Israel and Humanity - The tohu-vohu of Genesis
§ 3.
THE TOHU-VABOHU OF GENESIS.
That the succession of worlds is permitted by the Bible, as well as by the Rabbis, it is beyond question for many critics who find the idea already in the tohu-vabohu of the first page book of Genesis. These words seem to indicate their reason with the debris of an old world with which God creates the new, fulfilling our land to the prophecy of Isaiah for the future palingenesis: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" [1]. Now how can we believe that the worlds succeed and without obeying a law which embraces them all?
We find an indirect confirmation of this interpretation in the Persian beliefs. Septenaries periods or schemittot cosmic Persians were known and needless to say they recognized a succession of genesis and palingenesis. These two stages of creation is obviously biblical, we do not understand that Judaism, in agreement with Iran on the merits of the doctrine, not even the point on the question of periodicity of cycles. Moreover, if an order made separately in each creation, how does he not exist in all the successive creations?
Commentator Joseph Albo we quoted the words of the number of those who understand this way the tohu-vabohu of Genesis. He added that the tehom abyss and waters, Maim , which says the second verse of the holy book sacred is precisely the debris from the previous creation. Many Jewish theologians share this view and said Jehoudah Hallévi blameless in point of view the religious Jew who believes in this succession of worlds.
It was rightly pointed out that the etymology of the phrase from Genesis recalls the turmoil of a pre-existing order [2] and no confusion, the state informed of the creation from scratch. This is confirmed by examining three other biblical texts which can be found in the same expression. Isaiah said about the ruin of a once flourishing land: "It will extend the cord destruction, tohu-kav , and the level of desolation, veabnè-burly [3] ". Elsewhere the same prophet uses the word hustle in opposition to the idea of order and settlement of the land: "Thus saith the LORD, the Creator of the heavens, God himself that formed earth, who made it and who established it, who created it was no longer hustle , which has formed it to be inhabited [4] ". And Jeremiah, having said: "I saw the earth, and here it is hustle vabohu and the heavens, and their light was gone," commented his own words: "I looked at the mountains and were shaken, and all the hills staggered; I looked, and behold, there were more men and all the birds had fled [5] ".
This phrase of Genesis is also not one to let us glimpse the existence of previous worlds. While the context can be explained in this direction. The heavens and the earth the first verse seems to refer to these lost worlds and their destruction is recounted in the second verse where we read: "Now the earth became tohu vabohu (The first words of this verse can be translated as well) and darkness covered the face of the deep and God's spirit hovered over the water surface (to form a new world) "A passage of Job comes to In support of this interpretation. In celebrating the wonders of God, he said: "He stretched out the north over hustle , he suspended the earth upon nothing [6]". And elsewhere: "He moves mountains without their knowledge, he upsets in his anger, he shook the earth on its base and columns are being eroded. He commands the sun and the sun does not appear, he puts a seal on the stars [7] ".
The Psalms also attest to this idea of the succession of worlds, "Thou didst set the earth and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They will perish, but thou shalt endure: they all wear out like a garment, you change them as a habit and they will [8] changed, but you always stay the same, and thy years shall not fail not [9] ". If the notion of progress or multiple cosmic creation in general is not expressly stated in this text, it does not deduct more of the images used, because the clothes that wear out and are replaced by other expresses quite clearly the idea of succession of worlds.
In this text from Ecclesiastes: "If there is one thing we say: Look, this is new! this thing already existed in the worlds that came before us [10] "These last words, in our opinion, must be understood in the sense of real worlds other than ours and previous to ours, not only in the periods of time indefinite. It is not improbable that the following verse: "You do not remember the first and those who come afterwards will leave no remembrance among those that shall come later," means that the latest creations that are better than previous , they are not even mentioned, just as in the text of Isaiah: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, no one will remember most things past, they never return to the spirit [11] Both texts contain so the idea of progress.
Moses' prayer that begins with these words: "O Lord! thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation then rises to a more general idea, it is more of Israel but of the entire universe: "Before the mountains were begotten and that you had created the earth and the world, from one world to another you were God [12]; you do return men in the dust, and you say, "Son of man, come back! for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is over when to [13] "And in another psalm we read:" Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, from one world to another world [14] "and Psalm 145: "Thy kingdom is all worlds [15], "which embraces the past and the future.
Thus, for the Bible as for representatives of the Jewish tradition, not only worlds have existed before [16] it, but there are others after him and the general principle of progress is high at the height of a law that governs the birth, development, end and the resurrection of all worlds. Critics will object that does all these cycles, all more or less long periods, these weeks and jubilees cosmic, in a word all this gradation harmonic transformations and rebirth of worlds are just as poetic imagination without no scientific basis? Doubtless there are not facts showing that mathematical proofs, but there is at least one serious hypothesis that science is far from pushing, as we see a scientist and illustrious among all completely foreign to the doctrines of the Talmud, Herbert Spencer, give him the support of his authority in terms that specifically offer a curious analogy with rabbinic ideas. We quote his words verbatim. At the request could be done about the term of universal evolution or her indefinitely, he said "that this development will be a limit and this limit is insurmountable stable equilibrium to which it comes through all phases or moving equilibria that will gradually descending until they are reduced to the stable equilibrium. " And Spencer added: "Obviously if evolution is to end in a balanced or complete rest, we must say that one day death will definitely universal, but it can also be argued that the stable equilibrium, universal, being once done , then the form of molecular motion will appear all that is lost in the mass movement. This transformation renewing the masses to form a nebula, a new development starts again, and so fulfilled indefinitely new developments like, always the same in principle but never the same for the concrete results of the Italian schools [17] ".
