Nathan Aviezer replying to Shlomo. As will become clear,
Shlomo has not the slightest idea of what I wrote in my book, but
this does not prevent him from making fun of me by asking as follows:
"One must ask what will be the attitude of Professor Aviezer ...
should new research prove ... that the universe is 40 billion years old
or perhaps only 10 billion years old? After all, [he] has shown
how nicely it [Genesis] correlates with the Big Bang taking place
15 billion years ago."
From these words of Shlomo, the reader would never imagine that
in my book, I never - repeat, NEVER - claimed that the text of Genesis
supports or requires a 15-billion-year-old universe. In fact, I wrote
precisely the opposite. See pages 1 and 2 of my book (English version,
"In the Beginning").
Shlomo also asks - and answers for me (Shlomo loves to give my
answers for me!): "When science appears to contradict religious belief,
what then? Their [Aviezer's] answer would be that we don't 'understand'
it all." The truth is that my answer is very different. My answer
is to adopt the position of Maimonides, who dealt with precisely this
question, back in the 12th century, in his "Guide for the Perplexed"
(Part II, Chapter 25). I leave it to Shlomo - and other interested
readers - as a homework problem (we professors love to give homework
problems!) to read Maimonides' answer and thereby learn something about
the true Jewish approach to Torah-and-science.

At first let me apologise to Prof. Aviezer for attributing to his book comments that are relevant only to Dr. Schroeder’s book. I’m sorry. I did actually read Prof. Aviezer’s book, but that was way back in 1995. At no stage did I intend to “make fun” of anyone. I asked what I deemed to be a legitimate question. All I wanted was friendly discussion but that’s not to be.