![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Профессор Моше Энгельсон о длине еврейского месяца
The best-known ancient value for the average length of the month is deduced (in sexagesimals) from Babylonian tablets of about 200 BCE. However, a statement in the Talmud, identified with the Hebrew Bible and allegedly older, says that the month is not less than a certain value, which, when converted to sexagesimals, is identical to the Babylonian one.
This paper will:
1. Demolish the argument that, because the modern month is less than this value, the Talmud is wrong.
2. Show that it is not likely (though not impossible) that the Hebrew month duration was borrowed from the Babylonians.
3. Conclude that the source of the Hebrew month is unresolved.
http://dioi.org/evols/engleson-part1.pdf
There are strong arguments against the idea that the source of the Hebrew month duration is either an ancient tradition or a transmission from Babylonian or Greek sources to Rabban Gamliel or his predecessors. Hence historians suggest that Rabban Gamliel (RG) did not provide the total time duration of the mean synodic month, but only said 29 days. The remainder of RG’s statement was allegedly added to the Talmud at a later time based on information from Ptolemy’s Almagest. I argue that this is an unwarranted conclusion absent a credible scenario for such an interpolation. I tried my utmost to create such a scenario, as discussed below, but the result is not very credible. Possibly someone else can do a better job. In the absence of anything more credible, I believe that my conclusion in my companion paper, Source of Hebrew Month Duration: Babylonian Science or Ancient Tradition, “that the source of the Hebrew month is unresolved” is correct.
http://dioi.org/evols/engleson-part2.pdf
This paper will:
1. Demolish the argument that, because the modern month is less than this value, the Talmud is wrong.
2. Show that it is not likely (though not impossible) that the Hebrew month duration was borrowed from the Babylonians.
3. Conclude that the source of the Hebrew month is unresolved.
http://dioi.org/evols/engleson-part1.pdf
There are strong arguments against the idea that the source of the Hebrew month duration is either an ancient tradition or a transmission from Babylonian or Greek sources to Rabban Gamliel or his predecessors. Hence historians suggest that Rabban Gamliel (RG) did not provide the total time duration of the mean synodic month, but only said 29 days. The remainder of RG’s statement was allegedly added to the Talmud at a later time based on information from Ptolemy’s Almagest. I argue that this is an unwarranted conclusion absent a credible scenario for such an interpolation. I tried my utmost to create such a scenario, as discussed below, but the result is not very credible. Possibly someone else can do a better job. In the absence of anything more credible, I believe that my conclusion in my companion paper, Source of Hebrew Month Duration: Babylonian Science or Ancient Tradition, “that the source of the Hebrew month is unresolved” is correct.
http://dioi.org/evols/engleson-part2.pdf
no subject
The calendar was official set by witnesses, and they were mixed up on purpose sometimes, when The day of Atonement fell near Shabbat. The leap year was proclaimed by Synedrion.
So, I cannot see, why Jews needed exact calculations of calendar, except practical - when to start harvest, but the Lunar Month is unimportnat for it. The length of the year in Jewsih calendar is not precize at all.
The 19-year cycle was [also] discivered by some Meton in Greece.
Rambam says he took all calculations from Greeks. Rabbam Gamliel learned Greek wisdom. "Almagest" of Ptolemy also had the Lunar length. Jews thought that the earth was flat (in Babilonian Gemara, at least), while Greeks measured radius.
Every single fact from the above can be argued, but together they seem against supernatural Jewish knowledge of calendar.