I don't understand how the DNA tests say that the Clans are as old as tens of thousands of years when the Jewish Calendar says that the world is only 5766 years old. Can anyone explain? Thanks
Posts: 357 | Location: usa | Registered: August 04, 2004
I would ask another question: when Melech HaMoshiach comes, will a Cohen be able to go up to him with his "Certified Cohen" certificate, and be accepted as one with a trustworthy lineage?
Posts: 87 | Location: South Africa | Registered: December 04, 2005
Even if the DNA test confirms patrilineal descent from Aharon HaKohen, it provides no indication of:
possible defrocked Kohein - such as through impermissible marriage
Jewishness, regarding matrilineal descent
mamzeres, such as presumed widow remarrying, and her illigitimate child's descendent girl marrying a Kohein.
I understand from two sources I cannot recall that sense of smell is part of how Moshiach know who is whom, and what is their status, AND, how we will know when Moshiach has arrived.
Posts: 897 | Location: USA | Registered: May 30, 2004
Originally posted by Dovi: I would ask another question: when Melech HaMoshiach comes, will a Cohen be able to go up to him with his "Certified Cohen" certificate, and be accepted as one with a trustworthy lineage?
It's written that all the questions in the Talmud that has been established as a "Teiku" will be answered when Moshiach comes. I suppose we can put a Teiku on this issue and we'll fine out.
Posts: 854 | Location: USA | Registered: March 10, 2005
I emailed Y Kleiman with this question and he said the Jewish calendar begins on the eighth day after creation, after the creation of Adam, so there may have been prehistoric humans whose DNA was continuous to Adam. I hope I quoted him correctly. I still don't get it. Does that mean that not all people are descendants of Adam, since there are a few clans that date back 10's of thousands of years? Who would Kayin have been afraid of when he was sent into exile? Also, I heard of some "Ant people" who went underground during the flood and survived. And if the people were prehistoric then that would be like evolution. How would so many generations go by in just a few days? Unless the "days" were much longer than we know them today. Or the days were just as long but the process was sped up so much that it looks like thousands of years to us. Maybe the flood changed the DNA evidence. As the world becomes more dependant on it, DNA has me totally lost and how it works in Judaism.
Posts: 357 | Location: usa | Registered: August 04, 2004
I don't that there is any question that in Jewish tradition Adam was the first human on Earth.
I have never heard of the "ant people"; our tradition teaches us that only Noah, his wife and sons and daughter-in-law survived the flood.
I believe that it will be Eliyahu HaNavi [Elijah the Prophet] who will rveal for us who is a Kohen, who is a Levi, who is a mamzer, etc. This is what is meant by the acronym "Teku", the "T" standing for "Tishbi" who is Eliyahu.
Posts: 797 | Location: London, England | Registered: June 10, 2005
I belive we have amply discussed the problems of dating Bereshit.
I will repeat the same genetic technics which show that the cohanim gene goes back 10,000 years (if that what was reported) show that all people today are descended from one man and one woman. The same genetic data also shows that the human race was wiped out at some point from "Adam" to Avaraham and only a handful of people survived. The dating of DNA junk mutations is based on assuming that a certain number of mutations takes place every so often. It is an assumption. As recently showned for mitochondrial DNA, it ain't necessarily so.
Aryeh Shore
Posts: 548 | Location: Rechovot, Israel | Registered: February 11, 2005
Originally posted by Raybin: I emailed Y Kleiman with this question and he said the Jewish calendar begins on the eighth day after creation, after the creation of Adam, so there may have been prehistoric humans whose DNA was continuous to Adam.
Who is this "Y Kleiman" and what is his source?
Posts: 854 | Location: USA | Registered: March 10, 2005
Y Kleiman is the author of DNA and Tradition as seen on the Cohen-Levite website that I gave in the beginning. I don't know what all of his sources are but he seems to have it all figured out.
I think the Cohen gene goes back about 3500 years or so to the time of Aron.
Posts: 357 | Location: usa | Registered: August 04, 2004
I belive we have amply discussed the problems of dating Bereshit. When and where? I will repeat the same genetic technics which show that the cohanim gene goes back 10,000 years (if that what was reported) show that all people today are descended from one man and one woman.
Yes, the geneticists claim that all people descended from mitochondrial Eve and Adam though they lived thousands of years apart from each other.
The dating of DNA junk mutations is based on assuming that a certain number of mutations takes place every so often. It is an assumption. As recently showned for mitochondrial DNA, it ain't necessarily so.
So you are saying that mitochondrial DNA has proved to be inaccurate?
Posts: 357 | Location: usa | Registered: August 04, 2004
mitochondrial DNA I was referring to an article in this weeks tuesday science times that the assumption that mitochondrial DNA does not change as the result of environmental changes is not correct. Closely related species can have radically different mitochondrial DNA. Apparantly some sequences get lost by mechanisms other than blind mutation rates. Just to make it clear, the geneticists adopted the name "Adam" and "Eve" for the first man and woman. When I said between "Adam" and Avraham I meant the genetic "Adam" We are all descended from "Adam" and "Eve" as all of their contemporaries died out.
In the ninteenth century, there was considerable antagonism between religious people and scientists. After a number of new discoveries, scientists have a lot less hubris. The big bang theory agrees with creation out nothing. Theologically, this means one is just arguing about the details. Similarly, if there is a genetic "adam" and "eve", theologically it agrees that no man can claim that his primordial ancestor was somehow superior than someone else ancestor which is the message of the Adam story in the Bible as described in the midrash.
People get very confused when someone says it is a scientific fact and then people say scientific facts change. Somethings are scientific fact, the law of gases and DNA sequences. Facts which can be determined in the laboratory tend to be more of fact than those which can not. Interpetation of what a DNA sequence means to events with took place a 100,000 years ago like the division between new and old world monkeys (an important assumption for understanding corticosterone receptor variation), can (do and should)change with interpetation in light of new evidence. That a certain sequence produces a specific enzyme does not.
Posts: 548 | Location: Rechovot, Israel | Registered: February 11, 2005
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Raybin: Y Kleiman is the author of DNA and Tradition as seen on the Cohen-Levite website that I gave in the beginning. I don't know what all of his sources are but he seems to have it all figured out.
Excuse me, that is RabbiY Kleiman.
Posts: 357 | Location: usa | Registered: August 04, 2004
Originally posted by laurence shore: mitochondrial DNA I was referring to an article in this weeks tuesday science times that the assumption that mitochondrial DNA does not change as the result of environmental changes is not correct. Closely related species can have radically different mitochondrial DNA. Apparantly some sequences get lost by mechanisms other than blind mutation rates. Just to make it clear, the geneticists adopted the name "Adam" and "Eve" for the first man and woman. When I said between "Adam" and Avraham I meant the genetic "Adam" We are all descended from "Adam" and "Eve" as all of their contemporaries died out.
In the ninteenth century, there was considerable antagonism between religious people and scientists. After a number of new discoveries, scientists have a lot less hubris. The big bang theory agrees with creation out nothing. Theologically, this means one is just arguing about the details. Similarly, if there is a genetic "adam" and "eve", theologically it agrees that no man can claim that his primordial ancestor was somehow superior than someone else ancestor which is the message of the Adam story in the Bible as described in the midrash.
People get very confused when someone says it is a scientific fact and then people say scientific facts change. Somethings are scientific fact, the law of gases and DNA sequences. Facts which can be determined in the laboratory tend to be more of fact than those which can not. Interpetation of what a DNA sequence means to events with took place a 100,000 years ago like the division between new and old world monkeys (an important assumption for understanding corticosterone receptor variation), can (do and should)change with interpetation in light of new evidence. That a certain sequence produces a specific enzyme does not.
Very interesting/ Thank you you for sharing that with us. Can you shed any light on the 100.000 years versus 5766 years? Or maybe we should just separate the two for now. How can we ignore science? I am glad that there are people like you who are tackling it.
Rabbi Klieman said that Adam was the first human with a Soul, and that there may have been prehistoric humans. So that may mean that the geneticists' Adam is not the same Adam as the one with the soul. Maybe that Adam lived only 5766 years ago. What happened genetically to the human race then? Are there any clues? Then, why should we expect DNA to detect Souls?
Interesting that DNA can change by environmental influences. That may explain everything some years down the road.
Posts: 357 | Location: usa | Registered: August 04, 2004
Well as pointed out by numberous commentators, the torah is not a history or a science book for that matter. There is nothing special in Judiasm about 5766. It is just a calculation. Consider it a problem in understanding the peshat of the story of Bereshit which may not have a peshat. Usually the argument runs something like there are midrashim that state there were four worlds before this, two of ice and two of fire (glacial and interglacial), one second is a thousand years as in the psalm reaching to kabbalistic thousands of worlds of millions of years, or everything was created as a cosmic millisecond (Rashi). Now when man evolutionarily speaking got a soul is a fascinating topic. The problem is that homo sapiens developed about a 100,000 years ago. However, for some reason man did not paint or draw or bury its died ritually until suddenly 30,000 years before present (B.P.) This had lead to a sort of theory of social evolution that the nature of humanity can change in great leaps in a very short time period. This is mostly speculation but some monkeys can learn to "suddenly" use tools. The present unfortunately anti-evolutionary teaching by fundimentalist christians is annoying. Now one can claim that, heaven forbid, our co-religionists are influenced by fads in the christian community but I can't think of any other reason for the rise of such an attitude since the 1950s among our co-religionists.
Posts: 548 | Location: Rechovot, Israel | Registered: February 11, 2005
I don't think they should teach evolution in a science curricullum. Maybe two days. It confuses the students what is science. Science is a tool for determining the nature of the universe. If you can't show in the laboratory, it should not be presented as scientific fact. If presented as scientific fact it confuses the students and they can't tell the difference between astrology and astronomy.
A jewish curricullum should have a good deal of science as it is important for understanding the gemara and halacha. Of course, a lot of other things would be useful like a knowledge of latin and greek but that would be asking too much and teaching science fits in with other curricullum objectives. Now how people who do not know geometry, latin, greek, world history, jewish history, etc. can learn gemara is beyond me but I have unfortunately been exposed to a lot of people who don't.
Posts: 548 | Location: Rechovot, Israel | Registered: February 11, 2005
Quote "I don't think they should teach evolution in a science curriculum. Maybe two days. It confuses the students what is science. Science is a tool for determining the nature of the universe. If you can't show in the laboratory, it should not be presented as scientific fact."
Then, why teach it at all? The secular society, for political purposes, need to teach this unproven, unprovable and improbable theory (with a lot of questions on it) as science. But Orthodox Jews do not have the same agenda, thus we have no need to teach it or give these non-science any credence.
I believe the question is usually was the flood everywhere.
Since the water came up from the depths as well as coming down, there would be no caves. The is a midrash that there was no flood in the land of Israel.
Posts: 548 | Location: Rechovot, Israel | Registered: February 11, 2005
Then, why teach it at all? The secular society, for political purposes,
I have long suspected that the overemphasis on evolution in the Israeli curricullum is politically motivated but I can't prove it. However, in the US is just part of the language of science that one learns (a sort of scientific jargon). Actually I don't recall anybody mentioning evolution in the Darwinian sense during my science education in the States. However, what goes into a science course is determined by science educators who in general have never published a scientific paper. The people in France also do not determine what is taught in a French class in the US. I don't know what it has to do with the torah forum, but the purpose of a science course for non-scientists is that they have the tools to understand the labels on the packages in the supermarket, understand the purpose of the funding of science projects and to have the tools to be critical of pseudoscientific material which appears in the newspapers and not to be suckered in to buying miracle cures.
Posts: 548 | Location: Rechovot, Israel | Registered: February 11, 2005
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