Timeline for Did a Jewish rabbi precisely calculate the duration of the full moon cycle 1800 years ago?
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22 events
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| Jan 19, 2022 at 0:38 | comment | added | Uncle | Note that in addition to the answer by fdb showing that Ptolemy had earlier recorded this value from the earlier Babylonians, R’Gamliel in the quoted gemara mistakenly states that the value given is the minimum duration for a lunar month, when it is in fact the average. | |
| Mar 6, 2021 at 13:55 | comment | added | phoog | The accepted answer depends on the ability to measure the time during the solar day of a lunar eclipse with high accuracy and precision, but there is no evidence given that this was possible. Clocks could not be reliably expected to lose or gain less than 15 minutes a day until maybe 500 years ago. | |
| Sep 28, 2016 at 14:24 | comment | added | kenorb | Ancients had this ability, see similar: science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6272/482 | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 16:44 | comment | added | Paul Johnson | So if I should convert to Judaism because Zohar was very clever, should I also convert to the pantheism of Einstein, the atheism of Stephen Hawking, and whatever odd brand of Christianity Newton believed in, all at the same time? | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 12:31 | comment | added | Oddthinking♦ | @Johann: It would be good to quote the exact claim from the book. In particular, I am unclear whether the number 29.530588853 comes from you, an exact quote of The Coming Revolution or an exact quote of Zohar. We may be reading too much here, in that the moon itself isn't accurate to that degree - that is an average over a long period. | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 12:29 | comment | added | Oddthinking♦ | @hdhondt: No, but the number may have been expressed a different way. | |
| Apr 5, 2016 at 11:20 | history | edited | Christian |
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| Mar 30, 2016 at 20:41 | answer | added | yoel halb | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jan 11, 2016 at 18:09 | comment | added | Henry | There is some doubt as to the dating of the Zohar and of Kabbalah in general, as there is no documentary evidence before the 2nd millennium (CE). But accurate lunar astronomy was possible well before this. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 15:42 | vote | accept | Johann | ||
| Mar 8, 2015 at 21:42 | answer | added | fdb | timeline score: 18 | |
| Mar 3, 2015 at 16:38 | answer | added | Double AA | timeline score: 35 | |
| Mar 3, 2015 at 10:03 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 3, 2015 at 16:41 | |||||
| Mar 3, 2015 at 2:55 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackSkeptic/status/572591089133215744 | ||
| Mar 2, 2015 at 22:50 | comment | added | hdhondt | 29.530588853 as far as I know, decimal fractions were not in use by any civilisation at that time | |
| Mar 2, 2015 at 20:01 | comment | added | A E | One might suggest that confirmation bias and cherry picking could be coming into play here. If one has enough source material to work from, and a sufficiently vague, allegorical approach to interpreting it, then one can 'prove' anything at all. This is how numerology works. Also relevant: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code | |
| Mar 2, 2015 at 19:44 | comment | added | jamesqf | A few seconds with Google (and some prior knowledge) will find multiple references to the Babylonians and others calculating the moon cycle, and much else, many centuries earlier. Here's a concise article on the precision question: thetruthiswrong.com/indeed/belief/argument-and-preaching/… In your place, I'd also ask how a calculation like this can prove religion. Maybe if the number was written down in some holy book or other... | |
| Mar 2, 2015 at 19:43 | comment | added | user7920 | From a comment in the page linked above, "I would be very cautious (or rather selective) when citing Zamir Cohen. A lot of the material in his books is absolute nonsense, superstitious pseudoscience and has nothing to do with Torah. (And thus, raises the issue of דרכי האמורי)." | |
| Mar 2, 2015 at 19:40 | history | edited | user7920 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Incorporate edit into the question, additional clean-up.
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| Mar 2, 2015 at 19:02 | history | edited | Johann | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 104 characters in body
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| Mar 2, 2015 at 17:48 | review | First posts | |||
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| Mar 2, 2015 at 17:46 | history | asked | Johann | CC BY-SA 3.0 |