes a dissenter,

showing that the matter is not as clear cut as she suggests.10 A fourth fascinating example is the throne of glory and the Torah. We will not deal with

this below since it is so specific to Jewish—perhaps even Rabbinic—cosmology that comparison


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to the Greek and Roman texts is impossible.11 This passage is likely referring to the world of ideas, but this does not seem to me to be a

flaw in the comparison: Either way, something is created in a certain order, be it real or idea.12 E.g. Philo, 16.13 Halevy, p. 10, and n. 71.14 Discussed on Urbach pp. 161-2. There, he argues that this discussion is about what it is

appropriate to expound in public. This seems like reading too many words into the text itself,

which says nothing at all about public or private.15 Urbach reads this as against Gnostics (n. 4 p. 161). This is not necessary since one creator

god is pretty clear biblical theology, and certainly does not need to be aimed at anyone in

particular.16 Though note that the sun and moon are not named as such, but rather the more general

“greater light” and “lesser light”.17 Note that, in contrast to the sun and moon, the stars are named as such. (See previous note).18 E.g. discussion in Pliny, 2:6ff, on the influences of the various planets.19 For a clear illustration, see the image created by Logos Bible Software: http://

wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/files/2012/11/Ancient-Hebrew-

view-of-universe.png, accessed 4/24/16.20 The only way to uphold the two-heaven (plane) model, with the sun, moon, and stars

occupying the same plane, is to adopt a 1 Enoch-style cosmology, where the movement of the

celestial bodies is only dependent on their obedience, or lack thereof, to God’s law. The lack of

explicit reference to this idea makes it seem somewhat unlikely. See discussion in Hayes, pp.

98-101.21 Other equations can also be made, for example, the Torah’s darkness for Philo is the same

as Timaeus’ air. See Halevy, p. 12, for more details about Philo’s elements.22 Note the similarity between this action and Plato pp. 453-423 See Theodor-Albeck, p. 31.24 Philo is also concerned about the sound of the Greek word, but he does not let this trump

scientific considerations. See Philo, 37. Also Pliny 2:3.25 See Halevy p. 1, n. 4 for one example.


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26 E.g. the sun as the greatest luminary (BR 6:1, 3, 6), and creating the world out of chaos

(BR 1:5, 9; see also Halevy, p. 13).27 E.g. creating the world out of chaos.


16

Works Cited

Albeck, C., and J. Theodor. Bereschit Rabba. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1912.

Halevy, Schulamith C. “Philo’s De Opificio Mundi and the Palestinian Genesis Rabbah”.

Accessed April 24th, 2016. http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachum/sch/PAPERS/philo.pdf

Hayes, Christine. What’s Divine About Divine Law? Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University

Press, 2015.

Held, Shai. “Order Amidst Chaos: Connecting to Leviticus,” Center for Jewish Leadership and

Ideas at Mechon Hadar. Accessed April 24th, 2016. https://www.mechonhadar.org/torah-

resource/order-amidst-chaos

Jowett, Benjamin, trans. Plato, The Dialogues of Plato translated into English with Analyses and

Introductions in Five Volumes (3rd edition). Oxford University Press, 1892. Accessed

online, April 24th, 2016. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/plato-the-dialogues-of-plato-in-5-

vols-jowett-ed

Rakham, H., trans. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Vol. 1. London: William Heinemann, 1949.

Accessed online, April 24th, 2016. https://archive.org/details/naturalhistory01plinuoft

Urbach, Ephraim. Hazal: Pirkei Emunot Ve-Dei’ot. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press, 1976.

Yonge, C. D., trans. Philo, The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus. London:

H. G. Bohn, 1854-1855.

http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachum/sch/PAPERS/philo.pdf

https://www.mechonhadar.org/torah-resource/order-amidst-chaos

https://www.mechonhadar.org/torah-resource/order-amidst-chaos

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/plato-the-dialogues-of-plato-in-5-vols-jowett-ed

http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/plato-the-dialogues-of-plato-in-5-vols-jowett-ed

https://archive.org/details/naturalhistory01plinuoft

tabick science in br

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