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Some scientists try to reconcile the biblical account of creation with the modern scientific view. see for example Gerald Shroeder's at http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html

There he claims the sequence in the Biblical account matches the scientific account if we scale time (ex. light on day 1, sun on day 3...)

The Bible goes out on a limb and tells you what happened on each of those days. Now you can take cosmology, paleontology, archaeology, and look at the history of the world, and see whether or not they match up day-by-day.

however, it seems from the torah that the earth was created on the first day. (In the beginning God created heaven and earth..)

Anyone have any idea how they resolve this.

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  • Where do you see in the torah that earth was created in one day? maybe you can bring a source to back up that claim? are there any proofs that say it explicity that it was one one day? In the begginning could be referring to a drawn out period of time. – Shoel U'Meishiv Jun 22 '15 at 11:35
  • In the beginning God created heaven and earth. plain meaning of eretz everywhere in the torah is the earth – ray Jun 22 '15 at 11:38
  • where do you see it was one day? – Shoel U'Meishiv Jun 22 '15 at 11:39
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    plain meaning is gen.1:1-5 is day one – ray Jun 22 '15 at 11:40
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    This is a general "how to understand Genesis Ch. 1" question, totally irrespective of Schroeder's time-scaling. Verse 1 says "and the earth", but later verses talk about the earth per se as on Day 3. – Shalom Jun 22 '15 at 13:04
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Actually, a number of meforshim explain that it starts with the the general and then gets specific. Thus the first verse (Bereishis) refers to the entire process (all seven days).

The Art Scroll Chumash states

"In the beginning of Hashem's Creating"

This phrase is commonly rendered In the beginning Hashem created, which would indicate that the Torah is giving the sequence of creation ... Rashi and Ibn Ezra disagree, and our translation follows their view.

According to Ramban and most other commentators, however, the verse is indeed chronologocal. It begins with a general statement At the very first moment Hashem created the heaven and Earth ... The chapter continues the day-today process ...

As an example, see Rav Hirsch on the first pasuk.

While it is too long to quote the entire commentary we see

With this single verse, the principle and fundamental truth, the principle and fundamental fact is reveled to us which completely changes the point of view with which we regard the world and ourselves. This single verse would have sufficed to teach us to think of the world, as Hashem's world, and ourselves as creatures of Hashem, ... But the Torah is not satisfied just to announce the creation of the world by Hashem in general, by this one vers of creation. ... That is why the Torah leads us up to all the individual phenomena of this earthly diversity ...

  1. In the beginning Hashem created the universe (shamayim va-aretz) (Pasuk 1

Pasuk 2 specifies the initial setup of "this earth" as confused and tangled (translation of Rav Hirsch)

  1. There were seven stages to the creation (six "days" and Shabbos)

  2. At the end of creation, human beings were created (details of how Adam and Chava were created).

  3. Details of the beginning of the "life" of Adam and the first chet. Note that this was also before Shabbat so that it was still part of "creation".

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  • Can you quote these meforshim? – Shoel U'Meishiv Jun 22 '15 at 12:03
  • Similarly the Ramban says first the elements were created that would be the building blocks for everything else. – Shalom Jun 22 '15 at 13:02
  • @sabbahillel you write a number of meforshim, but you only reference Rav Hirsch. Can you back up your assertion? Or maybe edit the answer to be only featuring Rav Hirschs opinion. – Shoel U'Meishiv Jun 22 '15 at 13:16
  • rashi says it is not chronological. "it should have said brishona.." – ray Jun 22 '15 at 16:37
  • if i understand correctly, you are saying the first verse refers to everything and then 2nd verse on it is details. correct? but then we have the same problem for on verse 2 the earth (aretz) is mentioned along with the water. – ray Jun 22 '15 at 17:35

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