there is a midrash (in tanchuma I believe) that states that there were 976 or something generations before adam. (and apperantly the same midrash takes it as axiomatic that these people were who adam's children married, and not sisters.)

it is interesting to note that judaism gives the value of a hundred years as the length of a generation. this means that this statement can easily be understood to mean that "mankind" had existed for 97,600 years before adam, or about 103,300 years ago. this is pretty close to the estimate (at last check) of when homo sapiens sapiens came into existence.

gee, don't you think the rabbi's knew more than moderns give them credit for?

erm, source? I've always heard/seen 40 (dor hamidbar)

it's also a gemara.

and no, the greeks, persians, and loads of people got things right. speculating in hindsight that one shittah in chazal (that isn't necessarily the majority position) can be interpreted as confirming science is not impressive; it's just apologetics.

the gemara in zevachim 116a

אמר להם חמדה טובה יש לו בבית גנזיו שהיתה גנוזה אצלו תתקע"ד דורות קודם שנברא העולם וביקש ליתנה לבניו שנאמר (תהילים כט) ה' עוז לעמו יתן [מיד] פתחו כולם ואמרו (תהילים כט) ה' יברך את עמו בשלום

but a generation is not 100 rather it is 25 years
also this doesnt mean that mankind was around at that time, rather that the torah was around for that long

except that in the Midrash Tanchuma, they actually existed (whereas in Sha's they only existed in 'up there') as indicated by them marrying Adam's boys.

I will have to figure it out, but I always heard 100 years for a generation. I've actualy never even heard 40.

the coincidence is rather striking don't you think? why did he specify 976 or whatever generations? why not specify something else that wouldn't come so close? considering that this is the only such shittah to my knowledge (and represents the only shittah comming from the same school as the sefardic gedolim/kabalah (ramban and rambam, ebin ezra, etc) in oposition to rashi et. al.'s school of the world being created 5768 years ago), I think it attains a much greater segnificance.

If you were to maintain that this rabbi said 70 generations, this rabbi said 10,000 generations, and this rabbi said 500 generations and one of them said 976 then I would be more impressed with your dismissing it as appologetics, but as is, its pretty impressive that the only such opinion within that school of thought is so accurate.

you're letting your biases cloud your judgement.

I'm not dismissing the Tanchuma as apologetics, I'm dismissing your understanding of it as that. 1) The Sha's, for one, seems to argue about their existence. Thus, not a universal opinion 2) 976 is because of the passuk, not because of a random reason. In order for your question of 'why not 70, why not 10,000' to make sense the 976 would have to be innovative; instead it's simply the d'rasha of the passuk. 3) again, a lot hinges on these 100 years. Neither the CiC nor I have heard of this as a dor, hence before your calculations bring a source. 4) You can read evolution ( and I mean in a more complex way than simply, well there are different stages) into the Genesis narrative. However, the reading is beneficial specifically with hindsight. As is this reason: the approximation of science seems to cohere with your understanding of the Tanchuma. But that's hindsight and none other. When Philo interpreted the Torah according to Greek philosophy, it seemed correct then. In any given epoch, you can interpret the Torah in light of the ideals of that era (indeed, I would argue that this is part and parcel of R' Hirsch's understanding of Torah im Derech Eretz) but that doesn't magically transform the intent of the author to that of your understanding.

I'm distinctly NOT letting my biases cloud my judgment. Indeed, you have no idea what my biases even are. However, I do find it peculiar that anyone who disagrees with you is either 'not an intellectual' 'biased' or simply has 'emotional reasons.' Try this on for size: They certainly believe that they do have intellectual reasons, are trying to get at the truth, etc. as do you. So, why are you not just as skeptical of the possibility of bias in yourself, and lack of intellectualism, as you constantly accuse others of being?

I think part of this problems is that the entire sefardic school held the sheshes yemei maise bereshis to be entirely an alegory. part of the problem with saying that this was period appologetics is that it neither conformed with the scientific view (that the world had existed forever) now ith the christian view (6000 years) at all, and any understanding of the tanchuma on the tanchuma's grounds (or the sefardic school in general) tends to be refutation of you view of the origional authors purpose, and it does not seem to be on the basis of apologetics because their apologetics would endear them to noone, not the christians, and not the "scientists" of their time. so who are they appologizing too? I think this is a question that you have to answer before you can attack either their understanding of the posuk as appologetics, or before you can attack anyone else's understanding of the midrash as appologetics.

I will try and figure out where the source is for a 100 year generation, cause I don't remember, but I do know that i have ONLY seen hundred year generations, I've never even heard of 40 so I didn't think i'd have to source it. wasn't aware of any machlokes at all. (which if you look at it makes the midrash more and more striking. they werent' accomplishing anything with their appolegtics. darwin's theories were not all all current for another thousand years.)

and again, based on the content of ramban's pirush on the torah, the whole reading evolution (and more!) into the text becomes even stronger, because such a conclusion is virtualy innescapable in light of he and his student's understanding of it, and the corrolations are outright disturbing. (year for year just about) and again, you have to answer for me, just who on earth were they appologizing too? their appolgetics weren't going to curry them any favor with those who favored greek "science" nor with the christians who favored a 6000 years idea.

and part of the point is that it isn't innovative. thats exactly the point. he bases it on a solid (if somewhat obscure and out of the blue) drash on the text. usualy those drashot on the text were made as a proof for an already known principle. that is exactly what is so disturbing about it. he could have used a posuk to prove all sorts of things (and on occasion you see this done) and yet he comes up with this value, why?

ETA and the hundred year generation is taken apperantly from the age of avraham before he had yitzchak. the question though, is which one is relevant, I will have to look into that.

ETFA I don't think that you can outright dismiss this as appologetics. at the moment, I'm more inclined to say "facinating" and chalk it up to some of the other interesting corrolations I've seen; I think this is all that one can say at the moment.

and besides, the gemorah often has a different take that this school does. we're discussing a different school of thought really. the gemorah is not all that relevant. My facination primarily resides with the heavily pre ari kabala infuenced sefardic school of exigess. bringing up the talmud or france's schools is a bit extranious to be honest. they obviously simply don't agree on these issues.

never mind my theories about why rashi said what he said in the way he said it.

the point is, where exegetical tradition is concerned, the sefardic school seems to get more right than wrong, as a whole. (although many of their innovative comments are somwhat odd. they were obviously highly creative people, see, for instance, ramban's comment vis a vis the nile river comming out from gan eden. (in opposition to ebin ezra.) that is a seriously bizzare peice of conjecture.)

Again, you misunderstand what I state explicitly. I'm not accusing the rishonim/midrash of apologetics, just your interpretation thereof. In light of what we know about science, and in light of our desire not to reject it, it becomes easy to read into texts things that are certainly NOT the original author's intent. Are they valid readings for nowadays? Depends on how much of a deconstructionist you are. But that isn't the point. While these readings are interesting, they 'prove' nothing. Greeks and Babylonians had much knowledge about the world, but we don't use that as a 'proof' that Zeus or Marduck ho ha'Elohim. Because happening to be right about something that moderns have difficulty understanding how they were right about only shows that moderns don't understand history well enough, not that pre-moderns were divinely inspired. The very fact that the opinion is NOT consistent with Sha's is reason enough to deem your interpretation (that it conforms to scientific notions of human development) specious. Maybe they got it right; maybe it's a shot in the dark. Either way, it's immaterial as it shows NOTHING about the potential truth of Torah. Unless, of course, you mean to say that all the times Hazal got science wrong it shows that Torah is false.

and this is exactly the problem with your argument. this is exactly the crux where it falls apart.

the issue here is, in short, that there are two divergant schools on the issue, and OF COURSE they both dissagree with each other. the tanchuma (which as was mentioned holds that avraham's kids married pre adamic women) obviously holds this as litteral, the only question is to whether or not we use a 100 year or a 40 year generation, which will take research and work that is not required.

but your agrument is a complete red herring. who CARES that the talmud dissagreed? the tannoim in the talmud there belong to a different school of thought. its like saying that shammai has to be understood one way cause hillel said differently. well who cares what hillel said in regards to what shammai meant? Shammai and hillel dissagreed!

just because the talmud dissagrees about whether or not they existed is entirely irrelevant to understanding the sefardic school's exegetical traditions,cause they're parallel with those in other traditions and are, naturaly, in dissagreement!

you understand the talmud's shittah on the basis of the talmud's content. you understand rashi on rashi's terms. you understand ramban on ramban's terms. rashi says that the universe is 5768 years old. Ramban says that the world is at least about 49000 years old (and his students say explicitly that understanding him litteraly in this regard is blatantly wrong, rather he means 15 billion years, and they spell it out clear as day in language impossible to disregard) as well as 5768 years old at the same time, and I've been working on understanding what he may have meant by that.

but you have to take each school on their own terms. not on other people's terms, and yes sometimes they dissagree, and I think that this is one major problem you're having with this quote, is that you absolutely refuse to acknowledge the parallel threads of traditon present within the different schools of of thought.

you were raised as cheredi weren't you?

Creation***

whats that have to do with anything?

you misspelled it in the title.