From: Glenn Morton (glennmorton@entouch.net)
Date: Sat Sep 20 2003 - 21:17:06 EDT
It is often held that Giordano Bruno was burned for heliocentricity. His
file is missing. But it was him I was referring to.
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Robert Schneider [mailto:rjschn39@bellsouth.net]
>Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 7:56 PM
>To: George Murphy; Glenn Morton
>Cc: ASA@calvin.edu
>Subject: Re: royalty
>
>
>As a former medievalist who studied medieval science many years ago, and
>respects and appreciates its attention to the world that God
>created, I must
>challenge strongly any belief that medieval clerics burned at the stake
>anyone who believed that the earth went around the sun. As far as I know,
>the idea itself was not entertained in any serious way before the early
>16th century.
>
>Our culture still suffers from the negative images of medieval
>thinkers that
>their Renaissance successors pinned on them. They were far more bright and
>capable than we have been taught to recognize. Medieval thinkers were
>firmly anchored in the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model of the cosmos, and had
>the writings of Greek and Muslim astronomers available.as sources for their
>own thinking. They were not slavish imitators, however. Read Roger Bacon
>on the Ptolemaic model of the heavens and a curious thing emerges:
>he cannot
>make up his mind whether Ptolemy's model was merely a mathematical model or
>a description of the cosmos as it was.
>
>Medieval thinkers gathered and mined all of the data that they inherited
>from their predecessors. They wrote extensive commentaries on Aristotle's
>"On the Heavens." They wrote detailed works on plant and animal
>life and on
>minerals, e.g., the writings of Albert the Great. In many respects they
>were precursors of modern science, not a group of people who resisted
>learning about the world God created. Fourteenth century mathematicians at
>Oxford, e.g., did some interesting work on motion that serves as a step in
>the process that led eventually to the work of Galileo.
>
>In fact, relatively speaking, there were relatively few persons burned at
>the stake by the Inquisition during the Middle Ages, and most of them were
>mystics or Cathars charged with theological heresies. The wave of burnings
>that stick in people's minds are the product of the Renaissance/Reformation
>period and arose with the wars of religion and the witch craze that swept
>Europe. Those who know Kepler's story are familiar with the fact that his
>mother was accused of witchcraft and he spent many anxious hours and no
>little money in her defense. Perhaps Ted and others know more about this
>than I do, but the only person I can think of who was burned at the stake
>for holding a scientific concept was Giordano Bruno, in 1600.
>
>Bob Schneider
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>
>To: "Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net>
>Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
>Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2003 4:19 PM
>Subject: Re: royalty
>
>
>> Glenn Morton wrote:
>> >
>> > This royalty thread seems amazing to me. If the medieval clerics would
>> > bar-b-que you for claiming that the earth went round the sun or for
>> > suggesting that one could read the Bible apart from the clerics, it
>seems to
>> > me that any claim to be descended from a sinful affair between
>Jesus and
>> > Mary Magdalene, would gain one quick entry into the afterlife.
>>
>> It wasn't generally held in the Middle Ages that it was wrong for the
>laity to
>> read the Bible. Of course most laypeople couldn't read anything &, while
>there were
>> vernacular versions available, most Bibles were in Latin. & it's true
>that laypeople
>> generally weren't encouraged to read the Bible. But the chains sometimes
>seen on
>> medieval Bibles were to keep them from being stolen, not to keep people
>from reading
>> them.
>>
>> Shalom,
>> George
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> George L. Murphy
>> gmurphy@raex.com
>> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>>
>
>
>
>
>
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