Before the invention of the telescope, man actually believed that the stars could be numbered. The great Ptolemy gave the number as 1,056. Tycho Brahe cataloged 777 and Kepler counted 1,006. The astronomers of those days were certain that they could count the number of stars. Since the invention of the telescope by Galileo in 1608, we now know that the number of stars are limitless. Today, astronomers estimate that there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy with an additional 20-100 billion galaxies in the universe!
But long before the telescope was invented, the Bible had put forth the notion that the stars are countless in number. God spoke to Abraham that his descendants would be "as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the grains of sand on the seashore" (Genesis 22:17). Jeremiah 33:22 states: "The host of heaven cannot be numbered." Thousands of years later we see the confirmation of the Bible by modern astronomers.
2006-12-26
03:54:00
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7 answers
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curious_inquisitor
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