[1] Some scholars suggest that the signs of the zodiac, or Mazzaloth, and the names of the stars associated with them originally were created as a mnemonic device by these forefathers of the Hebrews to tell the story of the Bible.
Historian Flavius Josephus says Seth and his offspring preserved ancient astronomical knowledge in pillars of stone.
[11] Among the sciences that Johanan ben Zakkai mastered was a knowledge of the solstices and the calendar; i.e., the ability to compute the course of the Sun and the Moon.
[12] Later writers declare that "to him who can compute the course of the sun and the revolution of the planets and neglects to do so, may be applied the words of the prophet,[13] 'They regard not the work of the Lord, nor consider the operation of His hands.'"
To pay attention to the course of the Sun and to the revolution of the planets is a religious injunction; for such is the import of the words,[14] "This is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations".
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.
The menorah's seven lamps on four branches correspond to the lights of the seven Classical planets: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun (4th), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Yet another authority states that the diameter of the firmament is equal to the distance covered in 50 or 500 years and this is true also of the Earth and the large sea (Tehom) upon which it rests.
Chronology was a chief consideration in the study of astronomy among the Jews; sacred time was based upon the cycles of the Sun and the Moon.
[citation needed] The correspondence of the constellations with their names in Hebrew and the months is as follows: The first three are in the east, the second three in the south, the third three in the west, and the last three in the north; and all are attendant on the Sun.
According to one conception, Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius face northward; Taurus, Virgo, and Capricornus westward; Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius southward; and Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces eastward.
The four solstices (the Tekufot of Nisan, Tammuz, Tishrei, and Tevet) are often mentioned as determining the seasons of the year and there are occasional references to the rising-place of the Sun.
[25] Sometimes six seasons of the year are mentioned,[26] and reference is often made to the receptacle of the Sun (ναρθήκιον), by means of which the heat of the orb is mitigated.
According to Aristotle, Ptolemy, and other philosophers among the Greeks, the stars have no motion of their own, being firmly attached to spheres whose center is the Earth.
While Talmudists were familiar with the planets and their characteristics in astrology, they opposed their worship, so weekdays are not named in Hebrew besides for the Sabbath.
Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah (about 100), declared that a star appears once every seventy years and leads mariners astray, hence they should at such time lay in a larger store of provisions.
The earliest to treatise of astronomy in Hebrew on a systematic plan was Abraham bar Ḥiyya, who wrote at Marseilles, about AD 1134.
Discussions on astronomical points, especially with regard to the spheres, and disputed points in calculating the calendar occur frequently in the works of Judah ha-Levi, Abraham ibn Ezra, and Maimonides, while a new system of astronomy is contained in the "Wars of the Lord" ("Milḥamot Adonai") of Levi ben Gershon.
Moses ibn Tibbon translated from the Arabic Jabir ben Aflah's acute criticisms of the Ptolemaic system, an anticipation of Copernicus, and thus brought them to the notice of Maimonides.
Jacob ben Makir (who is known also as Profiat Tibbon) appears to have been professor of astronomy at Montpellier, about 1300, and to have invented a quadrant to serve as a substitute for the astrolabe.
Levi ben Gershon was also the inventor of an astronomical instrument, and is often quoted with respect under the name of Leon de Bañolas.
The chief name connected with of astronomical studies in this period is that of David Gans of Prague (d. 1613), who corresponded with Kepler and Tycho Brahe.