For the source text click/tap here: Bava Batra 25
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The Gemara records a conversation regarding the movement of the sun across the sky. The rabbis suggest various theories to explain why the sun is in the sky for less time during the winter months and more time in the summer months.
Rabbi Eliezer says that the world resembles a porch, a structure which lacks a fourth wall (Rashi, s.v. Le’achsadrah), and the north side is not enclosed.
The fact that the earth is a globe was known in the Talmudic era and anyone learning the book of Yeshayahu would surely notice the verse “He who sits on the circle of the earth” (40:22).
How are we, then, to interpret Rabbi Eliezer’s statement that the world lacks one side?
We explore ancient cosmology and the rabbinic attempts to refute the findings of Copernicus.