Another coincidence between science and Tora, that relates to the “evolution” and “age” of planet earth, can be seen in a verse from the book of Yiob (Job). Yiob was a good and honest man who suffered the accidental death of all his children. The book of Yiob, 42 chapters, deals with the subject of Divine justice and when bad things happen to good people. Towards the end of the book, chapter 38, HaShem reveals Himself to Yiob and shows him how little human beings can know about the reality around us. And if our knowledge escapes the grasping of physical reality —material, visible and accessible—, how much more remote is our potential access to the dimension of Divine Knowledge, in this case, the administration of Divine Justice. God demonstrates Yiob the inescapable limitations of human knowledge and thus deterring Yiob (and the reader) from the understanding of Celestial Designs. In this chapter, which is a monologue because Yiob has no answers, God confronts Yiob with a series of fascinating questions on issues related to Creation, the harmony of the cosmos, the mystery of light, the secrets of life on the seabed , and much, much more. It is in this context that we find a verse (38:38) where God challenges Yiob’s knowledge on the formation of the earth. The text says: «[Where were you …] when [the planet] merged into a mass, and the layers of the earth adhered to each other?” This last expression [בְּצֶקֶת עָפָר לַמּוּצָק] which does not appear anywhere else in the Scriptures, led the Rabbis to assert (Yoma 54b) two thousand years ago that our planet is composed of several strata and not, so to speak, of just one piece. The Beur, a contemporary commentary on the Bereshit Rabba written by Rabbi Abraham Shteinberger Midrash Bereshit Raba HaMobar, Jerusalem, Makhon HaMidrash haMeboar, 1980, page 13,), indicates that “the fact that our planet has been created by strata and layers, makes the Earth appear older than it really is, and that is the reason why some non-believers assume that millions of years must have passed between strata and strata “.
It is interesting to know that this coincidence between the Biblical text and geology, was evident only in modernity. For thousands of years scientists did not suspect that below the surface, our planet is made up of different strata. Only after “uniformism” —a concept developed by James Hutton (1726-1797), the father of modern geology— “discovered” that Planet Earth was formed step by step, and consists of numerous layers.
To summarize, the Biblical text states that while our planet was created by Creator in a single instant, it was created composed of different strata, from the center to the surface of the earth. Thus, if a geologist examines the composition of our planet and “discovers” its numerous layers, it will attribute this composition to an evolutionary process that demanded millions of years. From the Biblical point of view, the geologist is not discovering something that contradicts the Tora but something that actually confirms it. The only conflicting element is the “interpretation” that the terrestrial strata implies a process of millions of years. And this “interpretation” is based on taking an initial act of Creation out of the equation. However, when we examine the facts based on the premise of an initial act of Creation, the geological discoveries, a planet with numerous layers, is exactly what we were expecting to find!
(To be continued …)
