Second comment, since the previous one got much too long. You can’t quote the Kuzari as useful evidence for what members of the Sanhedrin had to study. He’s writing about a thousand years after they dispersed.
And if you want to talk seriously about science claims, then we can have fun pointing to the sections of the Talmud that support Flat-Earthism, or the sections where proof-texts supposedly win out over empirical observations. While there are individual Taanaim who are willing to do experiments (Shimon ben Chalafta and Rav are both examples), you also have the example attributed to Rav where he works out that snakes must be pregnant for 7 years before giving birth based on a verse in Genesis. And there’s a version of this story in Yalkut Shimoni where it is portrayed as a great triumph over a secular “philosopher” who spends seven years observing snakes while Rabban Gamliel knows the correct answer already.
The claim that Judaism had an either pro-empirical or pro-science attitude is just not historically accurate. Some Rabbis had such views, many others did not.
-Regarding Maimonides, it should be noted that he considered such negative knowledge to be the product of positively acquired knowledge; it’s the same as what I mentioned in the article on yedias hashelilah. This is why he cited 25 propositions from Aristotle in the Guide for the Perplexed, as supports for his negative theology.
-I cede your point about many rabbis not being pro-empirical; the Rabban Gamliel example is a good one. However, I’ll add that very few Gaonim or Rishonim were willing to flatly deny clear empirical evidence, and were generally just fine admitting that many of the Talmud’s scientific claims were incorrect. Also, I’m not aware of many rabbinic authorities who have poskened on halacha on the basis of non-empirical scientific claims.
Also, I’m not aware of many rabbinic authorities who have poskened on halacha on the basis of non-empirical scientific claims.
Well, the most obvious pointer if you want an early thing are all the sections of the Talmud dealing with the female menstrual cycle.
More modern examples also exist. The Chofetz Chaim repeated the claim that lice spontaneously generate in the Mishnah Beruah as why one poskens that killing them is ok on Shabbat. He’s only writing in the 1890s, 30 years after it was already conclusively established that spontaneous generation was wrong for microscopic organisms, and 200 hundred years after the scientific community had already established that it wasn’t true for macroscopic organisms. This is only the most commonly used text for poskening halacha for all of Judaism today.
Second comment, since the previous one got much too long. You can’t quote the Kuzari as useful evidence for what members of the Sanhedrin had to study. He’s writing about a thousand years after they dispersed.
And if you want to talk seriously about science claims, then we can have fun pointing to the sections of the Talmud that support Flat-Earthism, or the sections where proof-texts supposedly win out over empirical observations. While there are individual Taanaim who are willing to do experiments (Shimon ben Chalafta and Rav are both examples), you also have the example attributed to Rav where he works out that snakes must be pregnant for 7 years before giving birth based on a verse in Genesis. And there’s a version of this story in Yalkut Shimoni where it is portrayed as a great triumph over a secular “philosopher” who spends seven years observing snakes while Rabban Gamliel knows the correct answer already.
The claim that Judaism had an either pro-empirical or pro-science attitude is just not historically accurate. Some Rabbis had such views, many others did not.
-Regarding Maimonides, it should be noted that he considered such negative knowledge to be the product of positively acquired knowledge; it’s the same as what I mentioned in the article on yedias hashelilah. This is why he cited 25 propositions from Aristotle in the Guide for the Perplexed, as supports for his negative theology.
-I cede your point about many rabbis not being pro-empirical; the Rabban Gamliel example is a good one. However, I’ll add that very few Gaonim or Rishonim were willing to flatly deny clear empirical evidence, and were generally just fine admitting that many of the Talmud’s scientific claims were incorrect. Also, I’m not aware of many rabbinic authorities who have poskened on halacha on the basis of non-empirical scientific claims.
Well, the most obvious pointer if you want an early thing are all the sections of the Talmud dealing with the female menstrual cycle.
More modern examples also exist. The Chofetz Chaim repeated the claim that lice spontaneously generate in the Mishnah Beruah as why one poskens that killing them is ok on Shabbat. He’s only writing in the 1890s, 30 years after it was already conclusively established that spontaneous generation was wrong for microscopic organisms, and 200 hundred years after the scientific community had already established that it wasn’t true for macroscopic organisms. This is only the most commonly used text for poskening halacha for all of Judaism today.