Re: Cud-Chewing Hare (was Hyers' Article - Cods Wallop!)

Paul wrote:

>Dick Fischer wrote,
>
>>I haven't studied rabbits personally. I did read that they have been
>>known to munch on their own feces. Whether rabbit pellets would qualify
>>as "cud" to a Hebrew writer, I have no idea.
>>
>>But let us say we could isolate a genuine biblical statement that was
>>undeniably false and couldn't be attributable to a scribal gloss, or a
>>miscopied letter, or anything other than the writer made a bona fide
>>misstatement of fact. Would that not constitute solid evidence that
>>Scripture was uninspired? Or should we conclude that the Holy Spirit,
>>who inspired the writer, is just mistaken from time to time?
>
>No, eating feces is not the same thing as chewing the cud. The Hebrew
>actually says "brings back up the 'cud'" the same thing a cow does. Eating
>feces is bringing back down, but not up: with hares there is no
>regurgitation which is of the essence in the passage. Secondly, eating
>feces could not be the action referred to because "chewing the cud",
>(bringing back up the cud) made the animal clean, whereas eating feces
>would never be thought of as making an animal clean. On the other hand, it
>is an understandable mistake in that hares' jaws go from side to side when
>they are filing their incisors, and this looks just like the jaws of a cud
>chewing cow; plus they file their incisors even when being away from food
>just as cows sometimes chew the cud without food being near.
>
>I think it is fair to say that this is a biological error in Scripture
>which cannot be explained by appeal to a scribal gloss or textual
>transmission, etc.

We didn't get to this place because we were discussing a scene from Animal
Planet. We got here from a discussion about the historical integrity of
Genesis.

My mother used to tell the story of when she was a youngster and a lady in
their church had invited her mother (my eventual grandmother) and her to
dinner. While seated at the dinner table my mother spotted an inchworm
cavorting in the lettuce of her salad. So she felt it her duty to announce
the presence of this intruder.

My grandmother immediately moved to hush up her little girl and told her
there was nothing there, but she didn't have to eat the salad if she
preferred not to. That would have put an end to it except that my mother
was determined to preserve her credibility.

So she sat quietly waiting until the inchworm had crawled right out on a
lettuce leaf in full view, whereupon my mother shouted, "See, there he
is." My mother was exonerated, my grandmother embarrassed, the lady mortified.

The point I am trying to make here is that an inchworm may or may not exist
in the "salad" of Scripture. You seem to be surer than I am about
that. But does it spoil everything rendering it unpalatable, is it merely
an anomaly we can put up with by eating around it, or do we merely have
some unwanted nutrients.

And I'm not saying I know the answer to that. But what I see as an
undesirable effect is what we have been discussing as to how we should take
the beginning chapters of Genesis - as historical or something else. I'm
not sure a solid cosmos, whether the Hebrews believed that or not , deems
it necessary to look for bizarre ways to interpret Genesis. I consider the
idea that the writer intended Genesis as a polemic against false gods
spurious at worst, and a secondary motive at best.

Dick Fischer - Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Mon Mar 1 00:32:21 2004