Derech – I drew no conclusions, simply asked a question. The question essentially remains unanswered. And, as I pointed out, the question of the age of the universe is not a matter of ‘Rabbinical Knowledge’ as there are many Rabbinical opinions.
Your tzu shtell to flat Earths and suns going around them is not especially valid. For starters people knew that the Earth was not flat for many thousands of years, but secondly because HKB’H put methods of determining the shape of the Earth, and also of heliocentricity, into the berioh, they simply remained to be discovered. In this case, it is the methods of determining that have already been discovered that are leading to the mistaken conclusions, not just the article by simple observation.
I think you also fail to address my problem with applying your Sifsei Chaim to dinosaur bones by taking a far too literal approach to my statement about Alpha Centauri, Alpha Centauri is lav davka (although Deneb might have been a better choice – it is 7000 light years away, yet we see its light…). All I was pointing out was that it a very arbitrary application. So maybe Alpha Centauri is still ‘working’, but what about an extinct volcano? Is that also a remnant? Furthermore, it falls foul of Russel, because I can claim any date I want and anything that appears older I can call a physical remnant of a spiritual existence. I can claim that the universe is 450 years old and the cemeteries are simply full of physical remnants of spiritual existences.
I’m not sure I understand your point about deer, I think that keeping something in existence (the deer had a skeleton whilst it was still alive) is hardly comparable to creating a physicality just to have an existence.
I’m not going to discuss paradigm shifts here, but, as a quick note on your point about abiogenesis: “Vayitzer H’ Elokim es ho’odom ofor min ho’adomo” (Bereshis 2,7). Abiogenesis ;-)?
Also, the cyclical (or spiral) nature of time time is hardly relevant. Whether time is a pond or a stream, if there is more than a certain amount of it, there is more than that amount. The branch cosmology doesn’t work in this instance as that would involve parallel existences whereas we are positing sequential ones. Olom kadmon is the term the Rishonim use for Steady State Theory; the Big Bounce (as you call it) is simply a modern iteration of it as it involves the infinitude of both matter and time.
As for Seder Olom being quoted in the gemoro, there are a number of things that are in there that are not of Tannaic or Amoraic authorship. Unless the person quoting it is a Tanna or an Amora, this would not rule out later authorship. Second, the fact that it goes through the generations is irrelevant as that goes back to Odom, not the sheshes yemei bereishis. And I know there is what to have a massive argument about there.
Anon1m0us – I think you are just as mistaken in your certitude in an old universe as, say, 2Scents or gotbeer are in theirs in an young one…
Health – it is not a gemoro, but a Gr’a. Which simply proves that he held that the universe is 6000 odd years old, not that the universe actually is that age.