Talk:Hebrew astronomy

As Johann Műller (Regiomontanus) died on 6 July 1476, it seems highly questionble that David Gans ever corresponded with him.

B00P 21:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Must have been the oldest man alive to correspond with Regiomontanus and Kepler. I think this article needs considerable trimming: cut the redundant stuff in Biblical cosmology and trim that enormous list of red names. Maestlin 04:53, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

I just did a Google search on "Biblical astronomy" and "Biblical cosmology" in the process of thinking about whether the two articles could be merged. Found a lot of weird stuff relating to modern interpretations of the Bible--geocentrism and so forth. The historical parts of these articles should be strippped out and put into a new page with a title like "Astronomy in the Bible," and these two pages merged to hold the modern Bible study stuff. Maestlin 01:34, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Is that a typo about Rabban Gamaliel and a "telescope"? He lived only about 15 centuries before its invention! --Tomrosenfeld 18:47, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

The original text of this article (I've modified a few passages) was taken straight from the Jewish Encyclopaedia. I have no idea what the author had in mind. but the word "telescope" should probably be read loosely, maybe it's just a sighting tube or a mirror. If you feel confident about it, take it out! Maestlin 23:57, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Cleanup or re-write

Hi. I've no expertise in this material; I came here because I was curious about the phrase "waters above the firmament". I'm not in a position to edit the page, but I've very strong stylistic concerns about it. Particularly, I'm concerned that much of this article reads like an apologia, which an encyclopaedic artical really must not be. Certainly it is in conflict with NPOV. I'm particularly concerned about narrative comments, such as "... which is not a bad description ...", and a comparison of Hebrew astronomy with scientific knowledge, which is very much making an argument. In short, the piece is very strongly in need of an expert on the source material, who is prepared to not write an apologia.

Accordingly, I have added to this page the "expert" tag. Cmsg 15:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I'm adding the NPOV tag to the top of the page as well. 132.18.128.6 13:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I have much the same analysis. If this stuff has been advocated by theologians, it needs to be presented in context as apologetics. "Rev. John Johnson of Kansas points out that, 'Over a dozen verses in the Bible say God stretches the heavens. Most scientists presently hold that the Universe is being stretched. The earth's atmosphere was formed by violent volcanic eruptions, thus, "beaten out" might not be a bad description.'" If this is just the personal conclusion of some Wikipedia editor then it doesn't belong at all. (On a potentially offtopic side note I must say that this is really cringe-inducingly silly stuff. If I were a Christian I'd be embarrased by this type of thing - the Bible predicts an expanding universe? In between explaining how speckled goats come from plain goats that copulate in the presence of speckly objects (Gen. 30:37) and how rabbits are really ruminants (Lev. 11:6) no doubt. Oh sure, the Hebrews could do tensor algebra, but they were baffled by barnyard animals... Riiight....) <eleland/talkedits> 15:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Inaccuracy

The section corresponding the Jewish months with the signs of the Zodiac is inaccurate. Nisan (the first month on the Jewish calendar) does not correspond with January (Gregorian first month) but with September. This calendar also ignores leap year in the Jewish calendar, which adds an extra month every couple years. Kristamaranatha (talk) 21:44, 18 December 2008 (UTC)