B. H. Manners

""""
The Scriptural reference to the hare as a cud chewer has frequently been doubted by some critics of the Bible. (Le 11:4,_6; De 14:7) It should not be overlooked, however, that the modern, scientific classification of what constitutes chewing of the cud provides no basis for judging what the Bible says, as such classification did not exist in the time of Moses."""""

-------->Well, they obviously had some way of deciding who and what "chewed the cud" or else "Moses never would have made any mention of it. Why don't you tell us how they decided what and who chewed the cud back then in an absolute objective manner. If you can't do this then you don't know just what "chewing cud" means. Therefore you do not know what God said about something for sure.


"""" Even in the 18th century, English poet William Cowper, who had at length observed his domestic rabbits, commented that they “chewed the cud all day till evening.” Linnaeus, famed naturalist of the same century, believed that rabbits chewed the cud."""""""

------> So? He was wrong. Which just goes to show that a Bible writer could be fooled just as easily. Again provide evidence that the ancient Bible writers considered "chewing cud" to be as you say it is.

"""But it remained for others to supply more scientific data. """

----->But we don't need it. I have the answer..


"Frenchman Morot discovered in 1882 that rabbits reingest up to 90 percent of their daily intake. Concerning the hare, Ivan T._Sanderson in a recent publication remarks: “One of the most extraordinary [habits], to our way of thinking, is their method of digestion. This is not unique to Leporids [hares, rabbits] and is now known to occur in many Rodents. When fresh green food, as opposed to desiccated [dried] winter forage, is available, the animals gobble it up voraciously and then excrete it around their home lairs in a semi-digested form. After some time this is then re-eaten, and the process may be repeated more than once. In the Common Rabbit, it appears that only the fully grown adults indulge this practice.” Living Mammals of the World, 1955, p. 114."

--------->The word for chewing cud in Hebrew means to "bring back up" or "scrape the throat" if I am not mistaken. That is what a cow does and camel too. They swallow up their food and them bring back up. This is not what a rabbitt does. He craps it out and eats it again.

"""Certain British scientists of this century made close observations of the rabbits’ habits under careful controls, and the results they obtained were published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1940, Vol. 110, pp. 159-163. Briefly this is the way the hare reingests its food: If a rabbit eats a breakfast of fresh food, it passes through the stomach into the small intestine, leaving behind in the cardiac end of the stomach some 40 or 50 grams of pellets that were already present when the fresh food was eaten. From the small intestine the morning meal enters the caecum or blind end of the large intestine and there remains for a period of time. During the day the pellets descend, and in the intestines the bacterial protein in them is digested. When they reach the large intestine they bypass the material in the caecum and go on into the colon where the excess moisture is absorbed to produce the familiar dry beans or droppings that are cast away. This phase of the cycle completed, the material stored in the dead end of the caecum next enters the colon, but instead of having all the moisture absorbed it reaches the anus in a rather soft condition. It is in pellet form with each coated with a tough layer of mucus to prevent them from sticking together. Now when these pellets reach the anus, instead of being cast away, the rabbit doubles up and takes them into the mouth and stores them away in the cardiac end of the stomach until another meal has been eaten. In this way the special rhythmic cycle is completed and most of the food has passed a second time through the digestive tract.


---->There have been cases where people in dire straits have had to "eat their own dung" Does that mean they were cud eaters? Again, the rabbitt does not "bring up" or "bring back up" its food. For this to happen the rabbitt would have to crap out its pellet, shove it back up his butt, let go back through his stomach into his mouth and chew.

"""Dr._Waldo L._Schmitt, Head Curator, Department of Zoology of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington,_D.C., in commenting on these findings, wrote: “There seems to be no reason to doubt the authenticity of the reports of various workers that rabbits customarily store semi-digested food in the caecum and that this is later reingested and passes a second time through the digestive tract.” He also observed that here is an explanation for “the phenomenally large caecum of rabbits as compared with most other mammals """""

------->Thanks for the lesson how food excretes from the rabbitt. I'll remember it if I ever have to take another biology class. However, it is not "bringing up" food. It craps and then eats fecal pellets.

"""The hare was prohibited as food under the Law given through Moses and is referred to as a chewer of the cud. (Le 11:4,_6; De 14:7) """

---->Yes

Hares and rabbits, of course, do not have a multichambered or multiparted stomach and do not regurgitate their food for rechewing, which characteristics are associated with the scientific classification of ruminants or cud chewers. Nevertheless, although the Hebrew term here used for chewing literally means “bringing up,”

-----> Which is what I said all along.


the modern scientific classification was not the basis for what the Israelites in Moses’ day understood ‘cud chewing’ to be.

----->Redundant comment. They understood it as a bringing up of food. Sounds like cud chewing as we call it today to me. They thought the rabbitt did just like the cow and camel did.


"""Hence, there is no foundation for judging the accuracy of the Bible statement by the restricted, relatively recent conception of what constitutes a cud-chewing animal, as done by many critics. """

-------->I'm afraid your commentators and apologists have lied to you YHWHtruth. There is plenty of reason to question what the Bible writers wrote.

"""In the past, commentators with faith in the inspiration of the Bible record saw no error in the statement of the Law. Observed The Imperial Bible-Dictionary: “It is obvious that the hare does in repose chew over and over the food which it has some time taken; and this action has always been popularly considered a chewing of the cud. Even our poet Cowper, a careful noticer of natural phenomena, who has recorded his observations on the three hares which he had domesticated, affirms that they ‘chewed the cud all day till evening.’”Edited by P._Fairbairn, London, 1874, Vol. I, p. 700. """"

-------> They admit it eats its shit but understands it does not "bring up " its food. Again, are people cud chewers because they will eat shit in times of famine or dogs for that matter?

Also, notice what you qouted above. The "commentators with faith in the Bible..." part. Seems to me they realized they fucked up and just tried to change what the term chewing cud meant so it would say what they wanted it to say.

"Scientific observation of hares and rabbits in more recent years, however, indicates that even more than seeming cud chewing is involved. Writes François Bourlière (The Natural History of Mammals, 1964, p._41): “The habit of ‘refection,’ or passing the food twice through the intestine instead of only once, seems to be a common phenomenon in the rabbits and hares. Domestic rabbits usually eat and swallow without chewing their night droppings, which form in the morning as much as half the total contents of the stomach. In the wild rabbit refection takes place twice daily, and the same habit is reported for the European hare._._._. It is believed that this habit provides the animals with large amounts of B vitamins produced by bacteria in the food within the large intestine.” On the same point, the work Mammals of the World (by E._P. Walker, 1964, Vol. II, p. 647) notes: “This may be similar to ‘chewing the cud’ in ruminant mammals. "

------->Chewing the cud is "bring up" or "scraping the throat" It can pass through the intestine all the food it wants but it is not bringing food back up to the mouth and chewing again. Besides the Bible says "CHEW the cud, not DIGEST the cud." For a rabbitt to CHEW everything considered CUD it would have to be in its mouth, unless you are going to quibble with me about what the word "CHEW" means.

Notice your expert said "may be" above.


The BIble specifically said the CUD was CHEWED/BROUGHT UP so it means that FOOD HAD TO GO TO THE STOMACH and come back to the MOUTH to be CHEWED again. The Bible is false.