Borns Jewish Studies Program

This course investigates the relationship between Judaism—understood both as a set of practices and norms (in the sense of observing Jewish mitvot) and as a collection of beliefs and values (in the sense of the Torah [and other sacred texts] as a form of instruction)—and science—understood both as a set of practices and norms (which together comprise “modern scientific method”) and as a collection of disciplines and areas of knowledge (biology, physics, chemistry, astronomy and more). We often think of religion and science as in a conflictual relation: either one is guided by science, with its inescapable skepticism and fallibilism, or one is guided by religion, with its demand for certainty, faith and revealed perfect wisdom. This course asks if this truism applies in the case of Judaism and history of Jewish thought, attending to questions like: what do the rabbis teach about judging on the basis of scientific evidence? Are there miracles according to Judaism, and if so, can this be squared with scientific explanation? Is Judaism in tension with scientific theories such as evolutionary theory, entropy, or quantum theory and randomness in the same way that Christianity seems to be? If not, why not?