In that case, how do you reconcile the conflicts between the Torah and science?
I take it you believe in creationism and therefore not evolution. In that case, why do females not have one more rib than males, since Eve was created from Adam's rib? If the Torah knows everything about everything, that includes human physiology.
Who says it was a rib? The actual hebrew in that verse is 'va'yiven et ha'sela' which means 'And He constructed the sela'. I left the word sela untranslated as there is no absolute consensus as to what it means. The literal translation is 'side', which is rather ambiguous. There are various opinions in the Talmud as to what Eve was created out of, and according to no opinions was it a rib.
It's been a long time since I read my Bible (as hard as it may be to believe, I was religious once upon a time) but I vaguely recall that it suggests that the world is only a few thousand years old. Yet there's a consensus in the scientific community that the age of the universe has been determined to be somewhere around 14 billion years using a range of scientific methods. That makes no sense unless you can somehow argue that each "day" of creation was actually an era or something (in which case that isn't really reading it literally, is it?)
There is a blindingly obvious answer to this question. Let me start by asking, how old was Adam when he was created? It's clear from the text that he wasn't a one-day-old baby, he was a grown man. (The Talmud says he was biologically 20 years old if I remember correctly.) The same goes for all of the animals and vegetation created during that week, they were obviously created fully formed and not as newborns. This being the case, why can't the same be applied to the Earth itself? It is certainly not beyond the capabilities of G-d to create something which at the time of its own formation is already billions of years old. All He needs to do is create rocks, water and minerals etc which were biologically and chemically already ancient, just as with Adam.
Do you accept as scientific fact that plants need to conduct their photosynthetic processes in order to live? And that they obtain this light from the sun? In that case, why did god make plants a whole day before he made the sun and the moon? How could those plants have survived?
A good question, which I have wondered myself previously. I don't have a good answer right now, but I will search for one. A possible answer is that while the sun and moon may not have been created, from Day 1 there was light, which could have provided the plants with whatever they needed, despite not being in the form of the sun as we know it now.
Speaking of which, bible refers to the moon as a light, which it clearly isn't.
It may not be a source of light in and of itself, but it certainly lights up dark nights. As you know, seeing 'by the light of the moon' is a common expression. There is a also a discussion in the Talmud which says how originally both the sun and moon really were lights, but G-d then diminished the light of moon. (It is interesting to note that the despite the sun and moon being millions of miles away from each other, their respective size:distance ratio makes them appear exactly the same size from Earth, a startling 'coincidence'.)
Oh. Genesis 30:37-39 seems to suggest that putting streaked rods in front of copulating goats makes them have streaked babies. Please explain.
It was a miracle. Lavan was trying to swindle Jacob out of his rightful payment, so G-d helped him out.
This is all I can recall right now but I'm sure there's more. It's been a while since I last opened a bible.
Fire away.
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