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 · 7 answers · asked by curious_inquisitor 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Keith - Lets stay reasonable here. The word innumerable can simply mean uncountable. So it is appropriate to use that word.
2006-12-26 05:25:35 · update #1
Matt - He said it will be. It is just unfulfilled as of now. Thas all.
2006-12-26 05:28:55 · update #2
campbelp2 - No, they only knew what they could observe. They may have thought that there were more than what they could see, but they did not know for sure. And the Bible at that time revealed already that the number is huge, like sands.
2006-12-26 05:35:10 · update #3
The earliest star catalog by Hipparchos was never intended to be a complete reckoning, but only a count of the brightest stars making up the "picture" of each constellation. For example, Hipparchos only counted three of the Plieades to denote the position of the entire cluster, while it was (and is) well known that at least seven can be seen with the naked eye.
Hipparchos's catalog contained about 1000 stars, and was essentially copied wholesale by Ptolemy, who updated the positions for his own time and added a very few stars outside of the constellation "pictures". With Ptolemy's additions, the Ancient Star Catalog contained 1028 entries (not 1056), three of which were deliberate duplicates, two of which were inadvertent duplicates, and two of which were clusters, for a total of 1021 individual stars.
Tycho Brahe's best and last catalog contained 1004 stars.
Since there are at least 10^22 stars in the universe, it looks like God was wrong about the number of Abraham's descendants -- AND about the host of heaven being innumerable.
2006-12-26 04:07:29 · answer #1 · answered by Keith P 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Although Ptolemy catalogued a mere thousand, it was already known that the number of stars was greater than that. In general, people could see about 4 to 6 thousand.
It was also known that some people had keener eyesight and could see a thousand more (or so). So, astrologers of the time already knew that there were more stars than they catalogued.
Tycho and Kepler knew of these ancient works, so they knew that their catalogue did not cover all known stars. What they were doing is set up a catalogue of stars with precisely known positions, so that they (and others) could calculate the movement of planets with more precision, which Kepler did with sufficient accuracy to show that planets were on elliptical orbits around the Sun.
At the time that the Bible was written, there were very few words for large numbers in any language. The Greeks had "myriad" which they used for thousand and for "a lot". The language used by the various hebrew groups did not have words for such large quantities. Therefore, any number greater than a thousand was, in many cultures, "countless".
Today, the number of grains of sand on the seashore can be estimated. In fact, it is possible to set an upper bound (a mathematical terms to describe a finite number that cannot be smaller than the answer).
Using modern counting techniques, it is possible to number the host of heaven, or to at least set a limit. Thus, the number is not "limitless".
2006-12-26 04:09:42 · answer #2 · answered by Raymond 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
um, the Bible is not confirmed by modern astronomy, according to your quotations. You say that the Bible claims that Abrahams descendants are "as numerous as the stars", but then you say that there are 100s of billion galaxies full of stars. So, there are only 6 billion humans, and most of them are not descended from Abraham. So God was definitely wrong, according to your statement. There is no way that there can ever be 100s of billions of humans. So, that pretty much proves that the Bible was wrong, if what you quote is correct.
2006-12-26 04:09:13 · answer #3 · answered by matt 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, that is not true. The scientists who wrote those old catalogs knew they did not contain all stars, even at the time. Just like today's catalogs contain only a million or two stars, even though we know there are more.. But the cataloging work goes on. We can just do it better and faster now with telescopes and cameras and computers.
2006-12-26 04:59:16 · answer #4 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Eh. I think the guys who wrote the bible were just too lazy to count. Also, anyone with good vision can see about 3,000 stars on a clear, dark night, so it was pretty obvious that Brahe was wrong.
2006-12-26 08:17:52 · answer #5 · answered by eri 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes i knew but i always taught of the people that tried to count the stars as people who had little faith and that just proves the bible more correct and i thank you for that peace of information
2006-12-26 04:22:54 · answer #6 · answered by b.j 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes of course since technology back in those days was primitive.
2006-12-26 08:54:27 · answer #7 · answered by afrprince77 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋