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So how do you explain the four legged insects? There isn't an insect around that has four legs, and you can't blame this one on taxonomy.
Are you referring to Leviticus 11 and the dietary restrictions? Here's part of the chapter:
Any swarming-creature that swarms upon the earth:
it is a detestable thing, it is not to be eaten.
Anything going about on its belly, anything going about on all fours, up to anything with many legs, among all swarming-creatures that swarm upon the earth:
you are not to eat them,
for they are detestable things!
(Leviticus 11:41-42, SB Fox)
The term "swarming-creatures" is a broad category, not limited to insects. Notice it states that "swarming-creatures" may go "about on its belly", "on all fours" and "with many legs". That's a pretty broad statement concerning locomotion.
Earlier at the beginning of the passage on "swarming-creatures", the text gives some examples:
Now these are for you (the) ones tamei [a Hebrew word denoting something forbidden that makes one ritually impure]
among the swarming-creatures that swarm on the earth:
the weasel, the mouse, and the great-lizard according to its kind;
the gecko, the monitor and the lizard,
the sand-lizard and the chameleon.
(Leviticus 11:29-30)
Earlier in the chapter is the passage I believe you allude to, under "flying swarming-creatures":
Any flying-creature that goes about on all fours -
it is a detestable-thing for you!
However, these you may eat from any flying swarming-creature that goes about on all fours:
(those) that have jointed-legs above their feet, with which to leap on the earth;
as for these, from them you may eat:
the locust according to its kind, the bald-locust according to its kind;
the cricket according to its kind, the grasshopper according to its kind.
(Leviticus 11:20-22)
It is well known that flying insects have 6 legs, and the eating of locusts - especially - was a VERY common practice in the Ancient Near East. The people who wrote this text would most definitely have known how many legs a locust had. They were not idiots. A possible solution presents itself in the term "on all fours". In many Semitic languages, a phrase is used to denote the opposite of something else. In this instance, "go on all fours" may simply be a well-known cultural idiom that denotes something that is the opposite of "standing upright", and which darts or hops around. Verbal in nature, it may not denote specificity of the actual number of legs, in other words.
This may be entirely incorrect, but such usages are very common in Biblical Hebrew. I find it very unlikely that the ancient writers of this text would have been that ignorant of a common food source.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whoppers
..........................
It is well known that flying insects have 6 legs, and the eating of locusts - especially - was a VERY common practice in the Ancient Near East. The people who wrote this text would most definitely have known how many legs a locust had. They were not idiots. A possible solution presents itself in the term "on all fours". In many Semitic languages, a phrase is used to denote the opposite of something else. In this instance, "go on all fours" may simply be a well-known cultural idiom that denotes something that is the opposite of "standing upright", and which darts or hops around. Verbal in nature, it may not denote specificity of the actual number of legs, in other words.
This may be entirely incorrect, but such usages are very common in Biblical Hebrew. I find it very unlikely that the ancient writers of this text would have been that ignorant of a common food source.
In other words, the bible is anything but clear and is open to all sorts of interpetation.
In other words, the bible is anything but clear and is open to all sorts of interpetation.
Many of us actually already knew that.
You are correct that the Bible, in many instances, is open to interpretation - like every single text that has ever been written. It is also filled with various mistakes, being a very human work. But that is not what I was trying to say - as you say, "many of us actually already knew that". I was trying to point out that our understanding of Biblical Hebrew, and the cultural milieu that it was a part of, is still imperfect - as we are removed from it by about 3000 years and still learning about it. This separation, in turn, has to make us be cautious when interpreting and translating the text. Interpretation, as I understand it, is necessary for any reader who reads anything. We interpret everything we read through some kind of lens, whether we acknowledge our biases or not. It is helpful to at least acknowledge our biases when engaged in reading a text, so that we and others may be aware of them.
What I was trying to say, however, was that what may have been a Biblical Hebrew linguistic idiom that would have been perfectly understood by the speakers of that time, appears to us today to be a specific phrase that denotes something else with our imperfect understanding of the language. We see a specific number of feet where the ancient readers saw a mode of locomotion. I'll give you a few examples of what I mean.
In English, we say things like "A Dime a Dozen". This does not mean that it literally costs a "dime a dozen" - it just means that there are plenty of the items around, and cheap. A reader unfamiliar with English idiomatic usage might translate or understand this in a too literalistic fashion.
In the Ancient Near East, certain organs were associated with emotions - much like we associate the heart with love. But the emotions were different:
El laughs in his heart,
Quivers and shakes in his liver.
(KTU 1.12 12-13, UNP Parker)
It would be a mistake to take this literally, but also a mistake to apply English idiomatic usage to this passage. Here, as in other ANE writings, the "heart" corresponds to the "mind" and the "liver" corresponds to the "gut" or "belly". But still, it should be understood as "El laughed to himself, His belly convulsed with laughter". The question is how much are we willing to lose in translation if we choose an idiomatic translation over a literal one?
In poetry, it was common to use a number formula that was ascending - against any attempt to reach a specific number, unless one takes the first number listed. From the same text as above, a perfect example:
Seven long years have been filled,
Eight slow-passing cycles....
When his seven and seventy siblings []
All eight and eighty of them...
(Ibid, 44-45, 48-49)
This is a poetic device that uses parallelism ("years" corresponds to "slow-passing cycles") and an ascending number count that is not meant to be specific. Usually, in such circumstances, we take the first number as the one being indicated, but the usage is still strange and poetic.
There is an idiom denoting "fruitfulness" or "plenty" that is rendered like this in The Ba'al Cycle:
Let the heavens rain oil,
The wadis run with honey...
(KTU 1.6, Col. III 6-7, UNP Smith)
and an expression concerning grief:
As she weeps her fill,
Drinks her tears like wine.
(KTU 1.6, Col. I 9-10, ibid.)
where neither expressions are intended to be taken literally. How it is understood depends on who is reading it, and what background they are bringing to the text.
In other words, I think it's very possible and likely that the phrase translated as "to go about on all fours" was a Biblical Hebrew idiom to denote something that scurried about, as opposed to walking upright like humans. An idiom of contrasting motion. I say this because of the nature of language, and as I noted before because it's very unlikely that the scribe who wrote the text was unfamiliar with a very common food source. I'm not trying to engage in apologetics here, either. There are plenty of outright mistakes in the Bible - that's a given. It is a very human text, after all. We both know that is the case. So, knowing that, I do not have an agenda that urges me to find as many mistakes as I possibly can, even if that means stretching credulity. When I first began studying these texts more deeply, there were many "mistakes" that were cleared up by understanding an older translation had not had access to better manuscripts, for example, or that our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew had advanced. But there are still outright mistakes that can genuinely be called mistakes - regardless of our knowledge of Hebrew and access to better manuscripts.
You are correct that the Bible, in many instances, is open to interpretation - like every single text that has ever been written. It is also filled with various mistakes, being a very human work. But that is not what I was trying to say - as you say, "many of us actually already knew that". I was trying to point out that our understanding of Biblical Hebrew, and the cultural milieu that it was a part of, is still imperfect - as we are removed from it by about 3000 years and still learning about it. This separation, in turn, has to make us be cautious when interpreting and translating the text. Interpretation, as I understand it, is necessary for any reader who reads anything. We interpret everything we read through some kind of lens, whether we acknowledge our biases or not. It is helpful to at least acknowledge our biases when engaged in reading a text, so that we and others may be aware of them.
What I was trying to say, however, was that what may have been a Biblical Hebrew linguistic idiom that would have been perfectly understood by the speakers of that time, appears to us today to be a specific phrase that denotes something else with our imperfect understanding of the language. We see a specific number of feet where the ancient readers saw a mode of locomotion. I'll give you a few examples of what I mean.
In English, we say things like "A Dime a Dozen". This does not mean that it literally costs a "dime a dozen" - it just means that there are plenty of the items around, and cheap. A reader unfamiliar with English idiomatic usage might translate or understand this in a too literalistic fashion.
In the Ancient Near East, certain organs were associated with emotions - much like we associate the heart with love. But the emotions were different:
El laughs in his heart,
Quivers and shakes in his liver.
(KTU 1.12 12-13, UNP Parker)
It would be a mistake to take this literally, but also a mistake to apply English idiomatic usage to this passage. Here, as in other ANE writings, the "heart" corresponds to the "mind" and the "liver" corresponds to the "gut" or "belly". But still, it should be understood as "El laughed to himself, His belly convulsed with laughter". The question is how much are we willing to lose in translation if we choose an idiomatic translation over a literal one?
In poetry, it was common to use a number formula that was ascending - against any attempt to reach a specific number, unless one takes the first number listed. From the same text as above, a perfect example:
Seven long years have been filled,
Eight slow-passing cycles....
When his seven and seventy siblings []
All eight and eighty of them...
(Ibid, 44-45, 48-49)
This is a poetic device that uses parallelism ("years" corresponds to "slow-passing cycles") and an ascending number count that is not meant to be specific. Usually, in such circumstances, we take the first number as the one being indicated, but the usage is still strange and poetic.
There is an idiom denoting "fruitfulness" or "plenty" that is rendered like this in The Ba'al Cycle:
Let the heavens rain oil,
The wadis run with honey...
(KTU 1.6, Col. III 6-7, UNP Smith)
and an expression concerning grief:
As she weeps her fill,
Drinks her tears like wine.
(KTU 1.6, Col. I 9-10, ibid.)
where neither expressions are intended to be taken literally. How it is understood depends on who is reading it, and what background they are bringing to the text.
In other words, I think it's very possible and likely that the phrase translated as "to go about on all fours" was a Biblical Hebrew idiom to denote something that scurried about, as opposed to walking upright like humans. An idiom of contrasting motion. I say this because of the nature of language, and as I noted before because it's very unlikely that the scribe who wrote the text was unfamiliar with a very common food source. I'm not trying to engage in apologetics here, either. There are plenty of outright mistakes in the Bible - that's a given. It is a very human text, after all. We both know that is the case. So, knowing that, I do not have an agenda that urges me to find as many mistakes as I possibly can, even if that means stretching credulity. When I first began studying these texts more deeply, there were many "mistakes" that were cleared up by understanding an older translation had not had access to better manuscripts, for example, or that our knowledge of Biblical Hebrew had advanced. But there are still outright mistakes that can genuinely be called mistakes - regardless of our knowledge of Hebrew and access to better manuscripts.
I don't see the problem. It seems pretty clear to me that kosher principles stemmed from public health concerns. Sticking to animals that split the hoof and chew the cud would have been a good way to avoid trichinosis and other food borne illnesses.
I don't see the problem. It seems pretty clear to me that kosher principles stemmed from public health concerns. Sticking to animals that split the hoof and chew the cud would have been a good way to avoid trichinosis and other food borne illnesses.
It would have been easier if God just said, Cook your meat well. And toast your insects till crispy.
Grasshoppers can carry a parasite.
But non of this would even be necessary if God had not created pathogens in the fist place....
I don't see the problem. It seems pretty clear to me that kosher principles stemmed from public health concerns. Sticking to animals that split the hoof and chew the cud would have been a good way to avoid trichinosis and other food borne illnesses.
I can see how some of the dietary laws may have been from health concerns, and some of them may have arisen out of human experience and common sense - but many of them have no basis in health concerns or stem entirely from ideas of religious purity rooted in the prohibition against eating an animal with its blood still in it. Still other prohibitions have to do with the separation of different classes of things from one anther - there was not to be a mixture of different things (see the prohibition against different types of fabric, as a mundane example).
A little more on the blood prohibition. Many of the animals that are prohibited are either scavengers or outright carnivores, and this may stem back to the prohibition in Genesis after the Flood once the vegetation of the pre-Flood days was lifted to also allow animals- though the full-blown kosher laws of the Mosaic Code are not yet in effect. :
All things crawling about that live, for you shall they be, for eating, as with the green plants, I now give you all. However: flesh with its life, its blood, you are not to eat!
However: flesh with its life, its blood, of your own lives, I will demand-satisfaction -
from all wild animals I will demand it,
and from humankind, from every man regarding his brother,
demand-satisfaction for human life.
(Genesis 9:3-5, SB Fox)
The enigmatic passage concerning "flesh with its life, its blood, you are not to eat!" is still not perfectly understood. It may refer to practices in which an animal was either kept alive and bled to drink its blood, or not fully drained of blood before eating it. Whatever the case may be, it seems to take on a larger religious perspective with the new cost for killing a human: blood, and blood-guilt.
It is quite possible that many of the prohibitions in the Mosaic Code concerning scavengers and carnivores is exactly because they devour other animals - with their blood, with their life. This example, and others in the Mosaic Code which have no direct bearing on health concerns, demonstrates that while some of the laws may have been common-sense health concerns, many of them were not.
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