Sharon357

"The main thing to remember is that the ancients would not have thought that eating feces was "bring[ing] up the cud." Only a modern sees what little similarity exists between refection and rumination because of his knowledge of the chemistry of rumination. An ancient would not have had this knowledge, and for reasons I stated in the prior article, the ancients were probably not even aware of refective behavior. Therefore, this verse could not have been a reference to this behavior."
http://www.infidels.org/library/maga...2/2chew95.html

But it is likely the ancients were aware that swine consumes its own feces. Feces of any kind, period. It is my suspicion that was one of the reasons Moses and the Hebrews felt the swine was an abominable creature and not intended for human consumption.

Sharon357

I was just surfing Google to see what else exists on the subject.

Apparently John Stear / No Answers in Genesis had covered part of the issue in depth (the fact that rabbits do not "chew" at all). The pellets are found whole in the rabbit's stomach.

From: Answers in Genesis needs to "chew the cud" again
As English naturalist R M Lockley, author of the excellent book "The Private Life of the Rabbit", demonstrates on page 105 that rabbits DO NOT chew these pellets. AiG is wrong again. I repeat, rabbits DO NOT chew their cud!

...each soft pellet is separate and by the time it reaches the rectum is enveloped in a strong membrane ...these soft pellets pass down to the rectum in glossy clusters. They are swallowed whole by the rabbit, that is, without breaking the enveloping membranes. ...although the rabbit sometimes appears to chew this faecal "cud" after collecting it from the anus, with movements of the jaws, ... Griffiths and Davies assert that the soft pellets are found whole in the stomach and therefore must be swallowed whole. [my emphasis]

It would seem that the authors of Leviticus observed the rabbits' jaw movements and mistook this as evidence of cud-chewing. Not very reliable evidence on which to make a scientific pronouncement. Besides, the evidence for and understanding of refection in rabbits has only come to light in the last forty or so years, so if scientists who study rabbit physiology were ignorant of refection for hundreds of years, how much more ignorant were those ancient authors of Leviticus?
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/aig_rabbits_cud.htm

A Christian Website containing numerous links on the digestive system of Rabbits.
http://www.gw.org/Rabbit.htm quotes
"Rabbits are sometimes called "pseudo-ruminants"... The rhythmic cycle of coprophagy of pure cecal contents practiced by all rabbits allows utilization of microbial protein and fermentation products, as well as recycling of certain minerals. Whereas the feces commonly seen excreted by rabbits are fairly large, dry and ovoid, excreted singly, and consist of fibrous plant material, cecotrophs are about half that size, occur in moist bundles stuck together with mucus, and are very fine textured and odiferous. They are seldom seen, as the rabbit plucks them directly from the anus as they are passed and swallows them whole. Normal rabbits do not allow cecotrophs to drop to the floor or ground, and their presence there indicates a mechanical problem or illness in the rabbit.
microvet.arizona.edu/Courses/MIC443/notes/rabbits.htm

Sharon357

I found this link on the web:
http://www.grisda.org/origins/04102.htm

It relates to the Apologetical explanation of the "hare chewing the cud".
I contacted them to inquire further.

Here is the response I received (with a few of my own notes interspersed)

What the Professor is not telling people:
Sophisticated? Different? In that it is only a half turd?

My point on the swine eating half-digested feces stands.. the stuff the rabbit is eating is merely half-digested veggie-poop, and if I took a blender and stuck a pile of semi-digested horse plop in it and turned the power on then patted it into a pellet and wiped some oil on it -- you'd have your "sophisticated little membrane-bound packet". Many turds come out with vegetation in them and with oils naturally produced by the body.

He is making out as if this half-turd is sophisticated... "divine". Really!
Disgusting.

It's a pellet that is half-turd / with mangled green stuff in it, and he knows it is not fit for a cow to eat. It is not "cud". Cows, goats and sheep certainly would not eat this stuff! There's a reason it's coming out of the rabbits butt - it is nearly digested - they try to tell people that stuff is "cud" --and conveniently omit that it's turned partially turd by that time! Sophisticated packet my foot. It's half-turd when the rabbit swallows it.

No wonder the rabbit won't chew it! Would a cow chew on a half-turd?

"Why do rabbits eat their own droppings?
Caecal pellets are soft, smelly, clumpy feces, and are a rabbit's only supply of Vitamin B12. ...
At the *end of their digestive system is an area called the caecum where cellulose and other plant fibers are broken down and ferment... After they have been broken down and passed, a rabbit's digestive system can finally extract the vitamins from them. Occasionally, the rabbit may leave these pellets lying about their cage; while smelly, this behavior is harmless. If their caecal pellets are consistently wet and runny, this may indicate either too little fiber, or too many starches in their diet. This probably means that they need to be fed additional hay.
http://petcaretips.net/caecal-pellets.html
*This sounds thoroughly unrelated to rumination (cud chewing).

I CAN TELL YOU RIGHT NOW -- THAT STUFF IS NOT "CUD".

The Bible not only is specific on "brings up" but the word for "cud" as well. Try to tell people that filthy dropping is something a cow or goat is chewing.

A ruminant is "chewing its cud" after it regurgitates from the first stomach. The cud hasn't even began to come near the intestines to begin the breakdown process into feces. Ruminants chew a cud, gerah -- a relatively clean substance.

I'm quite positive the rabbit is not swallowing "cud" if it's passed out the
backside... there is a REASON it is classified among forms of Coprophagia (feces-eating) in animals.

Just as the Hebrew words alah and gerah are not significant to Biblical literalists -- just as long as there's room to wiggle. Fact is, that stuff is not "cud", and further, it is not "brought up" from the throat. A rabbit does not chew a cud. It swallows a half-digested turd.

FACT: A rabbit is not a ruminant and they do not share the same digestive system with cows, sheep, goats. It sounds like to me, he's just trying to make things sound more complicated than they need to be.

SO WHAT if the rabbit and cow share some common characteristic in digestion? This small similarity hardly qualifies as "cud chewing" or ruminant. The differences far outweigh the similarities.

How often in rabbits? Occasionally. Sometimes. Only at night. Most of the food they eat is passed as solid waste and never touched again. Not so in true cud chewers who are witnessed chewing cud around the clock.

It does most all the time. I suppose we should give all the glawry to God because nature endowed the rabbit with the ability to strip out some half-digested vegetation and separate it from solid waste. This still hardly qualifies as "cud chewing". There is a vast difference, this "green turd" is a "product of the rabbit's body" --it is not cud. I am not amazed at the bodies of animals producing food -- mammals produce milk -- another phenomena of evolutionary biology.

I am under the impression Moses would have it no other way... starting with the definition of cud. (Not half-digested turds).

And the Bible is emphatic on how ruminants do it: "Brings up" the "cud".

And rabbits do not "bring up" the cud as stated in the Bible... "so there is really no valid comparison between rabbits, cud-chewing and the Bible".

SOUNDS LIKE "CUD" IS UP FOR ANYONE'S BEST DEFINITION THESE DAYS. So, who's to say what "cud" really is. We can't trust the Bible on a simple word like 'alah' and 'gerah'... also. If a rabbit can chew a turd and its called 'cud' (half digested feces) --then we're free to call say swine chew cud.

*Swine do not chew cud.
*Neither do rabbits.

No link between rabbits and ruminants was established to discuss rumination in rabbits. The word rumination is derived from the Latin word ruminare, which means to chew the cud.
http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2652.htm

Rabbits occasionally eat a half-turd like swine do. That is why these pellets smell bad, that is why rabbits do not "chew" them. They're turds. He did not describe any rumination process in rabbits. If he did, I missed it.

Sharon357

Two Questions that are gnawing at me:

It's not feces?
But refection is indeed classified among feces-eating behaviors?
And the reason why:
Caecal pellets are soft, smelly, clumpy feces . . .
http://petcaretips.net/caecal-pellets.html

If it sounds like "feces" and smells like "feces", it probably is "feces".

Is he knowingly lying or what am I missing?

Since when has science began classifying refection (feces eating) as "rumination"? Or better, has science re-classified rumination (cud chewing) under any form of Coprophagia? --as feces-eating behavior? Since when did they begin calling feces, a "cud"?

Mere pseudo-science.

A fermentation process he says?
Is it necessary? Does scripture call for any specifics about the intestines, fermentation chambers or other details involved with the process of digestion? No it does not. Rather simply, the only specific detail we have to define the type of digestion involved is "brings up" the gerah, "cud".

Where does it say in the Hebrew scripture that (fermentation) is even necessary to qualify in the production of "cud". Cud can be defined as about anything. As we all know now from Christian Apologists, the definition of "cud" is up for grabs, anything goes from regurgitation to feces, the definition of "brings up" (alah and gerah) was put up for re-definition as well. Who needs fermentation? Fact is swine get nourishment from their half-digested feces, just like rabbits do. And if we can go the stretch from cows chewing their regurgitation to the extreme of calling a swallowed half-turd "chewing cud" (totally disregarding the known translation of Hebrew scripture) -- then we can go one inch further and say swine chew their cud. No limits -- we're free to interpret scripture, rumination and cuds however our heart desires.


------

What creationists fail to understand, these behaviors (refection and rumination) may have 1 or 2 distant similarities --but they are not related. To compare vomit and feces as "cud" is like comparing apples and oranges.

Some time back on television they broadcasted a special about Evolution and the development of life -the creatures who first moved and then proceeded to move out on land. In this series they gave the example of the Seahorse and how strikingly similar it is in comparison with the horse (equus caballus). But, these two creatures came out that way by coincidence, a freak phenomena of natural selection. It was not a "sign" from a designer, nor miraculous, nor some evidence scripture is inerrant or inspired.

The undeniable truth is that rabbits do not chew a cud. They partake in an obscure PART-TIME feces-swallowing behavior which natural selection designed their body for. (Having more similarities with consuming half digested dung than chewing a cud as in "rumination" --just ask yourself what is inside that so-called "sophisticated packet"). I guarantee you its not the same stuff cows, sheep and goats are chewing... it's turd, and the rabbit will not chew it. In contrast, Ruminants chew their cud around the clock --their digestive system is not comparable with the rabbit in that regard. The digestive system of rabbits did not evolve "with" ruminants and they are not cud chewers.

Scripture specifies one tiny detail which sheds light on everything, "alah" for "bring up" the cud. All else is totally irrelevant.

Sharon357

They're not ruminants. I've read where some refer to them as Pseudo-ruminants.

It's funny. Some scientists are proposing to classify animals based on taxonomy. These guys are trying to get them classified based on ancient Scripture.

I won't comment further.

-

On 8/12/2005 12:25:01 PM, Brand, Leonard (LLU) (lbrand/llu.edu) wrote:
Sharon:
I will attempt to answer your questions, and you may publish our correspondence.

You say that it has long been confirmed that rabbits are not ruminants. I am not sure what you referring to, but it is not as simple as that. I wrote an article in Origins (published by GRI) on this topic in vol 4(2), 1977, p. 102-104. The papers referred to in that article, by physiologists, recognize that rabbits are ruminants, unless we wish to take a very restrictive anatomical description of what rumination is. There is one mistake I made in that article, however - I refer to eating one kind of feces - called soft feces, which I have since learned is not correct - these pellets should not be called feces, but they are special packets of food material prepared in the fermentation chamber.

There are groups of animals that eat mostly green vegetation. Vertebrates cannot digest green plants and get enough nutrition for life. They must have a fermentation system to get the nutrients out. This includes those mammals formally recognized as ruminants - the ruminating Artiodactyls (camels, cows, deer, and their relatives), but it also includes an entire subfamily of rodents - the Microtinae, the rabbits and hares, and a few birds. Of these, the Artiodactyls and the rabbits and hares bring the fermented food back for a second pass through the digestive tract - a very significant adaptation. At least some physiologists recognize this as rumination, no matter how they get the food back to the mouth. With the rabbits this is definitely not "eating feces." Swine may eat feces, as some other animals will do at times, but they do not have any of the equipment for fermentation or a second pass of food (not feces) through the digestive tract, and thus
are irrelevant to this discussion.

I am not a Hebrew expert, but some considerations that do not require knowledge of Hebrew make me doubtful about making too many specific physiological conclusions from some Hebrew expressions. For example, in descriptions of types of animals Leviticus 11:20 refers to insects that walk upon all fours. This seems to imply that insects have four legs, when if fact all insects have six legs. Naturalists studying in cultures that are not educated in science have found that people who live close to nature may not know anything about biological theory, but they are careful observers of those things that can be seen around them. The idea that the Hebrews thought insects have four legs is, I think, simply not believable. Perhaps the expression "walk on all fours" meant walk on their legs, rather than swimming, jumping, etc. In like manner, I doubt if the details of the Hebrew expression for rumination should be used to make decisions about physiology.

Are the commercial food pellets for rabbits sent through the fermentation process? I don't know. It may depend on what those pellets are made of - are they green vegetation, like a rabbit's normal diet? Commercial food for various animals often ignores the normal diet of the animal, which can be very detrimental. An example is feeding cows on a commercial diet largely made of processed animal products. Cows digestive tracts are not designed for eating meat. Also, unless rabbit breeders watch their rabbits all night they may not see them eat the fermented food pellets.

Is it important for a Bible-believer to know whether rabbits "chew the cud?" Probably not. However, what is known about rabbits makes me unimpressed by some persons I have known who argue this issue as demonstrating that the Bible is unreliable.

The best to you in your Bible study
Leonard Brand


Here's another response that just came in:
(*One small note: "involves the collection of nutrients by a second digestion" -common sense tells us if a swine or any creature consumes feces, it will go through a second digestion, and further broken down and the nutrients asorbed. To restore? The swine sees its semi-digested droppings and restores it to its mouth (doesn't matter how it gets there, just that it does) and proceeds to eat it to fully digest its meal. And I agree, nobody seems to understand what alah gerah means these days.)

---------

On 8/12/2005 3:05:54 PM, thestewarts/canada.com wrote:
Sharon,

Thanks for visiting our site. And thanks for your concern about the article in our Answering The Atheist section on whether the rabbit chews the cud or not.

There is no disagreement on whether cattle chew the cud. Both Bible believers and those who oppose the Bible can agree on this. The hare seems to be a hairy issue though. Why does Moses say that the hare chews the cud, but the swine does not? What makes the two different? The rabbit consumes it's own feces for nutritional benefit; the pig (an omnivore) eats the feces of herbivores for nutritional benefit. No mention is made in the article you quoted of any nutritional benefit derived for the pig from consuming it's own feces.

Could it be that Moses' phrase "'alah gerah" (rendered in English as "chew the cud") involves the collection of nutrients by a second digestion, whether it be the regurgitation process used by cattle or coprophagia, used by rabbits? In both cases, the animal is redigesting it's own food for nutritional benefit. It may be that our modern thought of what it means to "chew the cud" is different than what "'alah gerah" is.

You mentioned that the rabbit does not chew at all, but rather swallows the pellet whole. This argument is based upon the assumption that "chew the cud" is an adequate rendering of "'alah gerah". The fact is, neither word literally means to chew. "'Alah" has a variety of uses, but generally means to raise up or bring up. But in addition, it can mean to recover or restore. The rabbit surely is recovering or restoring it's food in the coprophagia process. It would seem that translators considered "chew the cud" to best accommodate Moses' meaning, though it seems to fall short in fully expressing what "'alah gerah" means.

In His Service,
William J. Stewart
Kingston, Ontario
www.lookinguntojesus.net

Sharon357

I've heard said there's always an exception to every rule.

"In some tests, animals are put on a diet that may be far beyond their range of natural diets, e.g., putting a natural vegetarian (like a rabbit) on a diet of, say, cooked bacon. As the gut morphology of a rabbit is not adapted to a pure meat diet, the results of such tests must be interpreted with caution."
http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/...-anat-8c.shtml

So a rabbit is not "absolutely" herbivore.

Posted by Bryan on February 15, 2004
In Reply to: Rabbits can eat more efficiency on August 29, 2003

My rabbit loves to eat chicken. And I don't know why?
answer me this question. He doesn't seem too vegetarian too me.
I dunno what to think of it.
E-mail me back.
Peace
Bryan

Posted by Beth on April 12, 2005
In Reply to: MY RABBIT IS A OMNIVORE posted by Bryan on February 15, 2004

My rabbit is also an Omnivore. She likes eating beef. We discovered this when my cat was on the floor with our left- overs. My rabbit just went right over and started to eat it too. If you have other pets maybe it learned it from them. My rabbit also eats strange things like kraftdinner. Anyways I can't really answer your question but I just wanted to share that information.
http://www.ecolivingcenter.com/board...sages/163.html

I suppose we will never know the full story.

One thing continues to come to mind. While the Creationists are banging their own drum, --a turd which the rabbit swallows --how lucky they were -- (certainly if there is a God who inspired that scripture, God is getting a good laugh at their foolishness.)
The Bible is divinely inspired scriptured and can be proven by a TURD!

They found an obscure coincidence in nature to support a scripture?
All the more confirmed they're "100% right" and Darwin was wrong, goddidit . . . and the fossils that prove evolutionary theory is a fact continue to surface . . . and will continue to do so.

lee_merrill

Well, "alah" has a wide range of meanings, "yalah" means "let's be going" (which could be down or up or level) in Hebrew, so a Jewish person told me.

Now as far as the meaning, as I posted over here, let's read on:

Leviticus 11:20-22 All flying insects that walk on all fours are to be detestable to you. There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs for hopping on the ground. Of these you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper.

Now grasshoppers and crickets etc. do not have only four legs! So either they could not count, or check the stomachs of rabbits, or else they meant something other than what we would think they meant here.

Regards,
Lee

John A. Broussard

Got it!

When the bible looks wrong, it isn't really wrong, it just seems that way because the divinely inspired writers meant something else besides
"what we would think they meant."

So we don't need miracles after all.

"Rabbits chew their cud," didn't mean that rabbits chew their cud, it simply meant "Horses ride the range."

It's easy, once one knows the rule for reading the bible.

Sharon357

Moses also wrote this scripture: Gn:3:14: And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (KJV)

Reading on in Isaiah, which is speaking prophetically of the future kingdom: Is:65:25: The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord. (KJV)

Failed curse in Genesis. Moses stated the serpent would eat dust, and the prophet Isaiah clearly states the serpent will eat dust (in the future).

--

The problem I have is these guys would have children taught this non-science in school. Many Christians cannot even agree on how Hebrew scripture is translated and much less, how to properly interpret scripture (most admit they're not always certain even on the details of ancient viewpoints -- its been demonstrated in this thread, the confusion resulting from alah and gerah) and they want this stuff taught as "science"?

I am one person who does not want my children taught "rabbits chew cud". They do not chew cud. Science had it right when they classified this observed behavior under feces-eating.

I have something to show that is far more amazing than a discovery of a rabbit chewing its turd.


LeVar Burton holding a manatee flipper in hand. Notice the vestigial toenails. Sea cows, dugong and manatee share a common ancestor with elephants. These creatures evolved. In their own sweet way, evidence of this nature is for Evolutionists, what the rabbit turd is for Creationists. We have every reason to believe whole-heartedly in evolutionary theory as a fact. In fact, I find these toenails (and other similarities) between elephants and sirenians far more fascinating than a rabbit turd and a scripture in a book which nobody can even agree on meaning. Everyone can look at that photo and pretty well agree those are indeed "toenails".

Creationists seized upon turd-eating in rabbits as evidence for divinely inspired and inerrant scripture. This behavior in rabbits has not proven the Bible inerrant or inspired. They have merely brought attention to an observed behavior in rabbits. Nothing more. They can call it "cud chewing" if they like, but its not cud chewing and never will be.

Let's assume for one moment Moses knew of refection. If so, and Moses proceeded to classify refection as "cud chewing", then it only proves beyond doubt, how ignorant that culture was. Modern science knows better and classified this behavior in rabbits under feces-eating (Coprophagia) for a reason.

John Kesler

Lee, most words have "a wide range of meanings," and context determines which of these meanings is correct. Just because a Hebrew or Greek word can mean something different in another context doesn't mean that the meaning of the word is subject to whatever definition we find most advantageous.

As I mentioned in another post, Deuteronomy 14 lists several animals which "chew the cud": "the ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain-sheep."

Here we have a list of ruminants said to be cud chewers, so doesn't it strike you as odd that an animal that eats its own feces somehow was considered in the same classification as the others? On the other hand, if the hare appeared to chew the cud, the classification makes sense.

Also in another post, I quoted scholarly works which consider the "hare chews the cud" statement to be in error. Add to this the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary, page 404, which says that the hare, "was considered unclean...for an inaccurate reason, namely, the assumption that a hare chews the cud." The Anchor Bible Dictionary, volume 6, page 1142, states that, "like the ruminants, rabbits and hares always seem to be chewing. It is possible that it was this superficial observation which led the creator(s) of the biblical dietary law (mistakenly) to classify the hare with the ruminants..."

One more thing to consider is that even though Leviticus 11:3 uses alah for "chew," verse 7, which tells why the swine is disqualified from being a "clean" animal, says that it does not "chew the cud," but the word "chew" is a different Hebrew word, garar. Christian scholar Dr. Spiros Zodhiates, in his Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible, page 1606, under "Lexical Aids to the Old Testament," defines garar thusly, emphasis mine:

In other words, even if you want to claim that alah is so versatile in meaning as to be open to interpretation in Leviticus 11:3, the other Hebrew word used is properly defined in verse 7 as "ruminate," the very thing that a swine doesn't do that disqualifies it.