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CHAPTER 22 GENESIS CREATION STORY AND RECENT COSMOLOGICAL FINDINGS—…
CHAPTER 22 GENESIS CREATION STORY AND RECENT COSMOLOGICAL FINDINGS—… 299
22.5 Methodological Aspects —Some Comments

In this section we address some methodological aspects pertaining to the statisti-
cal analyses of this chapter. We also respond to some comments, of a more general
character, regarding the statistical analyses in this composition, which we have

encountered in public presentations delivered since publication of the first edition
of the book.

22.5.1 Selection of X Values (Genesis creation story)
A legitimate concern may be raised regarding dating of various cosmological events
described in Genesis creation story. For example, light was created by utterance of
the Divine on the first day; therefore we have assigned X 1=1. However, nowhere

in scripture is there indication at what point of time, in the first “Day,” was light

created. One may therefore wonder why not assign X 1=0.5 (namely, light created
at the middle of the first “Day,” whatever “Day” means), or X 1=0 (namely, light

created at the start of the first “Day”)?

There are two sorts of justifications for this legitimate question. The first is that
by Jewish tradition any instant given in terms of time units refers to the end of

the specified time unit. Relate, for example, to Molad ve-Yad (chapter 18). This
term, part and parcel of Jewish Oral Torah, embodies Jewish credo that first man

was created at the end of the fourteenth hour of Genesis “Friday”, and that this

is also the instant when the moon started its first cycle. However, “ve-Yad” only
symbolizes “14” in terms of numerical values of Hebrew letters (refer to chapter
18). Nowhere in Jewish tradition does it say at what instant in the fourteenth
hour (whatever “Hour” means) was the first human being created. Although this

looks marginal and inconsequential, the ramifications of this assertion cannot be
discounted: Jewish calendar is based on the moon, and according to Jewish tra-
dition the average lunar month is 29.53059 days (refer to chapter 18). As the
reader may realize on reading that chapter, obtaining the correct value for the
lunar month duration requires the assumption that man was created at the end of
the fourteenth hour. The high accuracy, achieved in calculating the duration of
the lunar month, could not have been obtained had we assumed another value for

the instant of man creation (and the beginning of the first lunar cycle). Asserting
that Adam was created at the end of the fourteenth hour of Friday thus becomes
crucial for the calculation of lunar month duration according to Jewish tradition.
In a similar vein, we have assumed in our analyses that if, for example, Genesis
story asserts that light was created on the first day of creation, this implies X 1=1,

namely, the end of the first day. Same rule had been applied throughout the data
collection process, as described earlier.