Page "Hebrew astronomy" Paragraph 14

Despite the general importance and religious significance attached to astronomy in the Holy Land, no notable developments in astronomy happened there.

The starry heavens of Palestine interested the Jews as creations of God and as means to determine the holidays, but for a better knowledge of them the Jews were undoubtedly indebted to the Babylonians and their Hellenic pupils, as evidenced by the foreign term gematria used to designate the computation of the calendar.

Possibly this word represents a transposition of the Greek γραμματεία meaning " arithmetic, mathematics.

" Most of the observations of a scientific nature were transmitted by Samuel ( 250 ), who attended the schools of the Babylonians, and who claimed to possess as exact a knowledge of the heavenly regions as of the streets of his own city Nehardea.

Certain rules must nevertheless have existed, because Rabban Gamaliel ( about 100 ), who applied the lunar tablets and telescope, relied for authority upon such as had been transmitted by his paternal ancestors ( Yer.

R. H. ii.

58b ; Bab.

R. H. 25a ).