Claims that the Bible is riddled with scientific errors are commonly made against the Bible by sceptics of its claim to be the word of God. These claims are unimpressive as they are ironically predicated on a literal reading of translations of the Bible in with no attempt made to understand Hebrew idiom or make due allowance for folk taxonomy. Furthermore, they ignore the point made by conservative scholars that inspiration does not give the writers scientific knowledge above their peers. Finally, such claims ignore evidence that the cultic aspects of the Mosaic Law have been acknowledged as providing considerable benefit from a sanitation point of view.
Two of the most frequently cited examples of scientific error are the references to rabbits that chew the cud in Leviticus 11:5-6 and insects with four legs in verses 20-21 of the same chapter. It is a mistake to read these verses as being modern taxonomy as the purpose of these chapters is to divide animals into clean or unclean for dietary and cultic purposes.
The former is an example of folk taxonomy, one that employs a loosely-defined term ‘cud-chewing’ as one of the criteria by which animals are classified. Rabbits and hyraxes are not ruminants, but as Jacob Milgrom speculates, “the sideways movement of it jaws gives [them] the appearance of [being such].”88
To continue reading this Bible article, click here.
Author: Ken Gilmore
Keywords: Science, Inaccuracy, Inaccuracies, Scientific inaccuracies, Bible errors, Bible inaccuracies, Inacuracy, Inacuracies, Errors, Inaccurate, Inacurate, Bible is full of errors
Bible reference(s): Leviticus 11:5-6, Leviticus 11:20-21, Deuteronomy 22:13-21
Source: “Alleged Scientific Inaccuracies in the Bible,” Berea, July 1, 2012.
Page indexed by: inWORD Bible Software.