Creation of the world
Hello, Your Honor.
Rabbi Eliezer’s opinion is that man was created on Rosh Hashanah, and therefore he also concludes that the world was created on Elul 25 of the previous year. In other words, he subtracted six days. This means that he thought that the days of the creation of the world were days like ours of 24 hours (including the first few). Is that correct?
Is the view that the world was created on the 2nd of Elul literally the accepted one among Talmudic commentators/Rishonim/Achronim?
Isn’t that a problem for the world being billions of years old?
Thank you very much.
definitely.
This is indeed a problem. As we know, back then they didn’t know that the world was so old.
1. This is not a problem, but a matter of defining a “day.” The world was created in six days, but the days of Genesis are not 24-hour days. Today, days are defined as 24 hours, and according to this, 1 Tishrei minus 6 days equals 25 Elul. This is about the same as 20 years in the Muslim calendar being about 200 days shorter than 20 years in the Gregorian calendar.
2. It is unlikely that Rabbi Eliezer knew the age of the world, but it is very likely that he knew that it was not created in six calendar days, because of the timing of the creation of the lights.
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