How Old Is the Universe According to Torah? Four Models Compared | Rabbi Daniel Rowe

In this Foundations Q&A, Rabbi Daniel Rowe tackles one of the most asked questions at the intersection of Torah and modern cosmology: Do we really believe in a 5786-year-old world when science describes a universe measured in billions of years? From there, the conversation expands into dinosaurs, the “days” of creation, the nature of Gan Eden, and a deep framework for understanding the soul and human purpose.

Rather than treating Torah as a scientific manual, Rabbi Rowe lays out how Torah and science operate with different aims: science as descriptive (how the universe works) and Torah as prescriptive (what we are meant to do within it). Rabbi Rowe then presents four major approaches used by serious Torah thinkers to resolve the apparent tension between the Torah’s timeline and scientific models.

Topics covered
Is Torah meant to be a science book?
Why Chazal treat Ma’aseh Bereishit as “deep secrets”
Why the Jewish calendar begins with Adam (not Day 1)
Four approaches to Torah and the age of the universe:
1. God can create a world with “apparent age”
2. Creation / Eden as beyond our spacetime (“layers of reality”)
3. “Yom / Erev / Boker” as cycles (chaos → order)
4. Relativity/time-frames and “days” seen from a different reference point
Dinosaurs and “taninim hagedolim” in Bereishit
Gan Eden as a “Garden of Time” and what that implies
Adam as a unified soul, fragmentation, and rebuilding unity “one relationship at a time”
The soul’s deeper layers: love, morality, meaning, and oneness with Hashem
----------------------------
Get a chance to hear these Rabbis speak first hand by joining us in Israel!

APPLY HERE:
https://foundations.aish.com