Astonishing Celestial Knowledge of the Talmud

Hi again fellow Above Top Secretaries

Genesis 26:4
"I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed"

Is this a blessing or a curse? Seemingly a curse because before the invention of the telescope in the 1500s only several thousand stars were visible.

There are only about 5,000 stars visible to the naked, average, human eye, MinutePhysics points out. And, because the Earth itself gets in the way, you can only see about a half of those from where you stand

But the Talmud (oral Torah tradition) relates the following jaw dropping statement

In Tractate Brachot, page 32b, the Talmud records a tradition, in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish, that there are roughly 10^18 stars in the universe. This number is remarkably big and much closer to the current scientific consensus of 10^22 than common sense would allow.

The Holy One, blessed be He, answered her: My daughter, twelve constellations have I created in the firmament, and for each constellation I have created thirty hosts, and for each host I have created thirty legions, and for each legion I have created thirty cohorts, and for each cohort I have created thirty maniples, and for each maniple I have created thirty camps, and to each camp20 I have attached three hundred and sixty-five thousands of myriads of stars, corresponding to the days of the solar year

A number of this magnitude is unheard of in the ancient world.
Let alone that a civilization totally without optical aid devices could even arrive at such a number by educated guessing

Very interestingly though this breakdown of Heavenly Cohorts seems to exactly match the formations of Galactic clusters and mega clusters.

To describe the stars as clustered together, both locally and in clusters of clusters, was far beyond the imagination and the telescopes of scientists until Edwin Hubble's famous photographs of Andromeda in the 1920s. Galactic clusters and superclusters have been described only in the past decade or so. Moreover, the Talmud states categorically that the number of galaxies in a cluster is about 30. And wouldn't you know it, astronomers today set the number of galaxies in our own local cluster at 30!

The Talmud itself relates that this information was handed down from previous generation, making the statement even more perplexing.




Link

a reply to: dashen

Seems like they had access to the same knowledge that the Sumerians which eventually got passed on to the Babylonians and Egyptians etc.. I'm guessing the Sumerians had it passed on to them by the GODS (Aliens) or from a previous civilization we are not being told about.

The writers of the Talmud did not originally discover the things mentioned in OP.

Just a rehash, just like all the other religious stories IMO.

a reply to: DigitalVigilante420

Seeing as how Abraham was Sumerian royalty, it's really more like family tradition

a reply to: dashen

Under a desert sky without any light pollution the milky way is very visible and does look like a cluster of never ending stars. It looks to be a lot more than 5,000 to me. The sky looks very busy. I think I would be more thinking there were numberless stars in the sky and that it went on forever like that.

The Talmud is not very old:

"The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (Hebrew: משנה, c. 200 CE), a written compendium of Rabbinic Judaism's Oral Torah (Talmud translates literally as "instruction" in Hebrew); and the Gemara (c. 500 CE), an elucidation of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Hebrew Bible. The term "Talmud" may refer to either the Gemara alone, or the Mishnah and Gemara together."

It really does seem a common sense metaphor to use to describe numberlessness.

I am not sure the example you use from the Talmud necessarily shows anything like a uniquely scientific and "jaw dropping" understanding on a par with modern astronomy. You and others may be just interpreting it that way.

Can you show me the part of the Talmud where Lakish tell us about the numbers of galaxies and stars? You have not included that quote from Talmud.

The Talmud is huge. There are 73 Volumes in the current standard English Edition of the complete version. Shakespeare wrote many plays, a huge amount of pages, expression and information. Let us see if we can find anything from Shakespeare about the stars to put forward a case that coincidence can happen:

“Doubt [suspect] thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
(Hamlet, act 2, scene 2)

How did Shakespeare know the stars are fire? Whoaaa, spooky. He is saying the Sun is a star, too.

Now the Hebrews got all this stuff from Babylonian Astronomy. The number 30 you cite is more linked in my opinion to the days of the month. If you go to this link and have a good read you may appreciate this.

Astronomy of Babylon

The Hebrews borrowed heavily from other cultures as all cultures do when they are exposed to each other, even in conquest and assimilation (assimilation of knowledge, too).

The Babylonian astronomy is very much older as a tradition than the Talmud. The Talmud is recording earlier oral traditions of the Hebrews, but also knowledge and traditions from Babylonian culture, too, with which they shared original ancestry if we are to conjecture that Abraham came from Assyria. The Hebrew oral tradition may have in fact been recognisable to the Hebrews themselves and Babylonia as having a shared original source? Their time in Babylon gave rise to a huge renaissance of Hebraic culture and the first writings of the Torah, poems and stories from the oral tradition, which the scribes authored very much under the influence of Greek hero literature. Even the 2nd Temple itself was very much a culmination of this renaissance period. I have written a few threads about the Greek and Babylonian literature tradition being a huge influence on the written version of Torah and the other legends, myths and history. The Iliad, Odyssey, Epic of Gilgamesh will all contain elements of history as well as myth. Doubtless these bright Hebrew scholars would have had ravenous intellectual appetites with all that new literature and thinking available to them during the Babylon captivity.

Cultures have been relating to and influence each other a very long time.

a reply to: Revolution9

do you ever read the thread before you hit that REPLY button?

your statement betrays a general ignorance of the subject matter.

The Holy One, blessed be He, answered her: My daughter, twelve constellations have I created in the firmament, and for each constellation I have created thirty hosts, and for each host I have created thirty legions, and for each legion I have created thirty cohorts, and for each cohort I have created thirty maniples, and for each maniple I have created thirty camps, and to each camp20 I have attached three hundred and sixty-five thousands of myriads of stars, corresponding to the days of the solar year

I challenge you to find ANY MENTION AT ALL of an ancient culture predicting the NUMBER of stars in the heavens.

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Revolution9

do you ever read the thread before you hit that REPLY button?

The Holy One, blessed be He, answered her: My daughter, twelve constellations have I created in the firmament, and for each constellation I have created thirty hosts, and for each host I have created thirty legions, and for each legion I have created thirty cohorts, and for each cohort I have created thirty maniples, and for each maniple I have created thirty camps, and to each camp20 I have attached three hundred and sixty-five thousands of myriads of stars, corresponding to the days of the solar year

I challenge you to find ANY MENTION AT ALL of an ancient culture predicting the NUMBER of stars in the heavens.

Yes, I did read your post. Just the way it was written. Do the sum for us to shows us how Lakish is right then, that it adds up to what your other source that you don't mention got its figures from. Is it 10^18? I don't want to take their word for it. I want to see it demonstrated that this sum adds up to that figure, please.

Where did your uncredited source get 10^22 from?

"There are about 10 billion galaxies in the observable universe! The number of stars in a galaxy varies, but assuming an average of 100 billion stars per galaxy means that there are about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that's 1 billion trillion) stars in the observable universe!"

Ok, is that the same? I am not good at maths. Someone please tell me. Is 1 billion trillion the same as 10^22. The Talmud is well short of that. Does that mean God is not very good at maths, too, or the Hebrew holy man can't count like me? Even these latest figures are a wild card of estimation. That is admitted in this quote "assuming".

Also, this is just a guess and it is only meaning the observable. Is Lakish telling us that in the year 2015 there will be less stars, but near enough for superstitious minds, in his estimation observable to us than what science now says? Will his figures mean anything in a hundred years from now as having any accuracy at all?

This number is only meaning anything like something because that is what we see today. It is a rough estimation of the observable stars, not the actual stars and then only the ones that the latest telescopes can see. Future telescopes may double, triple or quadruple this figure.

This gives an insight into the different civilizations' attempts at astronomy.

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

Well lots of cultures had star charts. I am no expert, but I don't think the modern Talmud is the only literature that records astronomy.

I am still sure that number 30 Lakish uses has a different symbolism to the galaxy cluster. It is you guys who are making that sum up, you and your source.

"Currently, 14 men and women, 9 birds, two insects, 19 land animals, 10 water creatures, two centaurs, one head of hair, a serpent, a dragon, a flying horse, a river and 29 inanimate objects are represented in the night sky (the total comes to more than 88 because some constellations include more than one creature.)"

Lot more than twelve constellations now, eh. You are trying to make classic astronomy to be spooky and matching with modern scientific astronomy. I see just a small coincidence of numbers. If you choose to see it as spooky Rabbi new how many stars there were 1, 800 years ago, great, . I do not. Your evidence is scanty, very selective and actually relying on antiquated ancient medieval guesses that the authors wished others to believe were sacred and visionary.

Discussing potential open and globular clusters of stars

kima

Berachot 58b
What is Kima? Shmuel said: like a hundred stars. Some say that they are
gathered together, and some that they are scattered.

a reply to: Revolution9

did that make sense when you typed it?
because it didnt make sense when i read it.

it says stars.
it gives a number of groups, in each group there is further groups and so on.
12 groups of constellations/quadrants of the sky in 13deg arc across the sky.
each containing 30 sub groups and so on?
do you wanna be fed like a mama bird does for her chicks?

100000000000000000000000000000= 10^29

and lets not forget that the statement is only referring to stars within the constellations

Not worth it.

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Revolution9

did that make sense when you typed it?
because it didnt make sense when i read it.

it says stars.
it gives a number of groups, in each group there is further groups and so on.
12 groups of constellations/quadrants of the sky in 13deg arc across the sky.
each containing 30 sub groups and so on?
do you wanna be fed like a mama bird does for her chicks?

100000000000000000000000000000= 10^29

But that is yet only an estimation. It is also a third more approximately than what Lakish said. So Lakish only knew less than two thirds the figure we have today. That is some margin of error we are allowing him. That is going to get less and less correct, too, with each new telescope that gets invented.

Ok, so now we can appreciate that Lakish only had twelve constellations of dot to dot let us make interesting child drawings in the sky when we have about 88. Lakish's figure is only two thirds or less that of current observable stars that science says it can see now. Lakish uses the 30 system that so many other calendar astronomers used. They all thought there was a divine system in place that corresponded celestially and terrestrially. We know now that thew cosmos does not correspond to our vain assumptions and man made number systems. That is the same kind of vanity that put the earth at the centre of the universe once.

a reply to: Revolution9

Your questions have been answered in the above edited postS

originally posted by: TzarChasm
Not worth it.

Go on . don't be shy

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Revolution9

Your questions have been answered in the above edited postS

No they haven't. Please answer my criticism as stated.

a reply to: Revolution9

The 12 constellations of antiquity which fall within the sun's ecliptic comprise a section of the sky.
It is my understanding that my quoted statement refers to the stars that are found within that belt.
Which as far as I understand is the largest number ever recorded in antiquity.

originally posted by: dashen
before the invention of the telescope in the 1500s only several thousand stars were visible.

Don’t forget that the milky way was also observed, millions of stars, as well as M31, or Andromeda galaxy, without a telescope. I don’t know if anyone back then knew that these were stars but they were, and continue to be, visible to the unaided eye.

twelve constellations have I created in the firmament, and for each constellation I have created thirty hosts,

This seems to describe a celestial coordinate system we use today. Each of the 12 constellations consists of 30° that make up one orbit around the Sun (12x30=360°). The origin of our celestial coordinate system appears to predate recorded history. Aspects of this system can be found in many ancient texts, religious and scientific, yet the origin remains unknown as far as I could ascertain.

and for each host I have created thirty legions, and for each legion I have created thirty cohorts,

If this is describing celestial coordinates then each host (degree) should contain 60 legions (arc minutes) and each legion should contain 60 cohorts (arc seconds). Perhaps my assumption is wrong as the rest does not make sense in this respect yet the last line seems to confirm.

corresponding to the days of the solar year

So is this a representation of the Earth in one solar orbit? This is interesting yet it doesn’t seem to fit the title.

originally posted by: dashen
A number of this magnitude is unheard of in the ancient world.

See Hindu Cosmology. Hindu cosmology describes a cyclical timeline of creation of an extremely large magnitude. I'm not sure if it describes the number of stars or galaxies yet I see no evidence, outside of apparent contrived speculation, that your source does either but maybe I missed it.

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Revolution9

The 12 constellations of antiquity which fall within the sun's ecliptic comprise a section of the sky.
It is my understanding that my quoted statement refers to the stars that are found within that belt.
Which as far as I understand is the largest number ever recorded in antiquity.

So Lakish is only counting the ones in the twelve constellations. Is that only a portion of the sky or did the ancients divide the whole sky into the 12 constellations?

The figures do not seem to add up is what I am saying as I pointed out and the number is very likely to grow as telescopes keep getting more powerful and the technology to see further away becomes better.

This number 30 is striking me as something very arbitrary. Who said there are 30 clusters? This is NOT science. Look with your own eyes at Galaxy Cluster SCIENCE here:

en.wikipedia.org...

Like this article says,

"Defining the limits of galaxy clusters is imprecise as many clusters are still forming. In particular, clusters close to the Milky Way tend to be classified as galaxy clusters even when they are much smaller than more distant clusters."

The lists in that article are nothing like the 30 of your source.

In my final opinion your source is exaggerating, picking and choosing ancient text and avoiding modern science to give spooky value to an ancient Hebrew Rabbi, with the desired effect of brainwashing his naïve audience that the Bible and the Jewish Talmud are divinely inspired with so called divine knowledge of the cosmos (in this instance having divine knowledge of the number of stars) as proof of their divine status. Bah, Humbug as Scrooge was so fond of saying. I see no proof, just a lot of wishful thinking and attempts to deceive the unwary soul who does not check these outlandish claims against scientific fact.

The only thing you can say with a degree in certainty that Lakish has the highest number of counted stars in his ancient description. Though I am sure the stars looked pretty numberless to our ancestors when the full Milky Way was displayed in its glory on those clearest of ancient nights.

originally posted by: dashen
and lets not forget that the statement is only referring to stars within the constellations

Could you please show the source of this statement or otherwise confirm.

a reply to: Devino

The part that says" in each constellation "

originally posted by: Revolution9

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Revolution9

The 12 constellations of antiquity which fall within the sun's ecliptic comprise a section of the sky.
It is my understanding that my quoted statement refers to the stars that are found within that belt.
Which as far as I understand is the largest number ever recorded in antiquity.

Is that only a portion of the sky or did the ancients divide the whole sky into the 12 constellations?

Actually they divided the sky up into 12 constellations know today as the Zodiac. Each constellation consists of 30° and since each day is just under 1° one can consider this to be one month.

originally posted by: dashen
a reply to: Devino

The part that says" in each constellation "

Is this from your linked source, the video sermon or could it be found in the Torah? Could you show a link that this, text in the Torah, is referring to stars in the constellation? How does the author of your linked article make the connection of stars in the constellations and galaxies in our local group?