Secular Pinoy

Leviticus
20"All winged insects that go upon all fours are an abomination to you.
21Yet among the winged insects that go on all fours you may eat those which have legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth.

Gakusei,
Let's say you are correct for saying that the hebrews meant that locusts have four legs for waling and two feet for jumping (which is creative apologetics as far as I'm concerned). What about other flying insects? You should note that these verses is about a dietary prohibition on which bugs one may eat. The first verse says that "All winged insects that go upon all fours," no qualifier or anything else. So which flying creatures are banned for human consumption? Let's say flies for instance. They do not leap with legs above their feet. Bugs and dragon flies are some other creepy flying insects that this verse may be referring to. Yet they do not have four legs for creeping about, they have six. There is no four legged flying insect. And your distinction has no explanatory value for these other creatures, only on locusts. In other words, it's totally ad hoc.

It seems that an alternative way to interpret verse 21 (and more plausible, in view of verse 20) is to say that locusts are still considered four legged insects, but that their hind legs are those "above their feet, with which to leap on the earth."

Peter Kirby

The discussion about natural selection will continue here in the Evolution/Creation forum.

best,
Peter Kirby

enrious

Isn't a virgin birth somewhat troublesome to science?

aberdeen

I don't find it nearly as hard to believe that a virgin could give birth as scientists two hundered years ago found it hard to believe in bottom-less black holes of outer darkness, seas drying up, stars flying away from each other being rolled back like a scroll, the sun burning out and a great many other science facts that modern scientists currently believe. Why would it be hard for the Grand Designer of the universe to cause a virgin to give birth? You have to do better than that...

A-Z Random Chance Primer of Science and the Bible
http://richardaberdeen.com/uncommons...dthebible.html

Doctor X

Er . . . that science did not know about some--and only some--of the things mentioned does not make parthenogenesis in humans any more likely or viable. . . .

This is similar to "THEY LAUGHED AT EDISON!!" fallacy, to which Carl Sagan, methinks, responded, "They laughed at Bozo!!"

Anyways, to maintain topical integrety . . . integredy . . . in . . . to keep Peter the Great from sending us all to Sheol . . . aka ~~Elsewhere~~ section . . . concentrate upon resolving the science problems in biblical texts.

Now, the resolution can be easy . . . even for a strict believer . . . the authors made a mistake! Of course, this may lead one to wonder where else they made mistakes!

--J.D.

[Edited to correct to the Textus Recepticus.--Ed.]

GakuseiDon

Secular Pinoy, all the creatures listed in that section are types of locusts, so it only applies to locusts. If you compare the locusts names in the original language with the list of locusts in the Catholic Encylcopedia, you'll see that the Bible only mentions about half of the list. So the other half is what is the "abomination" - for example, yeleq, "the stinging locust".

I'm not sure about dragon flies and other bugs, I'm afraid.

Hawkingfan

That would only apply to verse 21. But the wording shows that the two verses are talking about 2 different creatures. If the insects in verse 20 had six legs total (4 for crawling, 2 for jumping), then they would have been ok to eat. But it is for the fact that they *do not* have those 2 legs for jumping that you *cannot* eat them.

Leviticus 11
20 All flying insects that crawl on all fours are to be detestable to you. 21 There are, however, some winged creatures that walk on all fours that you may eat: those that have jointed legs above their feet for leaping on the ground.

Secular Pinoy

Funny, verse 20 does not say "All winged locusts," it says "All winged insects." Your locust argument is obviously a case of ad hoc rationalization.

Hawkingfan

Do we know *how* accustomed they were to eating it? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. I am sure there are people today who are accustomed to eating lobster, crawfish, etc. who do not know how many legs it has.
Besides, it seems they were accustomed to eating rabbit as well, yet they did not know that it does not chew the cud--something that they could have easily found out when dissecting the animal.
The point is that the "word of (an omnipotent) god" should be clear on exactly what it is talking about.

aberdeen

That is not at all the point. The point of Hebrew dietary laws is to insure for a healthy population, which was entirely necessary given their historical war and rumor of war situation. Whether or not their pharasology is scientifically correct by today's standards is entirely irrevelant to the intention and context of the narrative. Notwithstanding the obvious intention, it is most probable that the people in context with their culture clearly understood what the text is talking about--it is inconceivable that lawas would be written that were entirely not coherent with the general phrasology and speech of the people the laws were applied to--even U.S. law, as absurd as it may be, is more coherent than what the argument is insinuating here.

--Aberdeen
www.AberdeenFoundation.org