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Jews and the Natural Sciences: Astronomy

Understanding science in the widest possible sense, this guide offers resources for how Jews investigate, react to, and engage with the physical universe.

Astronomy

  • Almosnino, Moses b. Baruch
    This sixteenth century manuscript contains two astronomical works together with their commentaries.
    Rare Book and Manuscript Library. LJS 42

  • Alter, George
    “David Gans:  a renaissance Jewish astronomer,” Aleph 11 (2001) 61-114
    https://muse.jhu.edu/article/423509/pdf

  • Ben-Zaken, Avner
    “Bridging Networks of trust:  practising astronomy in late sixteenth-century Salonika,” Jewish History 23 (2009) 343-361
    http://www.jstor.org/stable/25653803

  • Bloch, Joshua
    “Zacuto and His Almanach Perpetuum,” pp. 59-62 in, Hebrew Printing and Bibliography (New York, New York Public Library and Ktav, 1976) ed. Charles Berlin
    Katz Center - Reference Room. Z228.H4 H43 1976

  • Brown, Jeremy  
    New Heavens and a New Earth: The Jewish Reception of Copernican Thought
    New York : Oxford University Press, 2013
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.A76 B76 2013

  • Burnett, Charles, Stephen Johnston and Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas
    Astrolabes in Medieval Jewish Society Project
    http://warburg.sas.ac.uk/mnemosyne/astrolabes_poster.pdf 

  • Chabás, José and Bernard R. Goldstein
    Astronomy in the Iberian Peninsula:  Abraham Zacut and the Transition from Manuscript to Print
    Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s. 90 part 2
    Philadelphia:  American Philosophical Society, 2000
    Van Pelt Library. Q11.P6

  • Efron, N. and Menachem Fisch
    “Astronomical Exegesis: An Early Modern Jewish Interpretation of the Heavens,” Osiris 16 (2001) 72-87
    Research Annex (LIBRA). Q1.O7
    http://www.jstor.org/stable/301980

  • Feldman, William Moses
    Rabbinical Mathematics and Astronomy
    London, M.L. Cailingold, 1931
    Katz Center - Stacks. Q128.F45 1931

  • Glasner, Ruth
    “The Question of Celestial Matter in the Hebrew Encyclopedias,” pp. 313-334 in, The Medieval Hebrew Encyclopedias of Science and Philosophy (Dordrecht ; Boston ; London : Kluwer Academic Publishers, c2000) ed. Steven Harvey
    Katz Center - Stacks. AE1 .M43 2000

  • Goldstein, Bernard R.
    The Astronomy of Levi ben Gerson
    New York ; Berlin : Springer-Verlag, 1985
    Van Pelt Library. QB41 .G477 1985

  • Goldstein, Bernard R.
    “Astronomy and the Jewish Community in Early Islam,” Aleph: Historical Studies in Science and Judaism 1 (2001) 17–57
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447
    http://www.jstor.org/stable/40385447

  • Goldstein, Bernard R.
    “Astronomy among Jews in the Middle Ages,” pp. 136–146 in, Science in medieval Jewish cultures
    (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011) ed. Gad Freudenthal
    Van Pelt Library. Q128 .S35 2011

  • Joseph Ibn Nahmias; ed. and transl. Robert G. Morrison
    The Light of the World: Astronomy in Al-Andalus
    Berkeley ; Los Angeles : University of California Press, 2016
    Van Pelt Library. QB23 .J5713 2016

  • Klein-Franke, F.
    “A Hebrew Yemenite Manuscript of the Book “Elements of Astrology” by al-Bīrūnī,” Kiryat Sefer, 47 (1972) 720
    Katz Center – Periodicals Gallery. Z6367 .K57
    Van Pelt Library. Z6367 .K57

  • Kozodoy, Maud
    “Jewish Astronomy: Between Maimonides and Gersonides,” pp. 83-91 in, The Secret Faith of Maestre Honoratus. Profayt Duran and Jewish Identity in Late Medieval Iberia (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
    Katz Center - Stacks. DS135.S8 D875 2015
    Van Pelt Library. DS135.S8 D875 2015
    https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/1598582

  • Langermann, Y. Tzvi
    “The Astronomy of Rabbi Moses Isserles,” pp. 83-98 in, Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy 1300-1700 : tension and accommodation (Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991) ed. Sabetai Unguru
    Research Annex (LIBRA). Q174 .B67 v.126

  • Langermann, Y. Tzvi
    “The Hebrew Astronomical Codes MS Sassoon 823,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 78 (1988) 253-292 [repr. as essay X pp. 253-285 in Y. Tzvi Langermann, The Jews and the Sciences in the Middle Ages (Ladershot:  Ashgate, 1999)]
    Katz Center - Periodicals Gallery. DS101 .J48
    Research Annex (LIBRA).  DS101 .J48

  • Langermann, Y. Tzvi
    “Hebrew Astronomy.  Deep Soundings from a Rich Tradition,” pp. 555–584 in, Astronomy Across Cultures : the history of non-Western astronomy  (Dordrecht:  Kluwer Academic, 2000) ed. Helaine Selin
    Van Pelt Library. QB16 .A75 2000

  • Langermann, Y. Tzvi
    “Peurbach in the Hebrew Tradition,” Journal for the History of Astronomy 29 (1998) 137-150
    http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/002182869802900206

  • Leicht, R.
    “Towards a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature: A Bibliographical Survey,” pp. 255-291 in, Science in medieval Jewish cultures (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011) ed. Gad Freudenthal
    Van Pelt Library. Q128 .S35 2011

  • Levine, H.
    “Paradise not Surrendered: Jewish Reactions to Copernicus and the Growth of Modern Science,” pp. 203-225 in, Epistemology, Methodology, and the Social Sciences (Dordrecht, Holland ; Boston : D. Reidel ; Hingham, MA : Kluwer Boston, distributor, c1983) edd. R.S. Cohen and M.W. Wartofsky
    Research Annex (LIBRA). Q174 .B67 v.71

  • Levy, Raphael and Francisco Cantera, edd.
    The Beginning of Wisdom: an Astrological Treatise by Abraham Ibn Ezra
    Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1939
    Katz Center - Stacks. QB26 .I33 1939
    Van Pelt Library.  QB26.I33 1939

  • Mancha, Jose Luis
    “Demonstrative Astronomy: Notes on Levi ben Gersom's answer to Guide II.24,” pp. 323-346 in, Studies in the history of culture and science:  a tribute to Gad Freudenthal (Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2011) ed. Resianne Fontaine
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 S78 2011
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 S78 2011

  • Millás-Vallicrosa, José M.
    “Un Nuevo tratado de astrolabio de R. Abraham ibn Ezra,” Al-Andalus 5 (1940) 1-29
    Research Annex (LIBRA). DP102 .A6

  • Morrison, Robert
    “The Role of Oral Transmission for Astronomy among Romaniot Jews,” pp. 10-28 in, Texts in Transit in the Medieval Mediterranean (Philadelphia:  University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016) edd. Y. Tzvi Langermann and Robert G. Morrison
    Van Pelt Library. Z106.5.M43 T49 2016

  • Morrison, Robert G.
    “The Solar Model in Joseph Ibn Joseph Ibn Nahmias’ ‘Light of the World’,” Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 15 (2005) 57–108
    Van Pelt Library. Q127.A5 A733

  • Neher, André, trans. David Maisel
    Jewish thought and the scientific revolution of the sixteenth century:  David Gans and his times
    Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986 
    Katz Center - Stacks. QB36.G36 N4413 1986

  • Neher, André
    “Copernicus in the Hebraic Literature from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas 38 (1977) 211-26
    Research Annex (LIBRA). B1 .J75

  • Robinson, James T.
    “The first references in Hebrew to al-Biṭrūjī’s On the principles of astronomy,” Aleph 3 (2003) 145-163
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447
    https://muse.jhu.edu/article/407524/pdf

  • Rodríguez-Arribas, Josefina
    “Medieval Jews and Medieval Astrolabes:  Where, Why, How, and What For?,” pp. 221-272 in, Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition (Leiden : Brill, 2014) edd. Sacha Stern and Charles Burnett
    Katz Center - Stacks. CE35 .T46 2014
    https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/upenn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1579901

  • Rodríguez-Arribas, Josefina
    “Reading Astrolabes in Medieval Hebrew,” pp. 89- 112 in, Language as a Scientific Tool: Shaping Scientific Language Across Time and National Traditions (New York:  Routledge, 2016) edd. Miles MacLeod, Rocio G. Sumillera, Jan Surman and Ekaterina Smirnova
    Van Pelt Library. Q223 .L264 2016

  • Ruderman, David B.
    “Jewish thought in Newtonian England:  the career and writings of David Nieto,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 58 (1992) 193-219
    Katz Center - Periodicals Gallery. DS101 .A34
    Van Pelt - Judaica/Ancient Near East Resource Room (401). DS101 .A34
    http://www.jstor.org/stable/3622633

  • Samsó, Julio
    “On the Arabic translation of the colophon of the Almanach Perpetuum,” pp. 1-6 in, Astronomy and Astrology in al-Andalus and the Maghrib (Aldershot ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2007) Samsó, Julio
    Van Pelt Library. QB23 .S259 2007

  • Samsó, Julio
    “In pursuit of Zacut’s Almanach Perpetuum in the Eastern Islamic World,” Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 15 (2002-03) 67-93
    Van Pelt Library. Q127.A5 Z458

  • Sela, Shlomo
    “The Fuzzy Borders between Astronomy and Astrology in the Thought and Work of Three Twelfth-Century Jewish Intellectuals,” Aleph 1 (2001) 59-100
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

  • Sela, Shlomo
    Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Introductions to Astrology: A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Book of the Beginning of Wisdom and the Book of the Judgments of the Zodiacal Signs. Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Astrological Writings, Volume 5
    Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017
    Katz Center - Stacks. BF1714.J4 I27213 2017
    Van Pelt Library. BF1714.J4 I27213 2017

  • Sela, Shlomo
    “Astrology in Medieval Jewish Thought,” pp. 292-300 in, Science in medieval Jewish cultures (New York : Cambridge University Press, 2011) ed. Gad Freudenthal
    Van Pelt Library. Q128 .S35 2011

    Sela, Shlomo
    “A Newly Identified Essay on Anniversary Horoscopy Embedded in Abraham Bar Ḥiyya’s Astronomical Tables: Hebrew Edition, Translation and Commentary,” 13.1 Aleph (2013) 27–76
    Katz Center - Stacks. BM538.S3 A447
    Van Pelt Library. BM538.S3 A447

  • Stern, Sacha
    “David Gans on the Gregorian reform, modern astronomy, and the Jewish calendar,” Judaica Bohemiae 51 (2016) 127-147
    Katz Center - Periodicals B1. DS135.C95 J82

  • Stern, Sacha and Charles Burnett, edd.
    Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition
    Leiden : Brill, 2014
    Katz Center - Stacks. CE35.T46 2014
    https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/upenn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1579901

  • Unguru, Sabetai, ed.
    Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy 1300-1700:  tension and accommodation
    Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991
    Research Annex (LIBRA). Q174 .B67 v.126

  • Zacuto, Abraham ben Samuel
    Almanach perpetuum celestum motuum (Radix 1473) … facsimile edition
    Katz Center - Stacks. VK549 .B6 1915

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