Was Abraham an Astronomer?
SHANKS, HERSHEL
Was Abraham an Astronomer? Loek toward htaixn and count the stars, if you are able to count them," God told Abram in a vision, and thm added, "So shall your descendants be" (Genesis 15:5). God...
...The lens was also imperfectly circular across its faces, having diameters that ranged between 1.6 and 1.4 inches...
...Or, as he looked into the heavens, did he estimate badly and fail to realize that the number of visible stars was quite limited...
...This is not the only known ancient lens, however...
...The Lord tells Jacob, "Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth...
...Did the biblical writer think 4,000 was a lot...
...1 "Carthaginian Ixnsei," abslnct in .Wirrr...
...Josephus, the first-century Jewish historian, quotes a third-century B.C.E...
...Experiments with polarized light showed that its plane face had been "one of the original faces of the six-sided crystal of quartz...
...September 13...
...In July 1930, the British Journal of Physiological Optics published a survey by H. L. Taylor on "The Origin and Development of Lenses in Ancient Times...
...particles of dust on the earth are far greater than the comparatively few stars in heaven visible to the unaided eye...
...Book I, chapter VII...
...But only recently have modern astronomers—with their powerful telescopes-discovered this...
...Sir David concluded that the crystal "could not be looked on as an ornament, but as a true optical lens...
...Sir David Brewster, an authority on optics, made a careful examination of the lens and presented his findings to the British Association in 1852.* He said the lens had a planoconvex form...
...If he did, this would indeed have made the analogy to the stars quite apt, as it is for the sand and the dust...
...Ptmtyttama, ttho alio itepplud the biblual and other rtferente...
...0.2 inches as a maximum and a focal length of 4.5 inches...
...p. 415...
...Presbyopia h i he inabilily to focus ii short distances Thai requires middle-aged people to wear bifocals or reading glutei...
...There is a problem with this oft-repeated and oft-referred-to divine promise...
...A rock-crystal lens found in the ruins of the treasure house at Nineveh suggests that they may indeed have known...
...Perhaps it seemed to him that there were countless stars in the heavens, even though in fact there were only, at most, 4,000 visible to his eyes...
...As a result of his examination of lenses in eastern Mediterranean museums, including some "perfect lenses" found at Knossus and Mount Ida in Crete, Taylor attributed the development of lenses to the Cretans of about 1B00 B.C.E...
...1 Although we have no evidence of how these lenses were used, we may wonder Did the biblical writer make an inept comparison of the patriarch's descendants with the stars of the heavens, or did the biblical writer know long before modern science that there are, in fact, billions of stars?—H.S...
...There really aren't so many stars in heaven thai can be seen with the unaided eye...
...Or perhaps there is another explanation, suggested by other verses in the Torah...
...Department oj Aitrvnotrn...
...1 Is it possible that the biblical writer knew and Abraham understood that there were billions of stars...
...profeiivr of astronomi tit the i auvrrif> of Maryland, for ihert (Miwsfj and (orretttaru...
...The divine promise was, on the one hand, comparatively quite small (the stars in heaven) and, on the other hand, enormous (the sands of the sea and the dust of the earth...
...1 "On a Rock-Crvfla] Lou and Oeromrxwd Glass Found in Ninewh, abstract in The Amtncam Journal of Snente and Am, May 1853, pp 122-123...
...Could the ancients have had telescopes that revealed stars the naked eye could not sec...
...Did the biblical writer know there were billions of stars?* In fact, there arc billions of stars, not just 4,000...
...A single generation of Hebrews no doubt exceeded this number at a very early point in their history...
...1930...
...In Genesis 28:14, the comparison is with the dust of the earth...
...According to Josephus, Becosus described Abraham as "a man righteous and great, and skillful in the celestial science...
...These two were discovered "in the sarcophagus of a prominent individual, who, it is presumed, suffered from presbyopia* and wished to protect himself from this disability in his next existence...
...The tnrt^otrte artutr am irtggtued bt fidl hkei oj fieriw...
...The biblical writer could not have known this...
...1 Josephus, Aalupritus of At Jftti...
...hmneth Umber...
...These dimensions are similar to those of the lenses in Galileo's first telescope, but a second lens would have been necessary to achieve magnification...
...Thai's not really that many descendants...
...W'l art trastful to...
...Five glass lenses from Carthage are of particular interest because two of them hint at a practical function...
...Boitm t 11...
...It would also explain why the writer relates the number of stars in the heavens to the grains of sand by the sea and the dust on the earth...
...But is the comparison so lopsided...
...Now we are talking about big numbers...
...Why would the biblical writer make such a lopsided comparison...
...Elsewhere in the Torah, the divine promise is expressed not only in terms of the number of stars in the heavens, but in terms of the sands by the seashore and the dust of the earth...
...Babylonian writer named Becosus who said that Abraham was an astronomer...
...The convex face had been shaped on a lapidary's wheel, or by some similarly crude method, which gave the lens an unequal thickness, with • More precisely, astronomers cviTnir [hat ihrrr sit 40 billion iriUion mn in the universe...
...Surely even a casual observer would know that the grains of sand on the seashore or * In Genera 17:4.5, God mark* the covenant with Abram by i hanging hb name to Abraham...
...God appeared to Isaac and told htm, "I will make your descendants as numerous as [he stars of heaven" (Genesis 26:4...
...Or could he...
...iuy, and to ih Roeer A fleii...
...Astronomers icil us that without some form of telescope we can see only between 2,000 and 4,000 Stan, even on a good night...
...For example, in Genesis 22:17, an angel speaking in God's name tells Abraham," "I will bestow my blessing on you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore...
Vol. 13 • September 1988 • No. 6
