[Avodah] flat earth

[Micha Berger]

I'm not picking on RET< really I'm not. But here's a reply to another of
his posts. I guess we just tend to share common interests:

>> It's not all revisionism, though.  It is pretty clear that at least some
>> of Hazal did know that the earth was a globe:
>> http://fkmaniac.blogspot.com/2009/03/chazal-earth-is-made-like-ball.html

> Yes some but not all chazal. I have a book that claims that in general
> the scientific knowledge of Rav Yochanan was greater than Shmuel in
> spite of Shmuel's statement. Hence, it would not be surprising that it
> is the Yerushalmi that got it right.

It's not surprising because Aristotle got it right. The Romans were back
and forth on it, but the idea was "out there" back in Anshei Kenesses
haGedolah's days.

The Romans were less sure. Way back I argued that the opinions we find
in Chazal simply evolve over time roughly in parallel with the debates
of the non-Jewish scientists of their period. Generally tending toward
the conservative side. I can't find that post in the archives, so I'm
just going to copy-n-paste the less complete version I sent scjm in 2001.

In the days of Alexander (Tamid 31b), we believed that the world was flat.
That rules out the Ptolmeic universe. R' Eliezer and R' Yehushua (1st
cent CE) both describe the flood (R"H 11b) as falling through the heaven
onto the earth. This is the same era in which we have the opinion that
the sun goes behind the sky at night (Pisachim 94b), and that the world
floats on the tehom, or is held above it by pillars (Chagigah 12b). The
sky is a lid that touches, or almost touches, the earth at its edges
(Chagiga 15a). All in all, a flat earth, no orbits.

R Yehudah haNasi (Pisachim 94b; 2nd cent CE) championed the Jewish sages
over the non-Jewish sages that the "galgal" (R' Avraham b' HaRambam, the
Aruch: the sphere) is fixed, and the "mazalos" (R' Avraham b' HaRambam:
contellations) move. His proof: We never see the Wagon (the Big Dipper)
in the south or Scorpio in the north. So, by the end of the tannaim,
we certainly believed that the stars were embedded in a solid sphere.
Ptolmey published the same idea in Almagest, mid-2nd cent CE, a couple
of decades before.

R' Chiya, although a talmid of Rebbe's, didn't understand that when the
non-Jews said the sun went under the earth, it was in an orbit. The
b'raisa supports that idea because "pools are warm at night". So, he
thought that the sun were closer to the pools when it was under the
earth, and not that it was going in a full circle staying a constant
(or near constant) distance. But at this time, Ptolmy's Almagest hadn't
become universally accepted by the non-Jewish world yet either.

And, of course, we know how Rishonim consistantly understood the sun
standing still for Yehoshua. Ptolmeic. Once again, like the conservative
side of scientific thought of their contemporaries.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
http://www.aishdas.org   and it flies away.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter