Of course they were theorizing; they were uneducated "mystics" with no concrete understanding of astronomy. As I'm sure a scholar such as yourself must know, the Talmud is a series of written debates and disagreements with many different opinions entangled.

Zohar Vayikra 10a unambiguously states that:

The entire world and those upon it, spin round in a circle like a ball,' both those at the bottom of the ball and those at the top. All God's creatures, wherever they live on the different parts of the ball, look different (in color, in their features) because the air is different in each place, but they stand erect as all other human beings.
Therefore there are places in the world where, when some have light, others have darkness; when some have day, others have night. There is a place in the world where the day is long and night is but a short time...

So, to suggest that this idea was held by "most of the Talmudic rabbis" is both false and irrelevant. Scientific matters recorded in the Talmud are not necessarily concrete religious traditions meant to be upheld by future generations, but merely a reflection of the contemporary beliefs of the time. Additionally, like all religious texts, much of the language is couched in metaphor, which leaves it open to a deeper, poetic intepretation.

As for your other irrelevant insinuations, I'm not particularly interested in following those superstitions down into some discursive wormhole.