This time we’ll deal with the animal scientific issues the Bible is said to have. As before Q is the quote from the site I found the issue on, and M is my findings. I really learned a lot in this one, and the process was fun. I hope you enjoy it as well as I did.
Q: Deut 14:7 Rabbits chew their cud.
M: Okay, this one may just gross y’all out a little bit; it did me while I was studying it. Apparently a rabbit does not regurgitate undigested food directly from the stomach-it takes a longer route, as you shall see. Our bunny does have a caecum, a sizeable pouch at the beginning of the large intestines that is used to ferment pellets in order to digest grass as completely as possible, this being the exact thing a cow does by chewing her cud. Once these grass wads have ruminated, if I may, in the caecum for up to 6 hours, the rabbit will return to their peaceful habitat, and pass a smelly, sticky nugget-berry made from the grass it has eaten.
It is at this point that the delightful stuff begins (glad I’m not a bunny, I tell you what!). The cute, little cuddler then will turn around, pick that prized pellet from its keister, and chew on it for a while. After swallowing their little poo-cud, there it will sit in the stomach (yes, just like the moo-cow) for several more hours, allowing the deconstruction of the tough grass fibers so the colon can then get the needed nutrients. Therefore, rabbits do chew their cud, they just get it from a different orifice. Seems the Hebrew were a tad bit smarter than your average Joe off the street.
Q: Deut 14:11-18, Lev 11:13-19 Bat are birds
M: This is one of those misleading “contradictions.” In these passages, it says you can eat all the clean birds, but don’t eat these birds, then it says “and the bat.” Bats are listed after the birds, but the Bible didn’t say they were birds. If you combine this verse with the next one, then Deut 14:18-19, it reads, “and the stork, and the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat, and the swarming flying creatures that are unclean shall not be eaten by you.”
You can therefore see the author was not excluding all creatures except birds in this list. Now in Lev 11:20, there’s no such conjunction “and” used, but otherwise it is still the same wording. Well, except it includes those swarming creatures that creep on the ground with 4 legs, such as the bat. Therefore, the author basically lists the unclean birds, then bats, then swarming creatures that crawl on all four; it seems he just took the basic steps from birds to swarming insects with the bat connecting all three winged groups.
Q: Lev 11:20-21 There are winged creatures (birds or insects) that go around on all fours. (Note: There are no birds that go around on four legs, and all insects have six legs.)
M: This is a continuation of the previous point, and I answered the part that bats do actually go around on all fours, as seen in the little video above. So, what about any other insects that walk on four legs? Just off the top of my head, the praying mantis definitely only walks on four legs, and I do believe the grasshopper uses only 4 legs to walk, but I had to search to find more.
And this is what I found for insects that “walk on 4 legs”: the mantis (2,400 kinds); the walking stick; brush-footed butterflies; all grasshoppers and locusts with over 8,000 species (they only walk with their 2 front pairs, the back pairs are only used for jumping); the water strider; giant water bugs; cicadas (7 kinds/species); and the octhera fly. Huh, there are insects that actually only walk on 4 legs. Just a little bit of searching, and there you have it.
Now, only about half the types here qualify for the verses due to the swarming part, but this does show that grasshoppers and locusts are just fine to eat. Yum, uh…yum? Oh well, to each his own. Oh hey! Canada, and even Texas, have cricket factories so they might be included in human food now and help with protein intake throughout the world.
Q: Gen 3:14 Snakes are cursed to crawl on their bellies and eat dust.
M: If a snake doesn’t get dust in its mouth as it’s crawling along the ground, and it doesn’t get dust, dirt, sand, soil, and more into its system, color me impressed. Even I, one who walks upright, still gets dust in my mouth from the wind. Could you imagine if we crawled on our bellies, how much more we would be trying to spit junk out all the time! And just as a side note, what’s really cool is they’ve found one or two prehistoric snake fossils that have legs.
Oh, and by the way…
©Kelly L. Hartley 2024
Kelly L. Hartley, a new author, writes Bible studies, devotions, fiction, and poems. She focuses on Bible contradictions for her “Spare Time Musings” on Substack. She’s a member of Ozark Chapter of American Christian Writers and Springfield Writer’s Guild. Social media: Substack, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.