Is there a fringe Jewish theological belief that the moon is made out of gas?

[Ranchoth]

There was an odd something I thought I read here, awhile back, that I can’t find at the moment, that I thought I’d ask about.

It was, I think, in a discussion about the relationship between science and religion, or some such. Someone mentioned talking with someone who practiced an ultraorthodox or very hard line form of Judaism—who subscribed to a theological doctrine, based on the interpretations of some medieval Jewish naturalist/theologian, that the moon was made out of gas. Like a cloud.

I got the impression that this was considered about as mainstream to Judaism as the Christians who belief that the world is in fact a flat square, because the Bible mentions the “four corners of the world” are to most of Christianity, but I don’t remember for sure.

However, I can’t actually find the post in question now, so I can’t be sure of all the details, or even that I didn’t imagine the whole thing while freebasing Tylenol Cold.

Can anyone clue me in?

[Captain_Amazing]

The Rambam (Moses Maimonides, 12th century Spanish-Egyptian doctor to Saladin, and one of, if not the greatest, of the medieval Jewish theologians), said this in his book Yesodei haTorah (Foundations of the Torah):

Everything that God created in His world can be placed in one of three classifications. Firstly, there are those creations, such as the bodies of men and animals, plants and the molten images, which have a shape and form which always exist and can be spoiled. Secondly, there are those creations which have a shape and form which does not vary from body to body or in appearance, like those in the first category do, but their shape is fixed by their form and can never change. These are the spheres and the stars contained therein. Their form and shape are like none other. Thirdly, there are those creations which have a form but no shape. These are the angels, which have no bodies, but whose form vary from angel to angel.

So basically, you’ve got three kinds of stuff. You’ve got the stuff that we come in contact with, which has a form, but also changes and decays over time. You’ve got the heavenly spheres that revolve around the earth (the planets, the moon, the sun, the stars) which is eternal and unchangeable, and you’ve got the angels, which have no fixed form.

He then, after a discussion on angels, goes on to explain the spheres and subspheres and generally describe Ptolmey’s geocentric model.

But anyway, if you took all this as divinely inspired and therefore correct, as some more annoying members of the frum community do, then yeah, that would make things like landing on the moon impossible.