The Age of the World
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Question
I watched a lecture by Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi on proofs for the Torah. At the beginning of the lecture he said that everything in the world has a beginning and an end, even if it lasts hundreds or millions of years, meaning that everything in the universe has a beginning and an end. About 20 minutes later he returned to the subject of the age of the world and proofs of the Torah, and said that the age of the world is 6,000 years, and that dinosaurs lived about 4,200 years ago. This is confusing and troubling to me, and I wanted to ask: how should we understand the rabbi’s words about the age of the world and the dinosaurs, and does this fit with the Jewish outlook and with Halacha?
Answer
Shalom u’vracha.
There is no contradiction in these statements.
The Torah teaches us that the world has existed for 5,886 years.
In addition, there is a fundamental principle (which proves that the world was created) that every physical thing has a beginning and an end.
And even if something exists for millions of years, there is still a point in time when it was created and a point in time when it will come to an end.
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