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One could also learn that science and theology are close to being unified on the issue of the age of the universe by reading a book entitled “Genesis and the Big Bang,” by Gerald Schroeder. It was written approximately 25 years ago by this astrophysicist and Orthodox Jew, who directly takes on the apparent dichotomy between science, which puts the age of the universe at approximately 15.2 billion years, and Jewish theology, which (on the surface) dates the universe back only some 5,776 years (at present).

The big difference between the two dating systems deals exclusively with the first six days of Creation, of course. Grossly summarizing what he said, the first six days are not days as accounted for by human beings in the present era, but literal days as experienced by G-d, Himself, at the time and in the place where the Creation was actually taking place. Due to the relativistic effects of time dilation, each of those “days” was actually a very long epic of time in our present understanding. Added together, those 6 “days” account for all of time up to the creation of Adam. The first day was approximately half of the total age of the universe as science understands it today, the second day was half that length, and so on. FYI, Schroeder quotes chapter and verse from a section of the Talmud which discusses the age of the universe. He notes that scientists are now only about 200 million years off from the truth that is revealed within the Talmud.

Interestingly, and not coincidentally in my opinion, the order in which the Creation unfolded in the Bible is identical to the order as understood by modern science. I leave to non-believers the question of how a bunch of uneducated and superstitious people living some 3300 years ago could have gotten that right. It certainly could not have been a lucky guess, nor did they actually have the knowledge or the instrumentation to be able to figure it out by themselves. Further, Jewish theology makes it very clear that the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, is the literal word of G-d, and therefore perfect. This is, by the way, the reason that Jews have such an emphasis on not changing even the shape of a single letter of the Torah. Since Jewish theology posits that the Torah is perfect, in the event that any part of it could be disproven, then none of it is valid. I simply cannot imagine that Moses and the tribal leaders of his day - IF they were writing it from scratch without Divine help or inspiration - would not have understood this. It is thus inconceivable to me that they would have even attempted to claim that the religion they were starting was The Truth. If these imperfect men had been found out, which was always a possibility, they would have been torn limb from limb; either that, or their descendants would have been. The conclusion here is obvious, that what the Torah says was and is literally the word of G-d.

This is, of course, not necessarily the ending answer to this age-old question. However, it is a very reasonable explanation that neatly knits together the science that astronomers and physicists have painstakingly developed over the past couple of centuries with theology. It should be noted that in Jewish theology G-d does not do things to deceive us. He will often hide Himself and His actions, but He never actually deceives us. Most of the time we are simply unable to discern what the mind of G-d has created, but sometimes, rarely, we get a glimpse of it as science advances. I postulate that this may be one of those instances.

For those interested, note that Schroeder also discusses the idea of evolution at some length. To cut to the chase, he very thoroughly disposes of the idea that life on Earth could have arisen spontaneously as the result of random chemical reactions. He is most definitely in the intelligent design camp. I would strongly urge anyone interested in this subject to get a hold of this book and read it at least two or three times in order to fully comprehend what he is discussing.