This article will have information added onto it over time
Genesis
Genesis 30:37-39 – “37 Now Jacob took for himself rods of green poplar and of the almond and chestnut trees, peeled white strips in them, and exposed the white which was in the rods. 38 And the rods which he had peeled, he set before the flocks in the gutters, in the watering troughs where the flocks came to drink, so that they should conceive when they came to drink. 39 So the flocks conceived before the rods, and the flocks brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted.”
Objection: This isn’t a common objection, but it is certainly a silly one to bring up. In the objection someone would accuse Jacob of doing something with faulty scientific methods to produce different genetic sheep together. That this is not how you make different genetics amongst a flock of lambs.
Response: The problem with this objection is that nowhere in the text is it claimed that this method scientifically produces variations among a flock of lambs. Nor is it the prescriptive for Christians to follow Jacob’s example. Rather, the passage is descriptive, simply recounting what Jacob did.
In fact, scholars are uncertain about its precise meaning within its cultural context. Some suggest it reflects an ancient belief that what animals see during mating influences their offspring’s appearance. Others propose it was a common practice in Jacob’s time that he may have believed in. However, the text does not indicate that God instructed Jacob to do this, nor does it suggest any scientific basis for the method.
Even if God had commanded Jacob to act in this way, the emphasis would be on God’s miraculous power rather than any natural effect of placing striped sticks before the flock. The key would be Jacob’s obedience, not the physical act itself. Amongst the answers given, they are merely suggestive, but not demonstrated, so to come up with a argument that isn’t even set amongst scholars to know for sure what Jacob was doing is simply playing on the ignorance of a Christian. That may not know how to give a educated response to this underhanded objection
Commentaries
“…That Jacob believed in the efficacy of the artifice he adopted is apparent; but the multiplication of Parti-colored animals it will be safer to ascribe to Divine blessing than to human craft. Genesis 30:39” Pulpit Commentary
“…This artifice was founded upon a fact frequently noticed, particularly in the case of sheep, that whatever fixes their attention in copulation is marked upon the young (see the proofs in Bochart, Hieroz. 1, 618, and Friedreich zur Bibel 1, 37ff.).” – Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament
“Jacob devises means to provide himself with a flock in these unfavorable circumstances. His first device is to place party-colored rods before the eyes of the cattle at the rutting season, that they might drop lambs and kids varied with speckles, patches, or streaks of white. He had learned from experience that there is a congruence between the colors of the objects contemplated by the dams at that season and those of their young. At all events they bare many straked, speckled, and spotted lambs and kids. He now separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flock toward the young of the rare colors, doubtless to affect them in the same way as the pilled rods. “Put his own folds by themselves.” These are the party-colored cattle that from time to time appeared in the flock of Laban. In order to secure the stronger cattle, Jacob added the second device of employing the party-colored rods only when the strong cattle conceived. The sheep in the East lamb twice a year, and it is supposed that the lambs dropped in autumn are stronger than those dropped in the spring. On this supposition Jacob used his artifice in the spring, and not in the autumn. It is probable, however, that he made his experiments on the healthy and vigorous cattle, without reference to the season of the year. The result is here stated. “The man brake forth exceedingly” – became rapidly rich in hands and cattle.” – Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
You can read other commentaries on Bible Hub
In short, this assumes that Jacob was attempting something scientific, when neither the text nor God suggests such a purpose. The Bible is simply recording the event whether Jacob’s actions were right or wrong without endorsing it as a scientific method.
Leviticus
Leviticus 11:6 – “the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you”
Objections: Skeptics often point to Leviticus 11:6, which states that the hare (or rabbit) “chews the cud,” as a scientific error in the Bible. They argue that rabbits are not ruminants and do not chew cud in the same way cows or sheep do, which involves regurgitating partially digested food from the stomach to chew it again. Since modern zoology classifies rabbits as lagomorphs that practice cecotrophy (re-ingesting nutrient-rich fecal pellets), critics claim that the biblical description is inaccurate and reflects a primitive misunderstanding of animal biology, thereby calling into question the Bible’s scientific credibility.
Resopnse: Once again, the standard of modern science is misapplied. The biblical classifications of clean and unclean animals were based on observable behavior not on modern anatomical or scientific definitions. For the Israelites, these distinctions served a practical, ritual purpose and were never intended to reflect a one-to-one correlation with contemporary scientific categories. As many scholars point out, the language used in these passages reflects descriptive observation rather than technical precision much like how we still say the sun “rises” and “sets,” even though we know the earth orbits the sun.
The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation
LEVITICUS 11:5–6 — How can the Bible say that the hyrax and the rabbit chew the cud when science now knows that they do not?
PROBLEM: In Leviticus 11:5–6, two animals, the rock hyrax and the rabbit, were designated as unclean by Leviticus because, although they chew the cud, they do not divide the hoof. But, science has discovered that these two animals do not chew the cud. Isn’t it an error when the Bible says they chew the cud when in fact they do not?
SOLUTION: Although they did not chew the cud in the modern technical sense, they did engage in a chewing action that looked the same to an observer. Thus, they are listed with other animals that chew the cud so that the common person could make the distinction from his or her everyday observations.
Animals which chew the cud are identified as ruminants; they regurgitate food into their mouths to be chewed again. Ruminants normally have four stomachs. Neither the rock hyrax (translated “rock badger” in the NASB) nor the rabbit are ruminants and technically do not chew the cud. However, both animals move their jaws in such a manner as to appear to be chewing the cud. This action was so convincing that the great Swedish scientist Linnaeus originally classified them as ruminants.
It is now known that rabbits practice what is called “refection,” in which indigestible vegetable matter absorbs certain bacteria and is passed as droppings and then eaten again. This process enables the rabbit to better digest it. This process is very similar to rumination, and it gives the impression of chewing the cud. So, the Hebrew phrase “chewing the cud” should not be taken in the modern technical sense, but in the ancient sense of a chewing motion that includes both rumination and refection in the modern sense.
The list of clean and unclean animals was intended as a practical guide for the Israelite in selecting food. The average Israelite would not have been aware of the technical aspects of cud chewing, and may have otherwise considered the hyrax and rabbit as clean animals because of the appearance of cud chewing. Consequently, it was necessary to point out that, although it may appear that these were clean animals because of their chewing movement, they were not clean because they did not divide the hoof. We often follow a similar practice when talking to those who are not familiar with more technical aspects of some point. For example, we use observational language to talk about the sun rising and setting when we talk to little children. To a small child the daily cycle of the sun has the appearance of rising and setting (see comments on Josh. 10:12–14). The description is not technically correct, but it is functionally useful for the level of understanding of the child. This is analogous to the use here in Leviticus. Technically, although the hyrax and the rabbit do not chew the cud, this description was functional at the time in order to make the point that these animals were considered unclean. – Geisler, Norman L., and Thomas Howe. The Big Book of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation. Baker Books, 2008, pp. 89–90.
Hard Sayings of the Bible
11:3–6 Do the Camel, the Coney and the Rabbit Chew the Cud?
Do the animals listed in Leviticus 11:3–6 actually “chew the cud” in the scientific sense? Why do some critics charge that this is an error wherein several organisms are said to be ruminants, having a gastronomical system wherein several stomachs are used for processing food?
True ruminants generally have four stomachs. As the stomachs work, the food is regurgitated into the mouth, where it is chewed up again. Do the camel, coney and rabbit qualify as ruminants? If not, how do we explain the presence of this classification here?
Cows, sheep and goats “chew the cud.” They swallow their food without chewing it especially fine and store it in one of their stomach compartments. Later, at leisure, they bring it up and rechew it more thoroughly, again swallowing it. Clearly, the Hebrews were not working with this definition of “chewing the cud.” The camel, coney and rabbit are also said to “chew the cud,” but these animals only appear to chew their food as the true ruminants do. In the technical sense neither the hyrax syriacus (Hebrew šāpān) of Leviticus 11:5 — which is called the “coney” in the KJV and NIV and the “rock badger” in the NASB — nor the rabbit in Leviticus 11:6 chews the cud.
The Hebrew expression for “chew the cud” is literally “raising up what has been swallowed.” But what does this raising up of what has been swallowed refer to? Surely there is the appearance of a cud-chewing process in these animals. In fact, so convincing was this appearance that Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), to whom we owe the modern system of biological classification, at first classified the coney and the hare as ruminants.
We believe the rule in Leviticus should be understood not according to later scientific refinements of classification; instead, it was based on simple observation. The fact that the camel, the coney and the rabbit go through motions similar to those of cows, sheep and goats must take precedence over the fact that we later refined the cud-chewing category to limit the animals that fit that description.
The imposition of a more narrow modern definition of terms does not take away from Moses’ ability, or even his right, to use words as he sees fit to use them. To question his use of a term to which Linnaeus eventually gave a more restrictive meaning is anachronistic argumentation.
Interestingly, resting hares and rabbits do go through a process that is very similar to what we moderns call chewing the cud. The process is called refection. As the hare rests, it passes droppings of different composition, which it once again eats. Thus the hare is chewing without bringing the food up from its mouth. During this second passage of the food through its stomach, that which had been indigestible can be better assimilated through the action of bacteria.
The case of the three animals that chewed the cud in Moses’ day but no longer do so can be solved. Moses’ classification had a solid observational basis that was accessible to all. In modern times, the phrase “chewing the cud” has been given a more restrictive meaning. Later generations, having forgotten which came first, have tended to freeze the meaning to the most recent definition and then accuse Moses of not using the term in this later sense. – Kaiser, Walter C., Jr., Peter H. Davids, F. F. Bruce, and Manfred T. Brauch. Hard Sayings of the Bible. InterVarsity Press, 1996, pp. 158–159.
Posted on by Dr. John Oakes (*)wrote in General, Reliability of the Bible, Science and the Bible.
Question: In leviticus 11:20-23 it said that the Israelites could not eat any flying creeping thing that is on all fours. What was God refering to when he means flying creeping on all fours? I can’t find any creeping flying animal or insect that is on all fours.
Answer: Scholars will agree that Leviticus 11:20-23 is a command to not eat the majority of insects. The phrase “flying creeping things” is a reference to insects which fly in general, such as beetles, some ants and many more insects. The phrase “on all fours” is an expression for those with legs which walk. Skeptics have tried to paint this as a Bible error, but this is a big stretch. The phrase “all fours” is an idiom for walking (with the exception of humans, birds and a few others which walk on two legs. To say that the Israelites were unaware that insects had six legs or that the writer of Leviticus made a scientific error of not knowing insects have six legs is to look for a mistake where there is none. Obviously the writer of Leviticus knew that insects have six legs and also obviously Jewish writers used idioms freely.
John Oakes
The Bible Handbook of Difficult Verses: A Complete Guide to Answering the Tough Questions
“However, both the rock badger and rabbit chew their food with their jaws rotating in such a fashion that it appears as though they are chewing their cud. Calling these animals cud chewers is a functional description rather than a technical designation.” – McDowell, Josh, and Sean McDowell. The Bible Handbook of Difficult Verses: A Complete Guide to Answering the Tough Questions. Harvest House Publishers, 2013, p. 88.
Even these additional commentaries from Bible Hub acknowledge that observational criteria played a role in determining whether an animal was considered clean or unclean.
“Like the rabbit, or the hyrax, the hare… so moves its jaws that it appears to masticate… the legislator… adopted those which were in common vogue, and which alone were intelligible in those days.”- Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
“…of moving its jaws when it is at rest as if it were masticating… rodents were familiarly spoken of as ruminating animals… when there is no occasion for scientific accuracy.”- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible“They only appear to be [ruminating] from working the jaws on the grasses they live on.” – Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
