I had a big shock yesterday. Readers will hopefully be familiar with the basic story described in my monograph The Sun's Path At Night. Many of Chazal subscribed to the ancient Babylonian cosmology in which the universe is a dome, and when the sun sets at night, it does not continue to orbit the far side of the earth; rather, it changes direction, passes through the firmament, and circles up and behind the sky. This model was challenged by the Greek Ptolemaic model, in which the earth is a sphere, and the sun orbits the earth in a circular path. R. Yehudah HaNasi acknowledged that the Greek model appeared correct.
Just When You Think That You Know Somebody
Just When You Think That You Know Somebody
Just When You Think That You Know Somebody
I had a big shock yesterday. Readers will hopefully be familiar with the basic story described in my monograph The Sun's Path At Night. Many of Chazal subscribed to the ancient Babylonian cosmology in which the universe is a dome, and when the sun sets at night, it does not continue to orbit the far side of the earth; rather, it changes direction, passes through the firmament, and circles up and behind the sky. This model was challenged by the Greek Ptolemaic model, in which the earth is a sphere, and the sun orbits the earth in a circular path. R. Yehudah HaNasi acknowledged that the Greek model appeared correct.