What do Jews believe about creation?

Answer 1

Many Jews accept that the world is billions of years old and that the "Big Bang" is a valid theory. The Biblical account is meant to teach a lesson in ethics and and our place (and God's place) in the world, and it is not intended to be science.

Some Jews reconcile the events of the creation story with the events of nature, since the creation story loosely follows Darwinian order on a poetic level (sunlight and water preceded life; lower life forms preceded advanced life forms, etc).

Some Jews literally believe that God created the world and everything in it, in six days. However, that belief is not entirely supported by The Bible. A summary of the two quite different creation accounts in Genesis, shows that the matter comprising the universe itself was not seen as part of God's creation:In Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a ( up to first sentence of 2:4) there was a preexisting watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together. Although God did not create the earth itself, he did create the sun, moon and stars - on day 4.Genesis 2:4b to 2:15 says that there was preexisting dry land, but God had yet to make it rain for plants to grow. A spring arose and God took some moist clay and made Adam. After Adam, he made the creatures of earth, one by one, then finally Eve. In this account, there is no mention of whether the sun, moon and stars were created by God.

In the two main biblical creation stories, the basics were already there - the waters, the dry land, the wind and therefore the air. Many experts in Hebrew have carefully examined the texts and confirm that this is what they say. The biblical creations were not ex nihilo.

Answer 2

There is the explanation of this in the Old Testament of the Bible. I believe this is basically the same as the Christian version. It is the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis.

They believe people were created by God.

_________

Clarification:

The Jewish Bible is called the Tanach. The Christian Old Testament is based on the Tanach, however, it was altered to support the teachings of Christianity.

This being said, according to the Torah portion of the Tanach, HaShem (The Creator) created the world and all that's in it. From the Jewish perspective, the story of creation tells us WHAT HaShem did, NOT HOW He did it. A large percentage of Jews find no conflict between the story of creation as found in the Torah and the big bang theory and theory of evolution.

Answer 3

From the Jewish perspective, the story of creation, as described in the Torah, tells us WHAT God did, not how He did it. Many Jews do not see a conflict between the story of creation and the theories of evolution and the big bag theory.

Answer 4

Judaism teaches that the story of creation, as outlined in the Torah, tells us what HaShem (The Creator) did, not how he did it. The majority of Jews, at all levels of religious observance, do not see a conflict between the story of creation and the theories of evolution and the big bang.

An important distinction in the story of creation is the use of the word 'yom' which is translated as 'day'. However, although the word yom is used to refer to a set 24 hour period, that is not its only meaning. The word yom can also be used to refer to large periods of time including whole epochs.

Answer 5

The Jews believe that the entire universe was created by God from nothing. God exists outside of time, while being present within time at the same time. God's creation is for the benefit of man. This means that everything that happens is for a good reason, including evil. No word or image can describe Gods essence. Thus, man knows God by the ways in which God shows Himself in His creation, but man cannot see Gods essence, which is beyond the horizon of our experience.

Answer 6

Here is one: God created us as described in the Torah. See also:

Can you show that God exists?

Seeing God's wisdom

Answer 7

This comes to a divide between Liberal Jews (Atheist, Secular, Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative, etc.) and Torah Jews (Modern Orthodox, Hasidic, Haredi, etc.). Most Liberal Jews see the Creation Story as factually wrong and simply a metaphor for God's role in the creation of the world or completely irrelevant and simply agree with the scientific consensus without caveat. Most Torah Jews are Creationists in much the same way the Evangelical Christians are Creationists. Th1ere is some difference as to whether the snake in the Garden of Eden was actually the Devil, but Torah Jews will generally say that roughly 6,000 years ago, God created the universe in six days and created two humans, Adam and Eve, whose descendants populated the Earth.

Answer 8

To make man, God fashioned the appropriate shape from dirt and breathed a soul into it (Genesis ch.2). He then made the first woman by fashioning her from a piece of the man's flesh (ibid).

Day by day, God created the universe and its contents (Genesis ch.1).God created the universe out of nothing (Exodus 20:11, Isaiah 40:28; Rashi commentary to Genesis 1:14; Maimonides' "Guide," 2:30).Note that the Torah, in describing the Creation, deliberately employs brevity and ellipsis, just as it does in many other topics. See the Talmud, Hagigah 11b.

• On day 1: God created the universe in general, light, and this Earth. The light was not the same as that of the sun. Rather, it was light that God created before the sun, and which emanated from a point in space without any physical source; like what we might term a "white hole."
  
• On day 2: God created the separation between the Earth and the upper atmosphere.
  
• On day 3: God separated the continents from the oceans, and created plants.
  
• On day 4: God created the sun, moon, and stars.
  
• On day 5: God created birds and fish.
  
• On day 6: God created animals and people.
  
• On day 7: God ceased creating, thereby creating the concept of rest.
  

See also:

Is there evidence for Creation?

Can you show that God exists?

Seeing God's wisdom

Answer 9

It is a gross misrepresentation of the Jewish tradition to suggest that Orthodox Jews uniformly hold creationist views similar to those of Christian fundamentalists. The great sage, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (known as the Rambam or Maimonides) said, in his 12th century book, the Guide for the Perplexed, that anyone who takes the creation story given in Genesis entirely literally is a fool. He also said that he was aware of theories that the days of the creation story were not literal days, but that, until presented with evidence to the contrary, he would assume that they were. He added that abandoning the literal interpretation of the days of creation would not shake his belief system. More generally, Maimonides held that those who insist on a literal interpretation of biblical verses that contradict the evidence of the senses are fools, and "the evidence of the senses," as used by Maimonides, clearly includes empirical scientific observation.