[Modified Feb 6, 2005: References raised on an Avodah discussion added. -mi]I know of a number of approaches to evolution vs creation in Jewish thought. As far as I can tell, it seems that an insistance on the Torah giving literal history with it being roughly 5,765 years since ex nihilo, became more popular after the scientific challenges of the past two centuries, not less. As though we dug in our heels in the face of so many rejecting the Torah for a blind acceptance of the zeitgeist and the importance it gives scientific research.
1- Rejection of scientific conculsions. Theories change over time. Rather than worry about a contradiction between current theory and the Torah, one can simply wait without concern as science slowly converges to the Torah’s truth.
After all, in the last century theory has gone from Aristotle’s eternal universe to acknowledging that it has a beginning. Com