[Avodah] Shitas R' Tam

[Zev Sero]

D&E-H Bannett wrote:
> Re R'ZS comment<< It is simply not possible to ignore the 
> latitude, and to pretend that X minutes after sunset it is 
> just as dark at 52 degrees as it is at 32 degrees.  It's 
> obvious that the farther you are from the equator, the 
> longer it takes the sun to
> sink a given number of degrees below the horizon, and 
> therefore to reach a given degree of darkness.>>
> 
> Of  course it is possible and quite logical.  Your error is 
> that you labor under the misconception so common today that 
> the earth is a ball rotating around itself and also around 
> the sun.  If you go back to our ancient and well proven 
> tradition of a flat earth with the sun going around it, the 
> light disappears all over at the same time.

It doesn't matter what's rotating or orbiting around what.  All that
matters is that the earth is in fact a globe.  Which was known in
Chazal's time, and certainly in that of the rishonim.  Indeed, by
Chazal's day Erastothenes had already correctly estimated its size,
which appears in the gemara (can't find it at the moment) as 6000
parsa, not too far from the correct size.  


> bivrakha,
> Claudius Ptolemaeus 

Who knew perfectly well that the earth is a globe, and could easily
have made the necessary calculation to apply the various shitot of
bein hashmashot to any place and date.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas