Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Earth at the Center of the Universe
Mifletzet:
--- Quote from: jdl4ever on June 05, 2007, 11:02:42 PM ---Actually the Talmud never says the sun goes around the earth, in fact it says the opposite, that the earth goes around the sun since it states that the Rabbis admitted to the Greeks after arguing that the stars are stationary and we move which means that they don't go around us like the geocentricists suggest..
--- End quote ---
If you are refering to the Talmud Pesachim 94, you are completely in error.
Chazal, like everyone else (apart from Aristarchus and a few Greek heretical philosophers), were exclusively Geocentric until the 17th century.
If there is some heretofore unknown Talmud supporting Heliocentrism, please give us the source and quote us it!
Lubab:
--- Quote from: Muck DeFuslims on June 05, 2007, 10:54:23 PM ---
Does anyone know what Talmudic passage(s) specify that the Sun orbits the Earth ?
As great as our Talmudic sages were, we must remember they were human, and the Talmud in and of itself is not divine.
So if anyone can provide the Talmudic text stating the Sun orbits the Earth and what Biblical text this supposition is based on it would be much appreciated.
--- End quote ---
See Maimonedes in his Mishne Torah Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah 3:4 where he first explains the various orbits of the planets and stars and then says "and they all orbit around earth in circular fashion while earth is suspended in the middle".
For those who don't know, Maimonedes in this book gives the rulings from the Talmud and if there were any disagreements he decided them. He was also a great astronemer and medical doctor. His mind was so great he was compared to Moses-so his tombstone states "From Moses (the original) to Moses (Moses son of Maimon=Maimondes) there arose none like Moses".
Note: though Chaim may have another tradition. In Lubavitch we hold that all Torah literature up to and included the Shach and Taz (around 1600s) ARE divinely inspired. How there could be disputes in Divine writings is a topic for another time.
Lubab:
The Talmud on this issue is actually in Maseches Yuma it says that the Scholars of the Jews debated with the scholars of the gentiles and the scholars of the gentiles won the debate. The Rabbis however, did NOT give in to their arguments in spite of this beause they said the Torah says otherwise. They quoted a particular verse, which I will try to find for you next week G-d willing.
Muck DeFuslims:
Thank you, Lubab.
"See Maimonedes in his Mishne Torah Hilchos Yesodei Hatorah 3:4 where he first explains the various orbits of the planets and stars and then says "and they all orbit around earth in circular fashion while earth is suspended in the middle"."
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with Maimonides on this particular issue. I don't believe the Earth is suspended in the middle or that the other planets in the solar system are orbiting around the Earth.
I have only the slightest and most superficial knowledge of the Talmud and Bible. I have heard that Nachmonides gives an account of the creation of the Universe, how it expanded from a particle about the size of a mustard grain, from a substance almost without substance, how time took hold and other mind boggling concepts. He didn't take credit for these revelations, but credited them to his Rabbis who learned them from previous Rabbis etc. etc.
I guess my real question is where did this knowledge originally come from ?
Can such deductions and knowledge have been ascertained merely from an expansion of Biblical text ? Did the knowledge come from oral teachings passed down from generation to generation over thousands of years ? If so, when and where did the oral transmission of such amazing knowledge originate ? The whole thing is very mysterious and puzzling to me.
One thing is certain, the vastness and mysteries of the Universe are beyond human comprehension.
jdl4ever:
Rabbinic opinions on science were never transmitted in the oral law and have no authority unless it says so directly in the Bible and there is no other possible meaning since the Rabbis were not experts in Science, they were experts in Torah and Scientific discovery improves as time passes on so old concepts are disproven and replaced every generation. Maimonities tried to explain the Torah using the Science of his time, as we all should, and he was very advanced for his time period, but the stuff he writes about medicine and some stuff he writes about planetary motion is outdated. Also, Lubav is twisting the Talmudic passage that says the Earth goes around the Sun to mean something it did not intend to mean. In the Talmud, it is fairly straight forward that the Rabbis accepted the Greek's point of view, otherwise the Talmud would not have said that the secular scientists won. Don't you think the Talmud would have said that the Rabbis won the argument if they were correct? Obviously, the scientists proved their theory to the Rabbis.
Secondly, you don't understand relativity Lubav. Anywhere outside Earth's atmosphere or the Sun's atmosphere is an objective standpoint according to relativity since you are no longer on those two objects. Spacecrafts that we went on missions to the moon were not orbiting us when they went on their mission, they were traveling through space. Also, as I said before, relativity has nothing to do with anything except confusing Lubav. Mathematical and scientific proof proved that we go around the sun since if you calculate the orbital paths of the planets, they can only be going around the Sun. Forget about relativity. It doesn't matter how things look to cave men, objective proof of the reality is what matters. If we had no scientific proof then relativity would say that either we go around the sun or it goes around us since by observation only your point of reference matters, but once the proof came in, we eliminated the other possibility.
Again, the Earth goes around the Sun. It has been proven hundreds of years ago, and continues to be proven to this day. They sent space probes to Pluto and Mars using calculations from the modern scientific model of the universe which says we go around the Sun. If it was the other way around, don't you think the probes would not have gotten there? It amazes me how stupid people can be. I can't believe there are still people who think the Earth is the center of the universe, after so much proof. It only makes me see more things wrong with Chassidism.
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