Jewish views on evolution

Jewish views on evolution includes a continuum of views about the theory of evolution, experimental evolution, the origin of life, the age of the universe, and theistic evolution.

Biblical chronology indicates that God completed the creation of the world close to 6,000 years ago. This age is reflected in the chronology developed in a midrash, Seder Olam, but a literalist reading of the Book of Genesis is rare in Judaism. This age is attributed to the tanna Jose ben Halafta, and covers history from the creation of the universe to the construction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Dr. Gerald Schroeder interprets Nachmanides description of the 6 days of creation in conjunction with Einstein's relativistic view of time applied to the expansion of space-time to say that the 6 days of creation are 15.75 Billion years from our perspective.

Even with respect to speculation I maintain that through the approach they adopted not only were they unable to extricate themselves from difficulties but they became vulnerable to even more serious difficulties. With respect to their not having freed themselves of difficulties, it is evident that knowledge, even as they saw it, cannot escape multiplicity of the things known—and perhaps even of an infinite number of such known things. This is so for several reasons. First, there is complete knowledge of things when their proximate and remote causes are known. Therefore, the knowledge of composite things from the perspective of their each being one thing will be complete only when the simples out of which the composites are composed are known, for these are the elements and causes of the things composed out of them. Thus, when the composite is known, a multiplicity of the things known is inescapable. Second, that the totality of existents proceeds along the path to perfection from one existent to the next, and that it is from this perspective that they become unified, is, to be sure, verified by the genera that perfect each other and that are perfected by their species. For example, the vegetative is the perfection of the mineral, and the animal of the vegetative, and the rational of the animal. But it is not true of final species that one perfects another. For the horse does not perfect the donkey, nor the donkey the sheep. Similarly, it is not true of individuals that are primary substances that one perfects the other. Therefore, if we suppose that God has knowledge of final species, it is inescapable that there will be a multiplicity of the things known

— Hasdai Crescas

Hasdai Crescas imagines that God is the Creator of the World and of the creatures but the order in this World is possible only in this case: mineral is for the vegetative, vegetative is for the animal, animal is for man, i.e. man can eat animal… Man is the highest level in this World. On the other hand, we can think about more archetypes for more forms and substances, about an archetype for more forms but we cannot imagine the elaboration of the creatures as Charles Darwin did because the original plane of God is for a big number of creatures but not an infinite quantity of them. Hasdai Crescas gives this metaphor to explain: The first is that form comes to be in a compound through composition and blending, as oxymel comes to be through the blending of vinegar and honey. The second is that when the proportions in the blending are changed the form changes. For example, when the proportions of the ingredients in Theriac change vis-à-vis one another, the form of Theriac changes, and it takes on a different form. And even more is this the case when the simple components of the compound change (Or Hashem). The eternity of divine knowledge cannot change because God knows everything before the Creation and after this; the status of possible can be imagined only by time-perspective for God, that is when He would like to create the World but God has always known all things from eternity. The possibility of Creation can be necessity because this is the quality of existence, so this can have “the end” because in the case of possibility, also when it can imagine and think that His divine knowledge is eternal and perfect, the existence and the knowledge of God only are perfect and higher than ours: There is no doubt that if a thing is necessary from one perspective, it does not follow that the thing is necessary in itself. This will be evident in things that are possible in themselves and exist now perceived by sense. For in the case of human knowledge, once it is known that a possible thing exists, its existence is positively necessary. And its contrary is not existent from any perspective. But this necessity does not change the nature of the thing’s possibility and does not compel the thing’s necessity in itself. Therefore, God’s having knowledge with respect to things that are subject to choice does not compel their necessity in themselves and does not change at all the nature of the possible.

Many modern rabbis believe that the world is older than 6,000 years. They believe such a view is needed to accept scientific theories, such as the theory of evolution. Rabbis who have this view base their conclusions on verses in the Talmud or in the midrash. For example:

Some medieval philosophical rationalists, such as Maimonides and Gersonides held that not every statement in Genesis is meant literally. In this view, one was obligated to understand Torah in a way that was compatible with the findings of science. Indeed, Maimonides, one of the great rabbis of the Middle Ages, wrote that if science and Torah were misaligned, it was either because science was not understood or the Torah was misinterpreted. Maimonides argued that if science proved a point that did not contradict any fundamentals of faith, then the finding should be accepted and scripture should be interpreted accordingly. For example, in discussing Aristotle's view that the universe has existed literally forever, he argued that there was no convincing rational proof one way or the other, so that he (Maimonides) was free to accept, and therefore did accept, the literal biblical view that the universe came into being at a definite time; but that had Plato's theory been convincing enough with sufficient scientific proof he would have been able to reinterpret Genesis accordingly. With regard to Genesis, Maimonides stated that "the account given in scripture is not, as is generally believed, intended to be in all its parts literal." Later in the same paragraph, he specifically states that this applies to the text from the beginning to the account of the sixth day of creation.

Nachmanides, often critical of the rationalist views of Maimonides, pointed out (in his commentary to Genesis) several non-sequiturs stemming from a literal translation of the Bible's account of Creation, and stated that the account actually symbolically refers to spiritual concepts. He quoted the Mishnah in Tractate Hagigah which states that the actual meaning of the Creation account, mystical in nature, was traditionally transmitted from teachers to advanced scholars in a private setting.