Cosmogenesis (1 AM to 3400 AM) and the Hebrew Biblical Era (1200 BCE to 332 BCE)


12:51 PM Saturday.

Rabbi Greenberg is a progressive Modern Orthodox scholar who defines the first period of Jewish history as the Biblical Era. What I would like to do in this afternoon's lesson is clarify just how Rabbi Greenberg goes about dating the beginning and ending of the Biblical Era, specifically in relation to Anno Mundi of the Hebrew Calendar. Then I would like to bring Goodman, Myers, Johnson, contemporary Israeli public opinion and Google Gemini into the discussion, per my previous post.

Here is my Google Gemini prologue to this session's investigation:


Now, with that behind me, I turn to page 327 in The Triumph of Life, and I see that Rabbi Greenberg defines the Biblical Era from the time of Abraham in 1800 BCE to the beginning of the Second Temple in 515 BCE. 

At this point, I think I myself am leaning toward a first era of Jewish history called "Cosmogenesis" that begins with the first minute, hour, and day of 1 Anno Mundi (AM) in the Hebrew calendar and ends in 3594 AM, when the Hebrew calendar comes into hard alignment with conventional BCE/CE dating during the first year of the Hasmonean Revolt.

Here is my follow-up dialogue with Gemini on this proposal, in four questions.

1. Would Rabbi Breuer (Mordechai Breuer | Wikipedia) agree that the Hebrew theological and BCE/CE literal calendars come into hard alignment during the Hasmonean Revolt?


2. For Breuer, are events that take place in the Hebrew calendar after the period of hard alignment different in a Jewish theological sense from the events that preceded the hard alignment?


3. Would Breuer and Greenberg tend to agree that God may have become less directly and miraculously involved with the Jewish people during this [latter] period, including the cessation of Biblical prophecy?


4. What about a phrase like "Cosmogenesis" - could this work to translate Breuer's conception of the theological era in the Hebrew calendar into a contemporary English-language understanding?


It seems I am on reasonably solid footing with Cosmogenesis. My argument is that the Hebrew calendar does not coincide with literal scientific time until the Hasmonean Revolt. Up until that convergence, the Hebrew calendar embodies a complex interplay of Jewish theological, historical and legal time. For me, it is more helpful to think of this period in the Hebrew calendar as Cosmogenesis than the Biblical Era, in part because so much of the Bible, from a Christian point of view, is written much later. 

There also appears to be fairly good reason to date the beginning of Rabbinic Judaism with the Hasmonean Revolt:


Thus, Rabbinic Judaism takes me, on Rabbi Greenberg's scaffolding, straight from the Hasmonean Revolt to the Third Era.

Kindle searches for "Anno Mundi" and "Hebrew calendar" return no results in Greenberg's text.

Goodman's A History of Judaism also returns no search results for either "Anno Mundi" or "Hebrew calendar." Goodman begins his history with a period called "Origins" that runs from 2000 BCE to 70 CE. On one hand, he relies heavily on Josephus to sketch this period out, and on the other hand, Goodman doesn't say anything about the chronology Josephus himself used or explain why it was rejected by Judaism in favor of the chronology provided by the Seder Olam Rabbah.

Here are three Google Gemini queries on the subject:

  • How did Josephus date the Creation and other events in Genesis in his Antiquities?   
  • When in BCE terms did Josephus fix the date of Creation and how did that compare to the work of the Jewish sages who established the Hebrew calendar? 
  • Was the chronology of Josephus influential?

And this is the link to the answer thread:


There is no reference to the Hebrew calendar in Jewish History: A Very Short Introduction by Myers and there is no attempt to periodize Jewish history in this text.

Johnson's History of the Jews likewise ignores the Hebrew calendar. 

Let me conclude this lesson by considering contemporary Israeli public opinion on the Hebrew calendar as summarized by Google Gemini.

Here's my question set:

  • How do most Israeli Jews view the Hebrew calendar beginning on 1 AM (3761 BCE) do they take pride in their national calendar or consider it anachronistic?
  • When Israeli Jews think about defining their history in terms of periods, is there a difference between religious Jews using the Hebrew calendar with divisions like the Tannaim and Rishonim and secular Jews using the BCE/CE framework with standard historical periods like Medieval and Early Modern?
  • Is the state of Israel officially bi-chronological or does the Hebrew calendar take precedence in state documents and record-keeping?
  • What does the Nation-State Law say about the Hebrew calendar's official status?
  • What percent of Israeli children attend public schools and how is Hebrew calendar taught in these schools - are the rabbinic time periods taught?
  • From a religious Jewish perspective, including Modern Orthodox Judaism, is it desirable to teach the history of Judaism without reference to the Hebrew calendar and the rabbinic periods, or is this seen as a kind of "concession to Rome"?
  • Do religious Jews prefer that interested Gentile outsiders learn about the Hebrew calendar with the rabbinic periods, or do they prefer that Gentiles stick with the secular BCE/CE framework, even in a context of serious interfaith dialogue?
  • How exactly do religious Jews define the Biblical period and when do they distinguish it from the rabbinic periods?
  • Could a respectful Gentile scholar place the end of the Biblical era and the start of the Rabbinic era with the rise of the Pharisees and other sects during the Hasmonean revolt, or would this be considered inept and slightly intrusive?
  • What exactly happened in or around 430 CE [BCE] that religious Jews identify as the end of the Biblical period and what year is that in the Hebrew calendar?
  • I definitely meant to type 430 BCE i.e. 3400 AM. Is this when the period of the sages - the Tannaim - begins according to religious Jews?
  • How long does the period of the Soferim last?
  • Who were the Zugot and how did they influence the shift from the Soferim to the Tannaim?
  • What book is a good introduction and overview for an interested Gentile to the Soferim and later eras of Torah scholarship as taught internally by religious Jews?

And here's the link to the full answer thread:


Based on all of this, it feels a little inept for me to pick an end date for Cosmogenesis (the Biblical Era) at the start of the Hasmonean Revolt. A better date seems to be the start of the Soferim. Let me do some more follow-up with Google Gemini on this point:

1. Do secular Jewish scholars agree with the dating of the Soferim and the Zugot by religious Jewish scholars?


2. Is Rabbi Yitz Greenberg a progressive Modern Orthodox outlier in accepting 587 BCE as the date for the destruction of the First Temple?


3. Did Rabbi Mordechai Breuer position the destruction of the First Temple in theological time or literal historic time?


4. Where do Reform and Conservative seminaries in the US stand on the dating of the destruction of the First Temple - do they accept the secular academic chronology or the Orthodox rabbinic chronology?


5. Would it be accurate to say that the majority of Jewish scholars today - including both secular scholars and scholars from all religious denominations - would vote for the 587 BCE date for the destruction of the First Temple?


6. Has the state of Israel avoided taking a position on the issue, or have circumstances required it to publish an exact archaeological date for the destruction of the First Temple?


7. Is it the consensus among all Jewish scholars that secular time and Jewish theological time converge and maintain alignment from the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE to the present?


8. From what point moving forward (if there is such a point) is there Jewish scholarly consensus regarding the alignment of secular time and Jewish theological time in terms of a precise correspondence between the literal Hebrew calendar and the literal BCE/CE calendar?


9. Is the Rambam accepted as a major figure in Judaism by all denominations and by secular Jewish scholars such that one could take his scholarship as a watershed event in the Rabbinic Era?


10. Is there a specific year after the publication of the Mishneh Torah when the calendar became halakhically fixed and literally in precise alignment with the secular calendar?


11. Do the calculations of Maimonides require the rabbinic date of 422 BCE to be the only acceptable date for the destruction of the First Temple in perpetuity, or do they set a precedent for scientific adjustment that could include a revision to the 587 BCE date?


12. Do both positions on this matter - the position of a Conservative Jewish legal scholar and an Orthodox Jewish legal scholar - depend on faith in expert authority figures?


13. How does sensitivity to the tension between the authority of the Sages and the authority of modern historians play out as one moves from the position of Rabbi Yitz Greenberg to the position of Rabbi Breuer - what contemporary rabbinic sages are in the gray zone here?


14. Is it safe and respectful to both sides for a Gentile scholar to say that the secular date of the destruction of the First Temple is ~587 BCE while the traditional Hebrew calendar date is ~3340 AM?


Here is how Google Gemini summarizes the answer to that last question:



So, on this basis, I am now ready to conclude. I will distinguish between two Jewish understandings of time - a secular academic understanding and a traditional rabbinic understanding. I think it's necessary to respect the roots of both views, and the tension between them, in order to appreciate Jewish thought in all its depth and rigor. Within the traditional rabbinic understanding, as embodied in the Hebrew calendar, the Biblical Era (what I call Cosmogenesis) extends from 1 AM to 3400 AM, at which point the Rabbinic Era begins, first in a transitional period led by the Soferim, then by the Zugot, and then by the Tannaim and successive Rabbinic groupings. The Rabbinic Era ends during the Holocaust and is followed by the Third Era according to the potentially prophetic view of Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, but most Modern Orthodox rabbis teach that we are still in the Rabbinic Era, specifically the Acharonim period, which began in 5621 AM.


Within the secular academic Jewish understanding, as embodied in the BCE/CE system, it seems fair to say that the Hebrew Biblical Era begins around 1200 BCE with the Merneptah Stele and concludes in 332 BCE with the start of the Hellenistic Period.

Extra-credit question set:

  • When most academic scholars refer to the Biblical Era, do they have in mind a period that includes New Testament events as well? 
  • Why does the Biblical Era end in 400 BCE according to this secular framework?
  • From a secular academic perspective, is there an argument that can be made to end the Biblical Era with the start of the Hellenistic Period?
  • Could this also be defined as the Hebrew Biblical Period, perhaps in an interfaith context including Christian scholars?

Extra-credit answer thread:


Whew. And I still seem to have energy, for some reason.

End 9:40 PM.

Addendum: I almost forgot to mention that the length of the discrepancy between the dates of the destruction of the First Temple according to the secular academic and traditional rabbinic points of view is exactly the length of a Neptune orbit: 165 years.

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