The True Perplexity: Maimonides' Guide II<24

COSMOLOGY ACROSS CULTURES. SEAC 2008 Proceedings, ASP Series, 2009

In this paper, I analyze the fact discovered by Otto Neugebauer in a 1949 paper explaining why the mean lunisolar conjunction set by Maimonides in his Code of Jewish Law, Mishneh Torah, differs from the mo-lad (Jewish calendar conjunction) by 1 hour and 17 minutes. I also address Neugebauer's fundamental question of whether the molad is a mean conjunction. This problem leads me to a further examination of Maimonides' sources on the one hand and to a clarification of the notion of molad on the other. First I conjecture that a difference of circa 50 minutes between the epochs of Maimonides and al-Battânˆı came from a geographical manuscript that was different than al-Battânˆı's treatise (translated by Carlo Nallino in 1903) and which quoted an unreasonably high longitude for Raqqa (the location of al-Battânˆı's observations) compared with Jerusalem's longitude. Second, examination of a time difference between al-Battânˆı's mean lunisolar conjunction and the molad shows an additional circa 27-minute difference. This proves that the interval of 1 hour and 17 minutes between Maimonides' conjunction and the molad consists of only two parts and does not require the additional assumptions made by previous researchers. I conclude by reiterating that molad is Ptolemaic mean lunisolar conjunction while Maimonides used al-Battânˆı's mean lunisolar conjunction.

Brepols, 2024

Ptolemy's Almagest (2nd century AD) is the most influential work of ancient and medieval astronomy. This work, however, does not tell us the full story about its author's views of the heavens. After completing the Almagest, Ptolemy turned his attention to a physical investigation of celestial motions. The result is the Planetary Hypotheses, a bold attempt to provide a celestial physics that coheres with the mathematical account of astronomical observations in his Almagest. This book provides the first complete critical edition and English translation of the Arabic version of the Planetary Hypotheses, which is lost for the most part in its original Greek. It furthermore provides an extensive commentary on the whole work, which situates the Planetary Hypotheses within the context of its time and investigates philosophical ideas central to the work. These include the epistemic value of mathematics relative to natural philosophy, and the shape, number, and dynamics of the celestial bodies. The book also investigates the influence of the Planetary Hypotheses on a wide range of medieval Arabic astronomical and philosophical works from the 9th to the 13th century AD. The upshot is to establish the Planetary Hypotheses as a crucial text for understanding the history of philosophy and science from Greek antiquity to the Arabic Middle Ages. see also the other Open Access volumes published by PAL: https://ptolemaeus.badw.de/publications

See Marion Boutelle, "The Almanac of Azarquiel". reprinled in E.S. Kennedy tt al.• S/udits in lllt /s/mnic &a("/ Sc;tnca (Beirut. 1983) pp. 502-SIO. This paper should be read togclher wilh lhe important remarb by Noel Swcrdlow in Mathmlalical &vitWS 41 (1971). no. 5149. Fof a general survey of this source S« J Samsó, lAs Citncias dt los AI/l/gllOS tI/ al-Anda/uso Madrid. 1992. pp. 166-171. See Q. Gingcric:h, "Mercury Tbeory from Amiquity lO Keplcr", first published in 1971 aOO repriNed in the volume by lhe same authof 1ht E)'t of Hta\'tn. Pro/tln)'. Co¡Mrnicus. Ktp/u (Ncw York, 1993). 379-387. Robert R. NeWlon (1ht Cn/M of Cloudius Pro/tln)'. Baltimon: and Loodon, 1m, pp. 278-279) reaches a similar cooclusion when he says that lhe longitudc of Mercury's apogtt should be about 219" in Ptolemy's time inslead of the 19O" ....c find in Almagts/IX,7. • O Neugebauer. Tht M/rOtlOlnico/ Tabla of al·Kk.... dr;l,JIú. Translat;OfI ...;/h Commtnwrits of lht La/in VUSiOlI tdiud by H. Sil/U slIpplttntmtd lJy Corpus Chris/i Colltgt MS 283 (Copenh¡¡gen, 1962) pp. 41. 99. Raymond Mercier (" Astronomical Tables in the Twelflh Cemury" in Charles Bumell led.}. Adtlard of Ha/h. A/I EI/glisll Scitmisl (md Arabis/ of/ht. Early Twe./f/h Cemllry, London. 1987, pp. 91-92) has provcd Ihe origin of lhis apogee longitude: wilh paramelers of lhe Brahmasplll/lasiddhanra he obmins 224:53.13" for lhe bcginning of the Hijra. I.e. for a moment in whieh tropical and sidereallongitudes werc equal. According lO lhe Brahma.sp}¡u/(lsiddhtlJJ/(1 the siderclll and tropical longitudes of the Sun wcre equal in year 580 and lhis daling appears lO have becn approximalely followed by Ibn al-Zarqa]luh who slalw lhallhe Hindu·lranian (sidcreal) and MWlUaI!an sySlems were in agreement "about Suhoyl lllllllll Ibn al-Ha)'lhom ami /lJbt.r b. Aflal! 's on Mucury

Perspectives on Science, 2000

This short note is occasioned by the publication of a review essay by AI Sabra in this journal, under the title “Conªguring the Universe:Aporetic, Problem Solving, and Kinematic Modeling as Themes of Arabic Astron- omy.” ...

Aestimatio : Critical Reviews in the History of Science, 2009

The thesis investigates two related Latin texts from the early period of the medieval Latin acquisition of Ptolemaic astronomy from Arabic sources. Both examined texts originate from the same environment in the crusader principality of Antioch during the late first half of the twelfth century, where the translator Stephen of Antioch played a central role in their production. As the medieval Arabic-Latin transfer of scientific knowledge occurred mainly in the Western half of the Mediterranean region while especially for the crusader states only few translations are documented, the Antiochian texts are valuable testimonies of a largely unknown milieu of medieval scholarship. They comprise the earliest Latin translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest and one of the first accounts on Ptolemaic astronomy and cosmology by a medieval Latin commentator, entitled Liber Mamonis. The investigation pays particular attention to the Arabic sources on which the works depend and how these sources were interpreted by the Latin translators. While the translation of the Almagest seems to be based on a hitherto unknown Arabic version of Ptolemy’s work, the richly commented Liber Mamonis provides illustrative insight into the motivation and the scientific understanding of one of the first Latin recipients of Arabic astronomy and cosmology.

Sir Isaac Newton has the following remarks in regard to the origin of Astrology:--"After the study of Astronomy was set on foot for the use of navigation, and the Ægyptians, by the heliacal risings and settings of the stars, had determined the length of the solar year of 365 days, and by other observations had fixed the solstices, and formed the fixed stars into asterisms, all which was done in the reigns of Ammon, Sesac, Orus, and Memnon," (about 1000 years before Christ), "it may be presumed that they continued to observe the motions of the planets, for they called them after the names of their gods; and Nechepsos, or Nicepsos, King of Sais," [772 B.C.], "by the assistance of Petosiris, a priest of Ægypt, invented astrology, grounding it upon the aspects of the planets, and the qualities of the men and women to whom they were dedicated *1; and in the beginning of the reign of Nabonassar, King of Babylon, about which time the Æthiopians, under Sabacon, invaded Ægypt" [751 B.C.], "those Ægyptians who fled from him to Babylon, carried thither the Ægyptian year of 365 days, and the study of astronomy and astrology, and founded the a era of Nabonassar, dating it from the first year of that king's reign" [747 B.C.], "and beginning the year on the same day with the Ægyptians for the sake of their calculations. So Diodorus: 'they say that the Chaldæan in Babylon, being colonies of the Ægyptians, became famous for astrology, having learned it from the priests of Ægypt.'"--Newton's Chronology, pp. 251, 252. The arcana of Astrology constituted a main feature in the doctrines of the Persian Magi; and it further appears, by Newton's Chronology, p. 347, that Zoroaster (although the æra of his life has been erroneously assigned to various remoter periods) lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, about 520 B.C., and assisted Hystaspes, the father of Darius, in reforming the Magi, of whom the said Hystaspes was Master. Newton adds, p. 352, that "about the same time with Hystaspes and Zoroaster, lived also Ostanes, another eminent Magus: Pliny places him under Darius Hystaspis, and Suidas makes him the follower of Zoroaster: he came into Greece with Xerxes about 480 B.C., and seems to be the Otanes of Herodotus. In his book, called the Octateuchus, he taught the same doctrine of the Deity as Zoroaster." The world is divided into two parts, the elemental region and the æthereal. The elemental region is constantly subject to alteration, and comprises the four elements; earth, water, air and fire. The æthereal region, which philosophers call the fifth essence, encompasses, by its concavity, the elemental; its substance remains always unvaried, and consists of ten spheres; of which the greater one always spherically environs the next smaller, and so on in consecutive order. First, therefore, around the sphere of fire, GOD, the creator of the world, placed the sphere of the Moon, then that of Mercury, then that of Venus, then that of the Sun, and afterwards those of Mars, of Jupiter, and of Saturn. Each of these spheres, however, contains but one star: and these stars, in passing through the zodiac, always struggle against the primum mobile, or the motion of the tenth sphere; they are also entirely luminous. In the next place follows the firmament, which is the eighth or starry sphere, and which trembles or vibrates (trepidat) in two small circles at the beginning of Aries and Libra (as placed in the ninth sphere); this motion is called by astronomers the motion of the access and recess of the fixed stars." (Probably in order to account for the procession of the equinoxes.) "This is surrounded by the ninth sphere, called the chrystalline or watery heaven, because no star is discovered in it. Lastly, the primum mobile, styled also the tenth sphere, encompasses all the before-mentioned æthereal spheres, and is continually turned upon the poles of the world, by one revolution in twenty-four hours, from the east through the meridian to the west, again coming round to the east. At the same time, it rolls all the inferior spheres round with it, by its own force; and there is no star in it. Against this primum mobile, the motion of the other spheres, running from the west through the meridian to the east, p. 3 contends. Whatever is beyond this, is fixed and immovable, and the professors of our orthodox faith affirm it to be the empyrean heaven which GOD inhabits with the elect."--Cosmographia of Peter Apianus (named Benewitz), dedicated to the Archbishop of Saltzburg, edited by Gemma Frisius, and printed at Antwerp 1574. The practice of observing the stars began in Ægypt in the days of Ammon, as above, and was propagated from thence, in the reign of his son Sesac, into Afric, Europe, and Asia, by conquest; and then Atlas formed the sphere of the Libyans" [956 B.C.], "and Chiron that of the Greeks [939 B.C.]; and the Chaldæans also made a sphere of their own. But astrology p. xii was invented in Ægypt by Nichepsos, or Necepsos, one of the Kings of the Lower Ægypt, and Petosiris his priest, a little before the days of Sabacon, and propagated thence into Chaldæa, where Zoroaster, the legislator of the Magi, met with it: so Paulinus;

Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science

Journal for the History of Astronomy, 2014

ASTRONOMY IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East: The Reflexes of Celestial Science in Ancient Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Israelite Narrative. Jeffrey L. Cooley (Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana, 2013). Pp. x + 396. $54.50. ISBN 978-157506-262-4.It is perhaps difficult to imagine the impact the recovery of ancient Mesopotamian culture had on the Western world in the late nineteenth century. In 1872 when George Smith, then an assistant in the British Museum, discovered the Assyrian version of the biblical flood story, it is said he &quot;jumped up and rushed about the room in a great state of excitement, and, to the astonishment of those present, began to undress himself&quot;.1 Equally momentous was the discovery of Babylonian astronomy, first made public in 1881 by the Jesuits Joseph Epping and J. N. Strassmaier.2 Each of these discoveries fuelled cultural diffusionist ideas about Babylonian origins, not only of stories in the Bible, but of world mythology, astronomy and astrology. Such ideas had a temporary but widespread influence through the school of Pan-Babylonism, a short-lived sport (in the botanical sense) of mostly German nineteenth-century Orientalism.Jeffrey Cooley&#39;s Poetic astronomy in the ancient Near East begins and ends with discussion and critique of the Pan-Babylonists, who read Near Eastern mythology as astronomical allegory and anachronistically attributed to those stories great astronomical knowledge, supposedly dating to c. 3000 b.c., but in fact only emerging either in the latter half of the first millennium b.c (the zodiac) or not at all (precession). Some participants in the school (Hugo Winckler) were also involved in the so-called Bibel-Babel controversy which inflamed scholarly opinion and found a formidable opponent in F. X. Kugler, s.j., one of the founding fathers of Babylonian mathematical astronomy. Kugler published an article entitled &quot;On the ruins of Panbabylonism&quot;,3 a clever pun on Claudius James Rich&#39;s important memoir On the ruins of Babylon (1818), and followed it up with a monograph, Im Bannkreis Babels: Panbabylonistische Konstrucktionen und religionsgeschicltliche Tatsachen (1910), which demolished all credibility of the pan-Babylonists regarding the history of astronomy.One of the detrimental effects of Pan-Babylonism, besides the dissemination of highly fanciful and erroneous interpretations of natureand star-mythology and claims of the diffusion of such ideas from Babylonia to the rest of the world, was to drive a long-lasting wedge between scholars of Babylonian astral science and those of cuneiform literary texts. After Kugler&#39;s demolition of pan-Babylonist claims, the very idea that mythology and astral science might have some intertextual resonance became virtually anathema and no Assyriologist in his or her right mind would touch the subject for nearly one hundred years. This division has been slowly eroding in the last generation, and Cooley&#39;s study can be viewed as a culmination of this change in attitude. Poetic astronomy in the ancient Near East removes that wedge, provides a corrective to Pan-Babylonism (p. 87), and considers the cultural continuities between narrative and technical literatures, not only of the cuneiform world, but those of ancient Ugarit and Israel as well. The book&#39;s thesis is that contemporary knowledge concerning the heavens is indeed found in ancient Near Eastern literature, thus reflecting a cultural matrix in which science and literature are not separate.Taking up Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Israelite traditions in turn, as is laid out methodologically in the first chapter, Cooley surveys each and discusses what is now known about celestial science in these distinct yet not unrelated cultures, and analyses their narrative texts in the light of their particular intellectual backgrounds. Chapter 2 usefully surveys the various classes of astronomical/astrological cuneiform sources, from divinatory to astronomical texts, making critical use of David Brown&#39;s PCP (prediction of celestial phenomena) paradigm and EAE (Enuma Anu Enlil) paradigm to bring historiographic structure to the long chronological span of the sources. …

Ptolemy’s Science of the Stars in the Middle Ages, 2020