Talk:Aaron ben Meïr

The reasons given for Aaron ben Meir's disagreement are pretty much completely incomprehensible. And they both seem to lead a result 642 earlier rather than later.MikeR613 (talk) 03:46, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

4 year chazakah
For 4 years, AbM was described a being Palestinian. A few months ago an IP replaced it with "~Hebraic", now Debresser has removed it again after I replaced the sourced term, per WP:OPENPARA. What to do? Chesdovi (talk) 10:43, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Please quit your POV blabla. 1. No sources. 2. See how I fixed the opening sentence per WP:OPENPARA, and learn from it how to make good edits, without pushing your POV. Debresser (talk) 14:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * This is clearly not my POV issue, it's yours. Calling a historic person Palestinian is factual and correct – that’s me. Trying to remove the word "Palestinian" from historic Jews is a major POV strategy which you will not be successful it trying to enforce on historical biographical articles. Just as you seemingly have no concern about referring to David ben Zakkai as a Babylonian, there is no need to gloss over the regional identity of AbM. Chesdovi (talk) 15:13, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my POV? Who is pushing these changes in tens of articles, in all namespaces? You, Chesdovi. So it is you who is trying to change Wikipedia, and you can not show that you have consensus to do so. Debresser (talk) 15:37, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems I am only "pushing" against you (and your petty POV). It is quite clear you are trying to change Wikipedia. Take this page for example. It was born Palestinian, and you just baptised it Jewish. You did not even leave the good rabbi’s Palestinian identity. Shame on you. Chesdovi (talk) 16:42, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Please refrain from personal attack language like "petty" or "shame on you". As to the issue, do you deny this rabbi was Jewish? In addition, I am pretty sure that if you would have asked him if he would have wanted to be remembered as Jewish or as Palestine, he would have preferred the first. In addition, as we have discussed already, it is highly doubtable that he was referred to in his days as Palestine, while he certainly was Jewish. Debresser (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Details section
Both explanations for Ben-Meir's proposal given in the details section of the article are not adequately developed. In particular, the second ("alternative") explanation is extremely defficient. Can we have more detail about this? It is obviously related to the time quantity (7d, 9h, 642p) by which the calendar's tekufah epoch, i.e. tekufat Nisan of year 1, which is Wednesday, SDN 171, at 00:0000, precedes the molad of that Nisan, which is Wednesday, SDN 178, at 09:0642 (hh:pppp). (SDN is Shmuelian Day Number, a continuous day count in which day 1 is the proleptic date, Monday, 1 Tishrei of year 1, of the present-day calendar.) (Note: the first Wednesday means Jewish Wednesday; in the civil calendar, that day and time is Tuesday at 18:00.)

The explanation given in the article only deals with the 642p portion of that difference. What about the 9 hours? BTW, the difference between Tekufat Nisan and Molad Nisan of year 1 arises from the time quantity D/2, where D = the difference between a Shmuelian (tekufah) year and 12 calendric lunations (12L, where L = 29.5d, 793p). Tosafot d.h. Litekufot on b. Rosh Hashanah 8a calls this quantity D/2 "half the amount by which the tekufah exceeds the molad."

Is this enough information to assist in expanding on the explanation given in the article? Mottelg (talk) 15:24, 9 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Your question is a good one and has no adequate answer. The first answer doesn't work either; it assumes that the Babylonian sages used "Babylonian time" and they didn't. The calendar is calculated from the point of view of Jerusalem, today as they did then.
 * No one really has ever given a good explanation for Aharon ben Meir's claim, or any explanation that works at all. I personally believe (original research!) that Rav Hai Gaon gave the true explanation in one of the teshuvot that is printed in the Otzar Hagaonim. He says there that some people used to do the calculation using Nissan, others did it (as we do) using Tishrei. The calendars came out the same; it's just that the numbers in the calculations getting them were all shifted by the fixed amount D/2 you mentioned, which includes 642 chalakim. In later years, the custom shifted, and by the time of the controversy everyone used Tishrei. He continues, "And this was the mistake of Aharon ben Meir."
 * I think Rav Hai Gaon was saying that Aharon ben Meir got this confused. He had a tradition for the calculations involving 642 chalakim and didn't understand that this was based on a different setup that he no longer used. He tried to cobble it into the Tishrei system and ended up with his mistake.
 * I think Rav Hai Gaon was saying that, but it's impossible to really know, as part of his words are missing. MikeR613 (talk) 03:49, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

End of the story
The article (from the Jewish Encyclopedia) claims that R' Saadia's intervention made an "end of the matter". That does not seem to have been true. All the accounts I have seen say that the Jews of Israel and of Egypt followed Aharon ben Meir; the Jews elsewhere followed the Gaonim of Babylonia. The event itself occurs rarely as the molad can fall anywhere in 24 hours of the day while the issue only arises if it falls between 12 noon and 12 noon + 35 minutes. I am told (http://hebrewcalendar.tripod.com/benmeir.html) that this happened again four years later (927) but did not happen for almost two centuries afterwards. By then the issue had been forgotten and the Yeshivot of Babylonia were in charge. MikeR613 (talk) 04:08, 21 December 2018 (UTC)