Jewish eschatology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Jewish eschatology is the area of Jewish philosophy and theology concerned with events that will happen in the end of days and related concepts, according to the Hebrew Bible and Jewish thought. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of a Jewish Messiah, afterlife, and the revival of the dead Tzadikim. In Judaism, the end times are usually called the "end of days" (aḥarit ha-yamim, אחרית הימים), a phrase that appears several times in the Tanakh.

 

Until the late modern era, the standard Jewish belief was that after one dies, one's immortal soul joins God in the world to come while one's body decomposes. At the end of days, God will recompose one's body, place within it one's immortal soul, and that person will stand before God in judgement. The idea of a messianic age has a prominent place in Jewish thought, and is incorporated as part of the end of days. Jewish philosophers from medieval times to the present day have emphasized the soul's immortality.

Origins and development

In Judaism, the main textual source for the belief in the end of days and accompanying events is the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. The roots of Jewish eschatology are to be found in the pre-exile Prophets, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the exile-prophets Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah. The main tenets of Jewish eschatology are the following, in no particular order, elaborated in the Books of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel:

• End of world (before everything as follows).
• God redeems the Jewish people from the captivity that began during the Babylonian Exile, in a new Exodus
• God returns the Jewish people to the Land of Israel
• God restores the House of David and the Temple in Jerusalem
• God creates a regent from the House of David (i.e. the Jewish Messiah) to lead the Jewish people and the world and usher in an age of justice and peace
• All nations recognize that the God of Israel is the only true God
• God resurrects the dead
• God creates a new heaven and a new earth

It is also believed that history will complete itself and the ultimate destination will be reached when all mankind returns to the Garden of Eden.

Jewish messianism

Etymology

The Hebrew word mashiach (or moshiach) refers to the Jewish idea of the messiah. Mashiach means anointed, a meaning preserved in the English word derived from it, messiah. The Messiah is to be a human leader, physically descended from the Davidic line, who will rule and unite the people of Israel and will usher in the Messianic Age of global and universal peace. While the name of Jewish Messiah is considered to be one of the things that precede creation, he is not considered divine, in contrast to Christianity where Jesus is both divine and the Messiah. 

In biblical times the title mashiach was awarded to someone in a high position of nobility and greatness. For example, Cohen ha-Mašíaḥ means High Priest. In the Talmudic era the title mashiach or מלך המשיח, Méleḫ ha-Mašíaḥ (in the Tiberian vocalization is pronounced Méleḵ haMMāšîªḥ) literally means "the anointed King". It is a reference to the Jewish leader and king that will redeem Israel in the end of days and usher in a messianic era of peace and prosperity for both the living and deceased.

Early Second Temple period (516 BCE - c.220 BCE)

Early in the Second temple Period hopes for a better future are described in the Jewish scriptures. After the return from the Babylonic exile, the Persian king Cyrus II was called "messiah" in Isiaiah, due to his role in the return of the Jews exiles.

Later Second Temple Period (c.220 BCE - 70 CE)

A number of messianic ideas developed during the later Second Temple Period, ranging from this-worldy, political expectations, to apocalyptic expectations of an endtime in which the dead would be resurrected and the Kingdom of Heaven would be established on earth. The Messiah might be a kingly "Son of David," or a more heavenly "Son of Man," but "Messianism became increasingly eschatological, and eschatology was decisively influenced by apocalypticism," while "messianic expectations became increasingly focused on the figure of an individual savior. According to Zwi Werblowsky, "the Messiah no longer symbolized the coming of the new age, but he was somehow supposed to bring it about. The "Lord's anointed" thus became the "savior and redeemer" and the focus of more intense expectations and doctrines." Messianic ideas developed both by new interpretations (pesher, midrash) of the Jewish scriptures, but also by visionary revelations.

Talmud

A full set of the Babylonian Talmud

The Babylonian Talmud (200-500 CE), tractate Sanhedrin, contains a long discussion of the events leading to the coming of the Messiah. Throughout Jewish history Jews have compared these passages (and others) to contemporary events in search of signs of the Messiah's imminent arrival, continuing into present times. 

The Talmud tells many stories about the Messiah, some of which represent famous Talmudic rabbis as receiving personal visitations from Elijah the Prophet and the Messiah.

Rabbinic commentaries

Monument to Maimonides in Córdoba

 

In rabbinic literature, the rabbis elaborated and explained the prophecies that were found in the Hebrew Bible along with the oral law and rabbinic traditions about its meaning.

Maimonides' commentary to tractate Sanhedrin stresses a relatively naturalistic interpretation of the Messiah, de-emphasizing miraculous elements. His commentary became widely (although not universally) accepted in the non- or less-mystical branches of Orthodox Judaism.

Contemporary views

Orthodox Judaism

The belief in a human Messiah of the Davidic line is a universal tenet of faith among Orthodox Jews and one of Maimonides' thirteen principles of faith. 

Some authorities in Orthodox Judaism believe that this era will lead to supernatural events culminating in a bodily resurrection of the dead. Maimonides, on the other hand, holds that the events of the messianic era are not specifically connected with the resurrection. (See the Maimonides article.)

Conservative Judaism

Conservative Judaism varies in its teachings. While it retains traditional references to a personal redeemer and prayers for the restoration of the Davidic line in the liturgy, Conservative Jews are more inclined to accept the idea of a messianic era:

We do not know when the Messiah will come, nor whether he will be a charismatic human figure or is a symbol of the redemption of mankind from the evils of the world. Through the doctrine of a Messianic figure, Judaism teaches us that every individual human being must live as if he or she, individually, has the responsibility to bring about the messianic age. Beyond that, we echo the words of Maimonides based on the prophet Habakkuk (2:3) that though he may tarry, yet do we wait for him each day... (Emet ve-Emunah: Statement of Principles of Conservative Judaism)

Reform Judaism

Reform Judaism generally concurs with the more liberal Conservative perspective of a future messianic era rather than a personal Messiah.

Characteristics of the endtime

War of Gog and Magog

According to Ezekiel chapter 38, the "war of Gog and Magog", a climactic war, will take place at the end of the Jewish exile. According to Radak, this war will take place in Jerusalem. However, a chassidic tradition holds that the war will not in fact occur, as the sufferings of exile have already made up for it.

The world to come

Olam Ha-Ba

The hereafter is known as olam ha-ba the "world to come", עולם הבא in Hebrew, and related to concepts of Gan Eden, the Heavenly "Garden in Eden", or paradise, and Gehinom. The phrase olam ha-ba does not occur in the Hebrew Bible. The accepted halakha is that it is impossible for living human beings to know what the world to come is like.

Second Temple Period

In the late Second Temple period, beliefs about the ultimate fate of the individual were diverse. The Essenes believed in the immortality of the soul, but the Pharisees and Sadducees, apparently, did not. The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish Pseudepigrapha and Jewish magical papyri reflect this diversity.

Medieval rabbinical views

While all classic rabbinic sources discuss the afterlife, the classic Medieval scholars dispute the nature of existence in the "End of Days" after the messianic period. While Maimonides describes an entirely spiritual existence for souls, which he calls "disembodied intellects," Nahmanides discusses an intensely spiritual existence on Earth, where spirituality and physicality are merged. Both agree that life after death is as Maimonides describes the "End of Days." This existence entails an extremely heightened understanding of and connection to the Divine Presence. This view is shared by all classic rabbinic scholars.

According to Maimonides, any non-Jew who lives according to the Seven Laws of Noah is regarded as a righteous gentile, and is assured of a place in the world to come, the final reward of the righteous.

There is much rabbinic material on what happens to the soul of the deceased after death, what it experiences, and where it goes. At various points in the afterlife journey, the soul may encounter: Hibbut ha-kever, the pains of the grave; Dumah, the angel of silence; Satan as the angel of death; the Kaf ha-Kela, the catapult of the soul; Gehinom (purgatory); and Gan Eden (heaven or paradise). All classic rabbinic scholars agree that these concepts are beyond typical human understanding. Therefore, these ideas are expressed throughout rabbinic literature through many varied parables and analogies.

Gehinom is fairly well defined in rabbinic literature. It is sometimes translated as "hell", but is much closer to the Catholic view of purgatory than to the Christian view of hell, which differs from the classical Jewish view. Rabbinic thought maintains that souls are not tortured in gehinom forever; the longest that one can be there is said to be eleven months, with the exception of heretics, and unobservant Jews. This is the reason that even when in mourning for near relatives, Jews will not recite mourner's kaddish for longer than an eleven-month period. Gehinom is considered a spiritual forge where the soul is purified for its eventual ascent to Gan Eden ("Garden of Eden").

19th century legends

In the 19th century book Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg compiled Jewish legends found in rabbinic literature. Among the legends are ones about the world to come and the two Gardens of Eden. The world to come is called Paradise, and it is said to have a double gate made of carbuncle that is guarded by 600,000 shining angels. Seven clouds of glory overshadow Paradise, and under them, in the center of Paradise, stands the tree of life. The tree of life overshadows Paradise too, and it has fifteen thousand different tastes and aromas that winds blow all across Paradise. Under the tree of life are many pairs of canopies, one of stars and the other of sun and moon, while a cloud of glory separates the two. In each pair of canopies sits a rabbinic scholar who explains the Torah to one. When one enters Paradise one is proffered by Michael (archangel) to God on the altar of the temple of the heavenly Jerusalem, whereupon one is transfigured into an angel (the ugliest person becomes as beautiful and shining as "the grains of a silver pomegranate upon which fall the rays of the sun"). The angels that guard Paradise's gate adorn one in seven clouds of glory, crown one with gems and pearls and gold, place eight myrtles in one's hand, and praise one for being righteous while leading one to a garden of eight hundred roses and myrtles that is watered by many rivers. In the garden is one's canopy, its beauty according to one's merit, but each canopy has four rivers - milk, honey, wine, and balsam - flowing out from it, and has a golden vine and thirty shining pearls hanging from it. Under each canopy is a table of gems and pearls attended to by sixty angels. The light of Paradise is the light of the righteous people therein. Each day in Paradise one wakes up a child and goes to bed an elder to enjoy the pleasures of childhood, youth, adulthood, and old age. In each corner of Paradise is a forest of 800,000 trees, the least among the trees greater than the best herbs and spices, attended to by 800,000 sweetly singing angels. Paradise is divided into seven paradises, each one 120,000 miles long and wide. Depending on one's merit, one joins one of the paradises: the first is made of glass and cedar and is for converts to Judaism; the second is of silver and cedar and is for penitents; the third is of silver and gold, gems and pearls, and is for the patriarchs, Moses and Aaron, the Israelites that left Egypt and lived in the wilderness, and the kings of Israel; the fourth is of rubies and olive wood and is for the holy and steadfast in faith; the fifth is like the third, except a river flows through it and its bed was woven by Eve and angels, and it is for the Messiah and Elijah; and the sixth and seventh divisions are not described, except that they are respectively for those who died doing a pious act and for those who died from an illness in expiation for Israel's sins.

Beyond Paradise, according to Legends of the Jews, is the higher Gan Eden, where God is enthroned and explains the Torah to its inhabitants. The higher Gan Eden contains three hundred ten worlds and is divided into seven compartments. The compartments are not described, though it is implied that each compartment is greater than the previous one and is joined based on one's merit. The first compartment is for Jewish martyrs, the second for those who drowned, the third for "Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai and his disciples," the fourth for those whom the cloud of glory carried off, the fifth for penitents, the sixth for youths who have never sinned; and the seventh for the poor who lived decently and studied the Torah.

In contemporary Judaism

Irving Greenberg

 

Irving Greenberg, representing a Modern Orthodox viewpoint, describes the afterlife as a central Jewish teaching, deriving from the belief in reward and punishment. According to Greenberg, suffering Medieval Jews emphasized the World to Come as a counterpoint to the difficulties of this life, while early Jewish modernizers portrayed Judaism as interested only in this world as a counterpoint to "otherworldly" Christianity. Greenberg sees each of these views as leading to an undesired extreme - overemphasizing the afterlife leads to asceticism, while devaluing the afterlife deprives Jews of the consolation of eternal life and justice - and calls for a synthesis, in which Jews can work to perfect this world, while also recognizing the immortality of the soul.

Conservative Judaism both affirms belief in the world beyond (as referenced in the Amidah and Maimonides' Thirteen Precepts of Faith) while recognizing that human understanding is limited and we cannot know exactly what the world beyond consists of. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism affirm belief in the afterlife, though they downplay the theological implications in favor of emphasizing the importance of the "here and now," as opposed to reward and punishment.

Resurrection of the dead

Resurrection of the dead, fresco from the Dura-Europos synagogue

Several times, the Bible alludes to eternal life without specifying what form that life will take.

The first explicit mention of resurrection is the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones in the Book of Ezekiel. However, this narrative was intended as a metaphor for national rebirth, promising the Jews return to Israel and reconstruction of the Temple, not as a description of personal resurrection.

The Book of Daniel promised literal resurrection to the Jews, in concrete detail. Daniel wrote that with the coming of the Archangel Michael, misery would beset the world, and only those whose names were in a divine book would be resurrected. Moreover, Daniel's promise of resurrection was intended only for the most righteous and the most sinful because the afterlife was a place for the virtuous individuals to be rewarded and the sinful individuals to receive eternal punishment.

Greek and Persian culture influenced Jewish sects to believe in an afterlife between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE as well.

The Hebrew Bible, at least as seen through interpretation of Bavli Sanhedrin, contains frequent reference to resurrection of the dead. The Mishnah (c. 200) lists belief in the resurrection of the dead as one of three essential beliefs necessary for a Jew to participate in it:

All Israel have a portion in the world to come, for it is written: 'Thy people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.' But the following have no portion therein: one who maintains that resurrection is not a biblical doctrine, the Torah was not divinely revealed, and an Apikoros ('heretic').

In the late Second Temple period, the Pharisees believed in resurrection, while Essenes and Sadducees did not. During the Rabbinic period, beginning in the late first century and carrying on to the present, the works of Daniel were included into the Hebrew Bible, signaling the adoption of Jewish resurrection into the officially sacred texts.

Jewish liturgy, most notably the Amidah, contains references to the tenet of the bodily resurrection of the dead. In contemporary Judaism, both Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism maintain the traditional references to it in their liturgy. However, many Conservative Jews interpret the tenet metaphorically rather than literally. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have altered traditional references to the resurrection of the dead in the liturgy ("who gives life to the dead") to refer to "who gives life to all."

The last judgment

In Judaism, the day of judgment happens every year on Rosh Hashanah; therefore, the belief in a last day of judgment for all mankind is disputed. Some rabbis hold that there will be such a day following the resurrection of the dead. Others hold that there is no need for that because of Rosh Hashanah. Yet others hold that this accounting and judgment happens when one dies. Other rabbis hold that the last judgment only applies to the gentile nations and not the Jewish people.

Biblical cosmology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

God creating the cosmos (Bible moralisée, French, 13th century)

 

Biblical cosmology is the biblical writers' conception of the cosmos as an organised, structured entity, including its origin, order, meaning and destiny. The Bible was formed over many centuries, involving many authors, and reflects shifting patterns of religious belief; consequently, its cosmology is not always consistent. Nor do the biblical texts necessarily represent the beliefs of all Jews or Christians at the time they were put into writing: the majority of those making up Hebrew Bible or Old Testament in particular represent the beliefs of only a small segment of the ancient Israelite community, the members of a late Judean religious tradition centered in Jerusalem and devoted to the exclusive worship of Yahweh.

The ancient Israelites envisaged a universe made up of a flat disc-shaped Earth floating on water, heaven above, underworld below. Humans inhabited Earth during life and the underworld after death, and the underworld was morally neutral; only in Hellenistic times (after c.330 BCE) did Jews begin to adopt the Greek idea that it would be a place of punishment for misdeeds, and that the righteous would enjoy an afterlife in heaven. In this period too the older three-level cosmology in large measure gave way to the Greek concept of a spherical earth suspended in space at the center of a number of concentric heavens.

The opening words of the Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1:1-26) sum up a view of how the cosmos originated: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"; Yahweh, the God of Israel, was solely responsible for creation and had no rivals. Later Jewish thinkers, adopting ideas from Greek philosophy, concluded that God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit penetrated all things and gave them unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and identified Jesus with the Logos (Word): "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).

Cosmogony (origins of the cosmos)

The Destruction of Leviathan (Gustave Doré, 1865)

Divine battle and divine speech

Two different models of the process of creation existed in ancient Israel. In the "logos" (speech) model, God speaks and shapes unresisting dormant matter into effective existence and order (Psalm 33: "By the word of YHWH the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts; he gathers up the waters like a mound, stores the Deep in vaults"); in the second, or "agon" (struggle) model, God does battle with the monsters of the sea at the beginning of the world in order to mark his sovereignty and power. Psalm 74 evokes the agon model: it opens with a lament over God's desertion of his people and their tribulations, then asks him to remember his past deeds: "You it was who smashed Sea with your might, who battered the heads of the monsters in the waters; You it was who crushed the heads of Leviathan, who left them for food for the denizens of the desert..." In this world-view the seas are primordial forces of disorder, and the work of creation is preceded by a divine combat (or "theomachy").

Creation in the "agon" model takes the following storyline: (1) God as the divine warrior battles the monsters of chaos, who include Sea, Death, Tannin and Leviathan; (2) The world of nature joins in the battle and the chaos-monsters are defeated; (3) God is enthroned on a divine mountain, surrounded by lesser deities; (4) He speaks, and nature brings forth the created world, or for the Greeks, the cosmos. This myth was taken up in later Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature and projected into the future, so that cosmic battle becomes the decisive act at the end of the world's history: thus the Book of Revelation (end of the 1st century CE) tells how, after the God's final victory over the sea-monsters, New Heavens and New Earth shall be inaugurated in a cosmos in which there will be "no more sea" (Revelation 21:1).

The Genesis creation narrative (Genesis 1) is the quintessential "logos" creation myth. Like the "agon" model it begins with darkness and the uncreated primordial ocean: God separates and restrains the waters, but he does not create them from nothing. God initiates each creative act with a spoken word ("God said, Let there be..."), and finalises it with the giving of a name. Creation by speech is not unique to the Old Testament: it is prominent in some Egyptian traditions. There is, however, a difference between the Egyptian and Hebrew logos mythologies: in Genesis 1 the divine word of the Elohim is an act of "making into"; the word of Egyptian creator-god, by contrast, is an almost magical activation of something inherent in pre-creation: as such, it goes beyond the concept of fiat (divine act) to something more like the Logos of the Gospel of John.

Naming: God, Wisdom, Torah and Christ

In the ancient world, things did not exist until they were named: "The name of a living being or an object was ... the very essence of what was defined, and the pronouncing of a name was to create what was spoken." The pre-Exilic (before 586 BCE) Old Testament allowed no equals to Yahweh in heaven, despite the continued existence of an assembly of subordinate servant-deities who helped make decisions about matters on heaven and earth. The post-Exilic writers of the Wisdom tradition (e.g. the Book of Proverbs, Song of Songs, etc.) develop the idea that Wisdom, later identified with Torah, existed before creation and was used by God to create the universe: "Present from the beginning, Wisdom assumes the role of master builder while God establishes the heavens, restricts the chaotic waters, and shapes the mountains and fields." Borrowing ideas from Greek philosophers who held that reason bound the universe together, the Wisdom tradition taught that God's Wisdom, Word and Spirit were the ground of cosmic unity. Christianity in turn adopted these ideas and applied them to Jesus: the Epistle to the Colossians calls Jesus "...image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation...", while the Gospel of John identifies him with the creative word ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God").

Cosmography (shape and structure of the cosmos)

The Old Testament cosmos.

Heavens, Earth, and underworld

The Hebrew Bible depicted a three-part world, with the heavens (shamayim) above, Earth (eres) in the middle, and the underworld (sheol) below. After the 4th century BCE this was gradually replaced by a Greek scientific cosmology of a spherical earth surrounded by multiple concentric heavens.

The cosmic ocean

The three-part world of heavens, Earth and underworld floated in Tehom, the mythological cosmic ocean, which covered the Earth until God created the firmament to divide it into upper and lower portions and reveal the dry land; the world has been protected from the cosmic ocean ever since by the solid dome of the firmament.

The tehom is, or was, hostile to God: it confronted him at the beginning of the world (Psalm 104:6ff) but fled from the dry land at his rebuke; he has now set a boundary or bar for it which it can no longer pass (Jeremiah 5:22 and Job 38:8-10). The cosmic sea is the home of monsters which God conquers: "By his power he stilled the sea, by his understanding he smote Rahab!" (Job 26:12f). (Rahab is an exclusively Hebrew sea-monster; others, including Leviathan and the tannin, or dragons, are found in Ugaritic texts; it is not entirely clear whether they are identical with Sea or are Sea's helpers). The "bronze sea" which stood in the forecourt of the Temple in Jerusalem probably corresponds to the "sea" in Babylonian temples, representing the apsu, the cosmic ocean.

In the New Testament Jesus' conquest of the stormy sea shows the conquering deity overwhelming the forces of chaos: a mere word of command from the Son of God stills the foe (Mark 4:35-41), who then tramples over his enemy, (Jesus walking on water - Mark 6:45, 47-51). In Revelation, where the Archangel Michael expels the dragon (Satan) from heaven ("And war broke out in heaven, with Michael and his angels attacking the dragon..." - Revelation 12:7), the motif can be traced back to Leviathan in Israel and to Tiamat, the chaos-ocean, in Babylonian myth, identified with Satan via an interpretation of the serpent in Eden.

Heavens

The Tablet of Shamash depicting a solid sky with stars embedded holding up the heavenly ocean.

Form and structure

In the Old Testament the word shamayim represented both the sky/atmosphere, and the dwelling place of God. The raqia or firmament - the visible sky - was a solid inverted bowl over the Earth, coloured blue from the heavenly ocean above it. Rain, snow, wind and hail were kept in storehouses outside the raqia, which had "windows" to allow them in - the waters for Noah's flood entered when the "windows of heaven" were opened. Heaven extended down to and was coterminous with (i.e. it touched) the farthest edges of the Earth (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:32); humans looking up from Earth saw the floor of heaven, which they saw also as God's throne, as made of clear blue lapis-lazuli (Exodus 24:9-10), and (Ezekiel 1:26). Below that was a layer of water, the source of rain, which was separated from us by an impenetrable barrier, the firmament (Genesis 1:6-8). The rain may also be stored in heavenly cisterns (Job: 38:37) or storehouses (Deut 28:12) alongside the storehouses for wind, hail and snow.

Grammatically the word shamayim can be either dual (two) or plural (more than two), without ruling out the singular (one). As a result, it is not clear whether there were one, two, or more heavens in the Old Testament, but most likely there was only one, and phrases such as "heaven of heavens" were meant to stress the vastness of God's realm.

The Babylonians had a more complex idea of heaven, and during the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE) the influence of Babylonian cosmology led to the idea of a plurality of heavens among Jews. This continued into the New Testament: Revelation apparently has only one heaven, but the Epistle to the Hebrews and the epistles to the Colossians and the Ephesians have more than one, although they don't specify how many, and the apostle Paul tells of his visit to the third heaven, the place, according to contemporary thought, where the garden of Paradise is to be found.

God and the heavenly beings

The Archangel Michael, a member of the host of divine beings who attend God in heaven, defeating Satan, the dragon of chaos.

 

Israel and Judah, like other Canaanite kingdoms, originally had a full pantheon of gods. The chief of the old Canaanite pantheon was the god El, but over time Yahweh replaced him as the national god and the two merged ("Yahweh-El, creator of heaven and earth" - Genesis 14:22). The remaining gods were now subject to Yahweh: "Who in the sky is comparable to Yahweh, like Yahweh among the divine beings? A god dreaded in the Council of holy beings...?" (Psalm 89:6-9). In the Book of Job the Council of Heaven, the Sons of God (bene elohim) meet in heaven to review events on Earth and decide the fate of Job. One of their number is "the Satan", literally "the accuser", who travels over the Earth much like a Persian imperial spy, (Job dates from the period of the Persian empire), reporting on, and testing, the loyalty of men to God.

The heavenly bodies (the heavenly host - Sun, Moon, and stars) were worshiped as deities, a practice which the bible disapproves and of which righteous Job protests his innocence: "If I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon ... and my mouth has kissed my hand, this also would be an iniquity..." Belief in the divinity of the heavenly bodies explains a passage in Joshua 10:12, usually translated as Joshua asking the Sun and Moon to stand still, but in fact Joshua utters an incantation to ensure that the sun-god and moon-god, who supported his enemies, would not provide them with oracles.

In the earlier Old Testament texts the bene elohim were gods, but subsequently they became angels, the "messengers" (malakim), whom Jacob sees going up and down a "ladder" (actually a celestial mountain) between heaven and Earth. In earlier works the messengers were anonymous, but in the Second Temple period (539 BCE-100 CE) they began to be given names, and eventually became the vast angelic orders of Christianity and Judaism. Thus the gods and goddesses who had once been the superiors or equals of Yahweh were first made his peers, then subordinate gods, and finally ended as angels in his service.

Paradise and the human soul

There is no concept of a human soul, or of eternal life, in the oldest parts of the Old Testament. Death is the going-out of the breath which God once breathed into the dust (Genesis 2:7), all men face the same fate in Sheol, a shadowy existence without knowledge or feeling (Job 14:13; Qoheloth 9:5), and there is no way that mortals can enter heaven. In the centuries after the Babylonian exile, a belief in afterlife and post-death retribution appeared in Jewish apocalyptic literature. At much the same time the Bible was translated into Greek, and the translators used the Greek word paradaisos (Paradise) for the garden of God and Paradise came to be located in heaven.

Earth

Babylonian Map of the World (c.600 BCE). The Old Testament concept of the Earth was very similar: a flat circular Earth ringed by a world-ocean, with fabulous islands or mountains beyond at the "ends of the earth".

Cosmic geography

In the Old Testament period, the Earth was most commonly thought of as a flat disc floating on water. The concept was apparently quite similar to that depicted in a Babylonian world-map from about 600 BCE: a single circular continent bounded by a circular sea, and beyond the sea a number of equally spaced triangles called nagu, "distant regions", apparently islands although possibly mountains. The Old Testament likewise locates islands alongside the Earth; (Psalm 97:1) these are the "ends of the earth" according to Isaiah 41:5, the extreme edge of Job's circular horizon (Job 26:10) where the vault of heaven is supported on mountains. Other OT passages suggest that the sky rests on pillars (Psalm 75:3, 1 Samuel 2:8, Job 9:6), on foundations (Psalms 18:7 and 82:5), or on "supports" (Psalm 104:5), while the Book of Job imagines the cosmos as a vast tent, with the Earth as its floor and the sky as the tent itself; from the edges of the sky God hangs the Earth over "nothing", meaning the vast Ocean, securely supported by being tied to the sky (Job 26:7). If the technical means by which Yahweh keeps the earth from sinking into the chaos-waters are unclear, it is nevertheless clear that he does so by virtue of his personal power.

The idea that the Earth was a sphere was developed by the Greeks in the 6th century BCE, and by the 3rd century BCE this was generally accepted by educated Romans and Greeks and even by some Jews. The author of Revelation, however, assumed a flat Earth in 7:1.

Temples, mountains, gardens and rivers

In the cosmology of the ancient Near East, the cosmic warrior-god, after defeating the powers of chaos, would create the world and build his earthly house, the temple. Just as the abyss, the deepest deep, was the place for Chaos and Death, so God's temple belonged on the high mountain. In ancient Judah the mountain and the location of the Temple was Zion (Jerusalem), the navel and center of the world (Ezekiel 5:5 and 38:12). The Psalms describe God sitting enthroned over the Flood (the cosmic sea) in his heavenly palace (Psalm 29:10), the eternal king who "lays the beams of his upper chambers in the waters" (Psalm 104:3). The Samaritan Pentateuch identifies this mountain as Mount Gerizim, which the New Testament also implicitly acknowledges (John 4:20). This imagery recalls the Mesopotamian god Ea who places his throne in Apsu, the primeval fresh waters beneath the Earth, and the Canaanite god El, described in the Baal cycle as having his palace on a cosmic mountain which is the source of the primordial ocean/water springs.

The point where heavenly and earthly realms join is depicted as an earthly "garden of God", associated with the temple and royal palace. Ezekiel 28:12-19 places the garden in Eden on the mountain of the gods; in Genesis 2-3 Eden's location is more vague, simply far away "in the east", but there is a strong suggestion in both that the garden is attached to a temple or palace. In Jerusalem the earthly Temple was decorated with motifs of the cosmos and the Garden, and, like other ancient near eastern temples, its three sections made up a symbolic microcosm, from the outer court (the visible world of land and sea), through the Holy Place (the visible heaven and the garden of God) to the Holy of Holies (the invisible heaven of God). The imagery of the cosmic mountain and garden of Ezekiel reappears in the New Testament Book of Revelation, applied to the messianic Jerusalem, its walls adorned with precious stones, the "river of the water of life" flowing from under its throne (Revelation 22:1-2).

A stream from underground (a subterranean ocean of fresh water?) fertilises Eden before dividing into four rivers that go out to the entire earth (Genesis 2:5-6); in Ezekiel 47:1-12 (see Ezekiel's Temple) and other prophets the stream issues from the Temple itself, makes the desert bloom, and turns the Dead Sea from salt to fresh. Yet the underground waters are ambiguous: they are the source of life-giving rivers, but they are also associated with death (Jeremiah 2:6 and Job 38:16-17 describe how the way to Sheol is through water, and its gates are located at the foot of the mountain at the bottom of the seas).

Underworld

Valley of Hinnom (or Gehenna), c. 1900. The former site of child-sacrifice and a dumping-ground for the bodies of executed criminals, Jeremiah prophesied that it would become a "valley of slaughter" and burial place; in later literature it thus became identified with a new idea of Hell as a place where the wicked would be punished.

Sheol and the Old Testament

Beneath the earth is Sheol, the abode of the rephaim (shades), although it is not entirely clear whether all who died became shades, or only the "mighty dead" (compare Psalm 88:10 with Isaiah 14:9 and 26:14). Some biblical passages state that God has no presence in the underworld: "In death there is no remembrance of Thee, in Sheol who shall give Thee thanks?" (Psalm 6). Others imply that the dead themselves are in some sense semi-divine, like the shade of the prophet Samuel, who is called an elohim, the same word used for God and gods. Still other passages state God's power over Sheol as over the rest of his creation: "Tho they (the wicked) dig into Sheol, from there shall my hand take them..." (Amos 9:2).

Intertestamental period

The Old Testament Sheol was simply the home of all the dead, good and bad alike. In the Hellenistic period the Greek-speaking Jews of Egypt, perhaps under the influence of Greek thought, came to believe that the good would not die but would go directly to God, while the wicked would really die and go to the realm of Hades, god of the underworld, where they would perhaps suffer torment. The Book of Enoch, dating from the period between the Old and New Testaments, separates the dead into a well-lit cavern for the righteous and dark caverns for the wicked, and provides the former with a spring, perhaps signifying that these are the "living" (i.e. a spring) waters of life. In the New Testament, Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus reflects the idea that the wicked began their punishment in Hades immediately on dying.

Satan and the end of time

The New Testament Hades is a temporary holding place, to be used only until the end of time, when its inhabitants will be thrown into the pit of Gehenna or the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10-14). This lake is either underground, or will go underground when the "new earth" emerges. The Satan does not inhabit or supervise the underworld – his sphere of activity is the human world – and is only to be thrown into the fire at the end of time. He appears throughout the Old Testament not as God's enemy but as his minister, "a sort of Attorney-General with investigative and disciplinary powers", as in the Book of Job. It was only with the early Church Fathers that he was identified with the Serpent of the Garden of Eden and came to be seen as an active rebel against God, seeking to thwart the divine plan for mankind.

Acceptance of evolution by religious groups

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed by some religious groups, many other groups accept the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow for theological considerations. The positions of such groups are described by terms including "theistic evolution", "theistic evolutionism" or "evolutionary creation". Theistic evolutionists believe that there is a God, that God is the creator of the material universe and (by consequence) all life within, and that biological evolution is a natural process within that creation. Evolution, according to this view, is simply a tool that God employed to develop human life. According to the American Scientific Affiliation, a Christian organization of scientists:

A theory of theistic evolution (TE) — also called evolutionary creation — proposes that God's method of creation was to cleverly design a universe in which everything would naturally evolve. Usually the "evolution" in "theistic evolution" means Total Evolution — astronomical evolution (to form galaxies, solar systems,...) and geological evolution (to form the earth's geology) plus chemical evolution (to form the first life) and biological evolution (for the development of life) — but it can refer only to biological evolution.

According to Eugenie Scott, Director of the US National Center for Science Education, "In one form or another, Theistic Evolutionism is the view of creation taught at the majority of mainline Protestant seminaries, and it is the official position of the Catholic church".

Theistic evolution is not a scientific theory, but a particular view about how the science of evolution relates to religious belief and interpretation. Theistic evolution supporters can be seen as one of the groups who reject the conflict thesis regarding the relationship between religion and science – that is, they hold that religious teachings about creation and scientific theories of evolution need not contradict, what evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould called non-overlapping magisteria. Christian proponents of this view are sometimes described as Christian Darwinists.

Acceptance

This view is generally accepted by major Christian churches, including the Catholic Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Episcopal Church USA, and some other mainline Protestant denominations; virtually all Jewish denominations; and other religious groups that lack a literalist stance concerning some holy scriptures. Various biblical literalists have accepted or noted openness to this stance, including theologian B.B. Warfield and evangelist Billy Graham. A 2007 poll showed that acceptance among American Buddhists, Hindus and Jews was higher than among any Christian groups (graph below). One recent survey, conducted by physicist Max Tegmark, on "of how different US faith communities view origins science, particularly evolution and Big Bang cosmology." Although "Gallup reports that 46% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form less than 10,000 years ago", it found "only 11% belong to religions openly rejecting evolution."

With this approach toward evolution, scriptural creation stories are typically interpreted as being allegorical in nature. Both Jews and Christians have considered the idea of the creation history as an allegory (instead of a historical description) long before the development of Darwin's theory. An example in Christianity would be the earlier writings by St. Augustine (4th century), though he later rejected allegory in favor of literal interpretation. By this Augustine meant that in Genesis 1 the terms "light", "day", and "morning" hold a spiritual, rather than physical, meaning, and that this spiritual morning is just as literal as physical morning. Augustine recognizes that the creation of a spiritual morning is as much a historical event as the creation of physical light. [In later work, Augustine said that "there are some who think that only the world was made by God and that everything else is made by the world according to his ordination and command, but that God Himself makes nothing". Three noted Jewish examples are that of the writings of Philo of Alexandria (1st century), Maimonides (12th century) and Gersonides (13th century).

Theistic evolutionists argue that it is inappropriate to use Genesis as a scientific text, since it was written in a pre-scientific age and originally intended for religious instruction; as such, seemingly chronological aspects of the creation accounts should be thought of in terms of a literary framework. Theistic evolutionists may believe that creation is not literally a week-long process but a process beginning in the time of Genesis and continuing through all of time, including today. This view affirms that God created the world and was the primary causation of our being, while scientific changes such as evolution are part of "creatio continua" or continuing creation which is still occurring in the never ending process of creation. This is one possible way of interpreting biblical scriptures, such as Genesis, that seem otherwise to be in opposition to scientific theories, such as evolution.

Spectrum of viewpoints

Many religious organizations accept evolutionary theory, though their related theological interpretations vary. Additionally, individuals or movements within such organizations may not accept evolution, and stances on evolution may have adapted (or evolved) throughout history. There is considerable variance in overall acceptance of evolution between different countries, with studies showing that acceptance of evolution is lower in the United States than in Europe or Japan (only Turkey had a lower rate in the 34 countries sampled), and attitudes within religious groups may differ somewhat between counties.

Bahá'í

In the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdul-Bahá, the son of the founder of the religion, wrote about the origin of life. A fundamental part of `Abdul-Bahá's teachings on evolution is the belief that all life came from the same origin: "the origin of all material life is one..." He states that from this sole origin, the complete diversity of life was generated: "Consider the world of created beings, how varied and diverse they are in species, yet with one sole origin" He explains that a slow, gradual process led to the development of complex entities:

"[T]he growth and development of all beings is gradual; this is the universal divine organization and the natural system. The seed does not at once become a tree; the embryo does not at once become a man; the mineral does not suddenly become a stone. No, they grow and develop gradually and attain the limit of perfection"

Christianity

Evolution contradicts a literalistic interpretation of Genesis; however, according to Catholicism and most contemporary Protestant denominations, biblical literalism in the creation account is not mandatory. Christians have considered allegorical interpretations of Genesis since long before the development of Darwin's theory of evolution, or Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism. A notable example is St. Augustine (4th century), who, on theological grounds, argued that everything in the universe was created by God in the same instant, and not in six days as a plain reading of Genesis would require. Modern theologians such as Meredith G. Kline and Henri Blocher have advocated what has become known as the literary framework interpretation of the days of Genesis.

Contemporary Christian denominations

All of the traditional mainline Protestant denominations support or accept theistic evolution. For example, on 12 February 2006, the 197th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth was commemorated by "Evolution Sunday" where the message that followers of Christ do not have to choose between biblical stories of creation and evolution was taught in classes and sermons at many Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Unitarian, Congregationalist, United Church of Christ, Baptist and community churches.

Additionally, the National Council of Churches United States has issued a teaching resource to "assist people of faith who experience no conflict between science and their faith and who embrace science as one way of appreciating the beauty and complexity of God's creation." This resource cites the Episcopal Church, according to whom the stories of creation in Genesis "should not be understood as historical and scientific accounts of origins but as proclamations of basic theological truths about creation."

The positions of particular denominations are discussed below.

Anglicanism

Anglicans (including the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, the Church of England and others) believe that the Bible "contains all things necessary to salvation," while believing that "science and Christian theology can complement one another in the quest for truth and understanding." Specifically on the subject of creation/evolution, some Anglicans view "Big Bang cosmology" as being "in tune with both the concepts of creation out of nothing and continuous creation." Their position is clearly set out in the Catechism of Creation Part II: Creation and Science. In an interview, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams expressed his thought that "creationism is, in a sense, a kind of category mistake, as if the Bible were a theory like other theories. Whatever the biblical account of creation is, it's not a theory alongside theories... My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it." His view is that creationism should not be taught in schools.

United Methodist Church

The United Methodist Church affirms a Creator God and supports the scientific study of evolution.

"We recognize science as a legitimate interpretation of God's natural world. We affirm the validity of the claims of science in describing the natural world and in determining what is scientific. We preclude science from making authoritative claims about theological issues and theology from making authoritative claims about scientific issues. We find that science's descriptions of cosmological, geological, and biological evolution are not in conflict with theology." 

Church of the Nazarene

The Church of the Nazarene, an evangelical Christian denomination, sees "knowledge acquired by science and human inquiry equal to that acquired by divine revelation," and, while the church "'believes in the Biblical account of creation' and holds that God is the sole creator, it allows latitude 'regarding the "how" of creation.'"

While Richard G. Colling, author of Random Designer and professor at Olivet Nazarene University, received criticism from elements within the denomination in 2007 for his book (published in 2004), Darrel R. Falk of Point Loma Nazarene published a similar book in 2004, and Karl Giberson of Eastern Nazarene, the first Nazarene scholar to publish with Oxford University Press, has published four books since 1993 on the tensions between science and religion, including his most recently published Saving Darwin.

Theologians of note in the denomination whose work on science and religion shows the promise of cooperation include Thomas Jay Oord (Science of Love, The Altruism Reader, Defining Love), Michael Lodahl (God of Nature and of Grace), and Samuel M. Powell (Participating in God). These theologians see no major problem reconciling theology with the general theory of evolution.

The Nazarene Manual, a document crafted to provide Biblical guidance and denominational expression for Church members, states: "The Church of the Nazarene believes in the biblical account of creation ("In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . ."—Genesis 1:1). We oppose any godless interpretation of the origin of the universe and of humankind. However, the church accepts as valid all scientifically verifiable discoveries in geology and other natural phenomena, for we firmly believe that God is the Creator. (Articles I.1., V. 5.1, VII.) (2005)

Eastern Orthodox Church

The Eastern Orthodox Church is divided in two large categories, which might be labeled as compatibilism and dualism. 

On the one hand, compatibilists hold that evolutionary science and theology are compatible and view them as complementary revelations of God. As God is the source of both his specific revelation of himself in the Christian faith and the source of the general revelation of himself in nature, the findings of science and theology cannot really contradict; the contradictions must be merely apparent and a resolution possible which is faithful to the truth of God's revelation. Nicozisin (Father George) is a compatibilist.

On the other hand, dualists hold that evolution can be incompatible with faith. They usually argue either that evolutionary science is philosophically based on a kind of naturalism or that God's specific revelation is infallible and therefore trumps the findings of human reason in the case of any conflict between them. This is often based on a suspicion of human reason to arrive at reliable conclusions in the first place. Their stance is somewhat similar to Averroism, in that there is one truth, but it can be arrived at through (at least) two different paths, namely Philosophy and Religion. Bufeev, S. V, is a dualist, preferring to see the spiritual level above the mechanical, physico-chemical, or biological levels; he attributes discrepancies between spiritual matters and scientific matters to be because of the purely naturalistic views of evolutionists.

Roman Catholic Church

The position of the Roman Catholic Church on the theory of evolution has changed over the last two centuries from a large period of no official mention, to a statement of neutrality in the early-1950s, to limited guarded acceptance in recent years, rejecting the materialistic and reductionist philosophies behind it, and insisting that the human soul was immediately infused by God, and the reality of a single human ancestor (commonly called monogenism) for all of mankind. The Church does not argue with scientists on matters such as the age of the earth and the authenticity of the fossil record, seeing such matters as outside its area of expertise. Papal pronouncements, along with commentaries by cardinals, indicate that the Church is aware of the general findings of scientists on the gradual appearance of life. Indeed, Belgian priest Georges Lemaître, astronomer and physics professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, was the first to propose the theory of expansion of the universe, often incorrectly credited to Edwin Hubble. In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces. Today, many members of the Church support theistic evolution(ism), also known as evolutionary creation, Under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the International Theological Commission published a paper accepting the big bang of 15 billion years ago and the evolution of all life including humans from the microorganisms that formed approximately 4 billion years ago. The Vatican has no official teaching on this matter except for the special creation of the human soul. The Pontifical Biblical Commission issued a decree ratified by Pope Pius X on June 30, 1909, stating that special creation applies to humans and not other species.

Deism

Deism is belief in a God or first cause based on reason, rather than on faith or revelation. Most deists believe that God does not interfere with the world or create miracles. Some deists believe that a Divine Creator initiated a universe in which evolution occurred, by designing the system and the natural laws, although many deists believe that God also created life itself, before allowing it to be subject to evolution. They find it to be undignified and unwieldy for a deity to make constant adjustments rather than letting evolution elegantly adapt organisms to changing environments. 

One recent convert to deism was philosopher and professor Antony Flew, who became a deist in December 2004. Professor Flew, a former atheist, later argued that recent research into the origins of life supports the theory that some form of intelligence was involved. Whilst accepting subsequent Darwinian evolution, Flew argued that this cannot explain the complexities of the origins of life. He also stated that the investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved." He subsequently clarified this statement in an interview with Joan Bakewell for BBC Radio 4 in March 2005: "What I was converted to was the existence of an Aristotelian God, and Aristotle's God had no interest in human affairs at all."

Hinduism

Hindu views on evolution include a range of viewpoints with regard to evolution, creationism, and the origin of life within the traditions of Hinduism. The accounts of the emergence of life within the universe vary, but classically tell of the deity called Brahma, from a Trimurti of three deities also including Vishnu and Shiva, performing the act of "creation", or more specifically of "propagating life within the universe". with the other two deities responsible for "preservation" and "destruction" (of the universe) respectively. Some Hindu schools do not treat the scriptural creation myth literally and often the creation stories themselves do not go into specific detail, thus leaving open the possibility of incorporating at least some theories in support of evolution. Some Hindus find support for, or foreshadowing of evolutionary ideas in scriptures, namely the Vedas.

Day and night of Brahma

Science writers Carl Sagan and Fritjof Capra have pointed out similarities between the latest scientific understanding of the age of the universe, and the Hindu concept of a "day and night of Brahma", which is much closer to the current known age of the universe than other creation myths. The days and nights of Brahma posit a view of the universe that is divinely created, and is not strictly evolutionary, but an ongoing cycle of birth, death, and rebirth of the universe. According to Sagan:

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang.

Capra, in his popular book The Tao of Physics, wrote that:

This idea of a periodically expanding and contracting universe, which involves a scale of time and space of vast proportions, has arisen not only in modern cosmology, but also in ancient Indian mythology. Experiencing the universe as an organic and rhythmically moving cosmos, the Hindus were able to develop evolutionary cosmologies which come very close to our modern scientific models.

Daśāvatāras and evolution

The British geneticist and evolutionary biologist J B S Haldane observed that the Dasavataras (ten principal avatars of Lord Vishnu) provide a true sequential depiction of the great unfolding of evolution. The avatars of Vishnu show an uncanny similarity to the biological theory of evolution of life on earth.

Avatars	Explanation	Evolution
Matsya.	First avatar is a fish, one which is creature living in water.	If we compare it with biological evolution on different Geological Time Scale first developed life was also in the form of fish which originated during Cambrian period.
Kurma	Second avatar was in the form of Tortoise (reptiles).	In geology also first reptiles comes as second important evolution which originated in Mississippian age just after Amphibians.
Varaha	Third avatar was in the form of Boar.	Evolution of the amphibian to the land animal.
Narasimha	The Man-Lion (Nara= man, simha=lion) was the fourth avatar.	But in geology no such evidences are mentioned. It may have been related with Ape Man The term may sometimes refer to extinct early human ancestors.
Vamana	Fifth Avatar is the dwarf man.	It may be related with the first man originated during Pliocene. It may be related with Neanderthals. Neanderthals were generally only 12 to 14 cm (4½–5½ in) shorter than modern humans, contrary to a common view of them as "very short" or "just over 5 feet".
Parashurama,	The man with an axe was the sixth avatar.	It has the similarities with the first modern man originated during Quaternary period or the man of Iron Age.

Lord Rama, Lord Krishna and Lord Buddha were the seventh, eighth and ninth other avatars of Lord Vishnu. It indicates the physical and mental changes and evolution in the man from its time of appearance.

Islam

Some literalist Muslims reject origin of species from a common ancestor by evolution as incompatible with the Qur'an. However, even amongst Muslims who accept evolution, many believe that humanity was a special creation by God. For example, Shaikh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, an American Muslim and specialist in Islamic law has argued in Islam and Evolution that a belief in macroevolution is not incompatible with Islam, as long as it is accepted that "Allah is the Creator of everything" (Qur'an 13:16) and that Allah specifically created humanity (in the person of Adam; Qur'an 38:71-76). Shaikh Keller states in his conclusion however:

"As for claim that man has evolved from a non-human species, this is unbelief (kufr) no matter if we ascribe the process to Allah or to "nature," because it negates the truth of Adam's special creation that Allah has revealed in the Qur'an. Man is of special origin, attested to not only by revelation, but also by the divine secret within him, the capacity for ma'rifa or knowledge of the Divine that he alone of all things possesses. By his God-given nature, man stands before a door opening onto infinitude that no other creature in the universe can aspire to. Man is something else."

Ahmadiyya

The Ahmadiyya movement also universally accepts the principle of the process of evolution with divine guidance.

Judaism

In general, three of the four major denominations of American Judaism (Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative) accept theistic evolution. Within Orthodoxy, there is much debate about the issue. Most Modern Orthodox groups accept theistic evolution and most Ultra-Orthodox groups do not. This disagreement was most vociferous in the Natan Slifkin controversy which arose when a number of prominent Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis banned books written by Rabbi Natan Slifkin which explored the idea of theistic evolution within Jewish tradition. These Rabbis forming part of Jewish opposition to evolution considered that his books were heresy as they indicated that the Talmud is not necessarily correct about scientific matters such as the age of the Earth. 

Advocates of theistic evolution within Judaism follow two general approaches. Either the creation account in the Torah is not to be taken as a literal text, but rather as a symbolic work, or, alternatively, that the 'days' do not refer to 24-hour periods. The latter view, called day-age creationism, is justified by how the first day in the biblical account actually precedes the creation of the sun and earth by which 24 hour days are reckoned and by how the seventh day of rest has no evening and morning. In the day-age view, Jewish scholars point out how the order of creation in Genesis corresponds to the scientific description of the development of life on Earth—the sun, then earth, then oceans, then oceanic plant life, fish preceding land-based life, with mammals and finally humans last—and in no way specifies the method of creation in a manner prohibitive of evolution. 

Karaite Judaism is a Jewish a movement which is distinct in that they do not accept the Talmud (a series of Rabbinic commentaries) as law and follow the Hebrew scriptures as they are written. Karaites are currently divided on the question of evolution with many or most Karaite Jews leaning in favor of Theistic Evolution.

Samaritanism

The Samaritans, a divergent branch of the Israelites (the other being the Jews), generally accept Theistic Evolution. Samaritans do not consider themselves to be Jewish, but hold similar beliefs. The Jews, however, hold the Tanakh (consisting of the Torah or Pentateuch, plus Nevi'im, and Ketuvim) as canonical scripture in conjunction with the Oral Law as compiled in the Talmud, while the Samaritan's canonical scriptures consists only of the Torah (a slightly differing Pentateuch, i.e. the Five Books of Moses), but exclude both Nevi'im and Ketuvim, as well as excluding the Talmud.

Pantheism

Pantheists (for instance in Naturalistic Pantheism) may view natural processes, including evolution, as work or emanations from the impersonal, non-anthropomorphic deity.

Proponents

Evolutionary biologists who were also theists

Although evolutionary biologists have often been agnostics (most notably Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin) or atheists (most notably Richard Dawkins), from the outset many have had a belief in some form of theism. These have included Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), who in a joint paper with Charles Darwin in 1858, proposed the theory of evolution by natural selection. Wallace, in his later years, was effectively a deist who believed that "the unseen universe of Spirit" had interceded to create life as well as consciousness in animals and (separately) in humans. Darwin had a longstanding close friendship with the American botanist Asa Gray who was a leading supporter of Darwin's theory, and a devout Presbyterian. Gray wrote a series of essays on the relationship of natural selection to religious belief and natural theology, and supported the views of theologians who said that design through evolution was inherent in all forms of life. Darwin had Gray and Charles Kingsley in mind when he wrote that "It seems to me absurd to doubt that a man may be an ardent theist & an evolutionist".

An early example of this kind of approach came from computing pioneer Charles Babbage who published his unofficial Ninth Bridgewater Treatise in 1837, putting forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator, making laws (or programs) which then produced species at the appropriate times, rather than continually interfering with ad hoc miracles each time a new species was required. 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955) was a noted geologist and paleontologist as well as a Jesuit Priest who wrote extensively on the subject of incorporating evolution into a new understanding of Christianity. Initially suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church, his theological work has had considerable influence and is widely taught in Catholic and most mainline Protestant seminaries.

Both Ronald Fisher (1890–1962) and Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975), were Christians and architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis. Dobzhansky, a Russian Orthodox, wrote a famous 1973 essay entitled Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution espousing evolutionary creationism:

"I am a creationist and an evolutionist. Evolution is God's, or Nature's, method of creation. Creation is not an event that happened in 4004 BC; it is a process that began some 10 billion years ago and is still under way... Does the evolutionary doctrine clash with religious faith? It does not. It is a blunder to mistake the Holy Scriptures for elementary textbooks of astronomy, geology, biology, and anthropology. Only if symbols are construed to mean what they are not intended to mean can there arise imaginary, insoluble conflicts... the blunder leads to blasphemy: the Creator is accused of systematic deceitfulness."

In the realm of biology and theology, the saying coined by Thomas Jay Oord is perhaps appropriate: "The Bible tells us how to find abundant life, not the details of how life became abundant."

Contemporary advocates of theistic evolution

Contemporary biologists and geologists who are Christians and theistic evolutionists include:

• Paleontologist Robert T. Bakker
• R. J. Berry, Professor of Genetics at University College London
• Microbiologist Richard G. Colling of Olivet Nazarene University, author of Random Designer: Created from Chaos to Connect with Creator
• Geneticist Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health and director of the Human Genome Project and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief in which he has suggested the term BioLogos for theistic evolution. Collins is also the founder of the BioLogos Foundation.
• Biologist Darrel Falk of Point Loma Nazarene University, author of Coming to Peace with Science
• Biologist Denis Lamoureux of St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta, Canada who has co-authored with evolution critic Phillip E. Johnson Darwinism Defeated? The Johnson-Lamoureux Debate on Biological Origins (Regent College, 1999)
• Evangelical Christian and geologist Keith B. Miller of Kansas State University, who compiled an anthology Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (Eerdmans, 2003)
• Kenneth R. Miller, professor of biology at Brown University, author of Finding Darwin's God (Cliff Street Books, 1999), in which he states his belief in God and argues that "evolution is the key to understanding God" (Dr. Miller has also called himself "an orthodox Catholic and an orthodox Darwinist" in the 2001 PBS special "Evolution")
• Biologist Joan Roughgarden at Stanford University is author of various books including Evolution and Christian Faith: Reflections of an Evolutionary Biologist
• Paleobiologist Prof. Simon Conway Morris of Cambridge University, well known for his groundbreaking work on the Burgess Shale fossils and the Cambrian explosion, and author of Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe

Philosophers, theologians, and physical scientists who have supported the evolutionary creationist model include:

• Novelist, theologian and noted Christian apologist C. S. Lewis
• Christian apologist, theologian and philosopher William Lane Craig
• Political commentator and apologist Dinesh D'Souza
• Eco-theologian Fr. Thomas Berry
• Eco-theologian and evolutionary evangelist Rev. Michael Dowd, advocate of religious naturalism
• Fr. George Coyne of the Vatican Observatory
• Astronomer and philosopher of science at Harvard University Owen Gingerich
• Physicist Karl Giberson of Eastern Nazarene College, author of several books: Worlds Apart: The Unholy War between Religion and Science, Species of Origins: America's Search for a Creation Story, The Oracles of Science: Celebrity Scientists Versus God and Religion, and Saving Darwin.
• Theologian and New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, Anglican Bishop of Durham and contributor to the BioLogos Foundation.
• Theologian John Haught of Georgetown University.
• Biochemist and theologian Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford.
• Theologian Thomas Jay Oord of Northwest Nazarene University (known for saying, "The Bible tells us how to find abundant life, not the details of how life became abundant.")
• Pope John Paul II, who is famous for praising evolutionary biology and calling its accounts of human origins "more than a hypothesis"^[49]
• Ted Peters, co-author of the book Can You Believe in God And Evolution?
• Physicist and theologian Rev. John Polkinghorne of Cambridge University.
• Theologian Rev. Keith Ward, former Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, author of God, Chance, and Necessity
• Theologian-philosopher Rev. Michał Heller, professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków, Poland, and an adjunct member of the Vatican Observatory staff.
• Theologian-philosopher catholic archbishop Józef Życiński, professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Kraków, Poland.
• Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, University of Munich, author of "Toward a Theology of Nature."
• Many members of the American Scientific Affiliation and contributors to its journal Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.