As we have mentioned earlier, the Jewish tradition has clearly and indisputably shown itself to be the work of man – this tradition is essentially human, or, in Nietzsche's words, “all too human”. It would be fascinating to examine its dynamics. Not only is it devoid of profuse knowledge or extraordinary wisdom – at least in those areas that are objectively verifiable. Even more importantly, it often lags behind the scientific level of its time. Thus, during the Talmudic period it clung to the flat-earth theory, while most scientists of that time had long adopted the geocentric theory of Ptolemy, who believed the earth to be a sphere and had even made a fairly accurate estimate of its diameter. Only Maimonides, who lived one thousand years after Claudius Ptolemaeus, had adopted the Ptolemaic system. Yet he failed to even make it part of mainstream Jewish thought; Rabeiynu Tam and later Jewish sages who came after Maimonides based their halachic calculations on the Talmudic theory of a flat earth. For fifteen hundred years at the very least, Jewish thought has been in constant opposition to scientific progress, unfailingly shrugging off almost every scientific discovery. The leading rabbis have defended the flat-earth theory, the geocentric system …
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http://www.talkreason.org/articles/case.cfm