This is the second installment of responses to former-pastor-turned-atheist Dan Barker’s Bible Quiz, posted on the Freedom From Religion Foundation web site. In the Bible quiz, Barker highlights all kinds of troubling or surprising teachings in the Bible, making the case that these things are inconsistent with an accurate, “good” book. Today’s question has to do with the diet God prescribed for the people of Israel. Since the holiday eating season is upon us, I thought this might be a timely topic! Locust for Christmas dinner, anyone?
Barker’s original questions, answers and comments appear first, while my response comes at the end.
7. Which of these foods does the bible expressly permit you to eat? (The others are "abominations.")
Answer: C
- Pork. --"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you." (Leviticus 11:7)
- Shellfish. --"And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you . . . ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination." (Leviticus 11:10-11)
- Locusts --Since ham and lobster are verboten to bible believers, how about some barbecued grasshopper or steamed locust for dinner?
"Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind." (Leviticus 11:22) "And the same John [the Baptist] had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." (Matthew 3:4)
- Rabbit. --"And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the hare . . . he is unclean unto you." (Leviticus 11:5-6) Notice that the biblical writers erroneously thought rabbits chew the cud.
The correct answer is Locusts.
Pastor Tom’s Response
Modern science reveals the wisdom behind God’s prohibition of certain foods. Pigs will eat anything, so they take in a lot of toxins. Likewise, the digestive system of pigs transfers to the meat without much processing. The four-chambered stomach of cattle processes food much more thoroughly. More toxins pass though, rather than going into the meat.
Shellfish are kind of like the pigs of the ocean. They’re the bottom feeders, and are much more likely to ingest toxins than fish with fins and scales.
Rabbits are prone to a number of diseases that can easily be transferred to humans, rabbit fever being a particularly deadly one. There is also a condition known as rabbit starvation. Since rabbit is such a lean meat, if it becomes the primary source of nutrition, a person does not take in enough fatty acids to aid digestion of the protein, and can actually be poisoned because their fat-depleted digestive system is not able to get rid of ammonia through normal waste processes.
Locusts (what we commonly call grasshoppers), while not very appetizing to me, are surprisingly high in nutritional content. Just do an internet search on locusts or grasshoppers and you’ll find links to all kinds of recipes! And since locust plagues were prevalent, I’d say it was an act of mercy that God allowed His people to eat them. If the locusts ate the people’s crops, the people could at least eat the locusts!
Going back to rabbits; was the Biblical author wrong about that chewing the cud thing? You be the judge. There is a special chamber full of bacteria in the rabbit’s gut called the cecum in which some of the rabbit’s diet (which is hard to digest because it is so high in cellulose) is processed by bacterial fermentation. This produces a soft pellet known as “night feces” which the rabbit immediately eats to obtain further nutrition. Wikipedia.com says that this process of reingestion to obtain more nutrition serves the same purpose as the chewing of cud in cattle.
Several times in the Bible Quiz, Mr. Barker criticizes the Biblical writers’ lack of scientific understanding. For example, in Deuteronomy 14:18, the bat is included in a list of birds, though the bat is a mammal. The Hebrew word we translate “bird,” however, is a catch all word for anything that flies, including the bat. In Leviticus 11:5-6, the rabbit is said to chew the cud, which it does not do, at least in the cattle sense. Once again, it’s likely that the Hebrew word for “chew the cud” is a catch all word used to describe a food reingestioin process of any animal. Words from another language do not always have precise equivalents in English. The point of all this is: though the foods that were allowed or not allowed by God seem strange to us today, He knew what He was doing! He wanted His people to avoid disease and have ample nutrition. Also, the Bible is accurate when it touches on science, and the Biblical writers were intelligent, keen observers of the animal kingdom. They described it accurately, though with terminology different than what we use today.
Click here to give feedback or ask a question. |
