Bible Biology by Farrell Till

8/14/2019 Bible Biology by Farrell Till

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BibleBiology

3/1/1991 By Farrell Till

An earlier article ( "What About Scientific Foreknowledge in the

Bible?" Fall 1990 ), debunked the fundamentalist claim that the

truth of verbal inspiration can be verified by places in the Bible

text where writers demonstrated knowledge of scientific facts that

were unknown at the time the Bible was being written. The intent


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of the claim is to "prove" that Bible writers "foreknew" these

scientific facts because God revealed them through the process of

verbal inspiration, but, as my article showed, scientific

foreknowledge in the Bible can be found only in the eisegetical

interpretations of bibliolaters shamelessly bent on clinging to an

untenable view of the Bible. In reality, there is no more "scientific

foreknowledge" in the Bible than in any other literature of the

same era.


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Bible BiologyBY FA RRE L L T I L L

An earlier article ("What About Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible?" Fall 1990) ,debunked the fundamentalist claim that the truth of verbal inspiration can be verified byplaces in the Bible text where writers demonstrated knowledge of scientific facts that wereunknown at the time the Bible was being written. The intent of the claim is to "prove" thatBible writers "foreknew" these scientific facts because God revealed them through theprocess of verbal inspiration, but, as my article showed, scientific foreknowledge in theBible can be found only in the eisegetical interpretations of bibliolaters shamelessly bent onclinging to an untenable view of the Bible. In reality, there is no more "scientificforeknowledge" in the Bible than in any other literature of the same era.

If it were really true that Bible authors revealed in their works scientific facts that were notdiscovered until centuries later, this would indeed be a formidable argument for the verbalinspiration of the Bible, but the evidence that bibliolaters point to to prove their theory isentirely too speculative to be convincing. Some inerrantists, for example, have absurdly seenevidence that the Bible foresaw the potential for using electricity to send messages. In

speaking to Job from the whirlwind, Yahweh asked him, "Can you send forth lightnings, thatthey may go, and say to you, Here we are?" (Job 38:35) . In Why We Believe the Bible,George DeHoff made this comment on the verse:

Job could not do this but we are able to do so today as we talk on the telephone and radioand send our messages by telegraph. Truly the lightning goeth and saith for us (p. 55).

There are so many absurdities in this application of the verse that I hardly know where tobegin commenting on them. For one thing, it violates a principle of common sense thatshould tell DeHoff and his inerrancy cohorts that a clear-cut, undeniable case of scientificforeknowledge would have to be stated in language so obvious in meaning that there couldbe no disagreement in interpretation. In my response to Jerry McDonald's article elsewherein this issue, I used the rule of Occam's razor to discredit his claim that Hosea meant for "theblood of Jezreel" to refer to the murder of Naboth. The rule is equally applicable to DeHoff'sclaim of scientific foreknowledge in a simple statement about lightning. As long as it is


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possible for the statement to mean something less complex than the supernatural insight of aprimitive writer into the physics of transmitting sound by electricity, then there is no force atall to the claim that this is an example of scientific foreknowledge.

Could the statement have a simpler meaning than what DeHoff assigned to it? It wouldcertainly seem so. Why, for example, couldn't it mean no more than that lightning announcesits presence by the natural sound it makes? This is a phenomenon we have all witnessedduring thunderstorms. In his discourse to Job, Elihu said, "He (God) covers his hands withlightning, and gives it a charge that it strike the mark. The noise of it tells concerning him,the cattle also concerning the storm that comes up" (36:32-33). A primitive superstition thatGod makes lightning and directs its strike is obviously reflected in this statement (a belief that hardly qualifies as "scientific foreknowledge"), but the final part of the statement seemsto be saying that lightning announces the approach of a storm. Elihu, then, seemed to know

exactly what Yahweh said in Job 38:35 . The lightning goes forth and says, "Here we are."What is so wonderfully insightful about that?

The problem for bibliolaters who see scientific foreknowledge in the Bible is that none of thestatements they point to can successfully pass the test of Occam's razor. All pose thepossibility of simpler, less complex interpretations than those that attribute supernatural,scientific insights to the writers. Common sense should again tell us that this is so. If not,then why didn't those marvelous insights put science centuries ahead of the ploddingadvancement it has made? If, for example, Job 38:35 really meant what DeHoff claims itmeant, then why didn't someone among the millions and millions of people who read itduring the past 3,000 years recognize its meaning and apply it long beforetelecommunication systems were finally invented? The same could be asked of all the otheralleged examples of scientific foresight in the Bible. If these were in fact true cases of foreknowledge, then why didn't Bible readers apply the scientific principles involved in themlong ago? Why did the world have to wait through the centuries until scientists, workingindependently of the Bible, discovered the life-sustaining properties of blood, the femaleovum, the water cycle, and the many other scientific facts that bibliolaters claim wereforeknown by Bible writers? There is something very suspect about after-the-fact biblicalinterpretations that point to recent scientific discoveries and gleefully proclaim, "Ah, yes,this was foreseen in the Bible where so-and-so said thus-and-so!"

Obviously, then, the discoveries of science have been late in coming because they had to belearned through the long, arduous task of scientific experimentation. The Bible offered nohelp, because its authors knew no more about these things than anyone else. In fact, the


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Bible probably retarded the process of scientific discovery through the widespreadacceptance of superstitious nonsense found in it . Those who believe and practice superstitionaren't the kind of people who make scientific discoveries. Science advances through theefforts of people who cast aside superstition and search for truth through application of scientific methods. This is a characteristic not generally found in Bible believers.

An earlier article ("Scientific Boo-Boos in the Bible," Winter 1991 ) showed that the Bible,rather than revealing amazing scientific insights, is riddled with scientific errors. Thesemistakes cover a wide range of scientific areas but are most obvious in the field of biology.The article noted the genetic ignorance of the Genesis writer, who presented Jacob as onewho was able to influence color patterns in Laban's sheep and goats by controlling theenvironment in which they bred (Gen. 30:37-43) . This is certainly a peculiar mistake for abook that is supposed to be so wonderfully insightful in scientific matters. It is as if God told

his inspired writers all about the transmission of sound by electricity, the femalereproductive system, the spherical shape of the earth, and a host of other scientific secretsbut neglected to reveal a very basic genetic fact. Strange indeed! Many of the biologicalmistakes in the Bible were anatomical in nature. The Leviticus writer (let bibliolaters think this was Moses if they want to) was so unobservant, for example, that he apparently thoughtinsects were four-legged creatures:

All winged creeping things that go upon all FOURS are an abomination to you. Yet thesemay you eat of all winged creeping things that go on all FOURS, which have legs abovetheir feet, with which to leap upon the earth; even these of them you may eat: the locust after its kind, the bald locust after its kind, the cricket after its kind, and the grasshopper after itskind. But all winged creeping things, which have four feet, are an abomination to you (Lev.11:20-23, BB) .

Although the specific references to locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers in this passageindicate that insects were the creatures under consideration, a curious thing about theHebrew word oph that is here translated "winged creeping things" is that it was the sameword used SIX times in the creation story (Gen. 1:20-30) to refer to BIRDS. It is the sameword used TWELVE times in the Genesis account of the flood to refer to BIRDS . In the

KJV and ASV, the word is translated birds or fowl(s) in all of these places. The KJV, in fact,even used fowls to open the Leviticus passage cited above: "All fowls that creep, going uponall four, shall be an abomination unto you."

Four-legged fowls! That would be a biological blunder indeed, but since the context clearlyindicated insects in this passage, we won't hold bibliolaters responsible for a translation flaw.


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They have enough problems to deal with in this passage without adding another one. Sufficeit to say, however, that it does seem strange that a people to whom God routinely gaveinsights into complex scientific matters like gynecology, hematology, telecom munications,and aerodynamics would have no word in their language to distinguish birds from wingedinsects. We are supposed to be impressed with the religious musings of a people no moresophisticated than that?

An immensely greater problem than linguistic and translation flaws in this passage is the factthat whoever wrote it consistently referred to winged insects as four-legged creatures, amistake that practically any modern-day elementary student would know better than tomake. What educated person today doesn't know that insects have six legs? We have towonder why God, who so routinely gave scientific insights to his inspired writers, couldn't atleast have opened the eyes of these writers in this case and had him count the legs on a

grasshopper.Archer, Haley, Arndt, Torrey, and the other major inerrancy apologists don't even addressthe problem of four-legged insects in their works, but knowing inerrancy defenders as I do, Ican almost predict what they will say about it. "Well, insects do have four legs, don't they?Just because they happen to have a total of six legs doesn't mean that Moses had to includeall six in order to be scientifically correct. He chose to mention only four." Such an"explanation " may sound strange to readers who are not familiar with the desperation tactics that fundamentalists resort to to defend the inerrancy doctrine, but they often use this kind of argument to "explain" numerical discrepancies in the Bible. Mark (5:1-20) and Luke (8:26-39), for example, mention just one demoniac that Jesus healed in the country of theGerasenes, but Matthew, describing the same incident (8:28-34), put the location in the landof the Gadarenes (several miles away from Gerasa) and said that there were two demoniacs.Gleason Archer dismissed the geographical discrepancy as "scribal error," but of thenumerical discrepancy, he said this:

If there were two of them, there was at least one, wasn't there? Mark and Luke center attention on the more prominent and outspoken of the two, the one whose demonic occupantscalled themselves "Legion" (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 325).

Inerrantists use this same lame argument to explain why Matthew said that Jesus healed twoblind men at Jericho (20:29) but Mark (10:46) and Luke (18:35) mentioned only one whowas healed. As an argument, it grants entirely too much freedom of selection to the writersand completely ignores the fact that they were presumably being verbally guided by the HolySpirit . Why then would the same Holy Spirit decide when he was "inspiring" Mark and Luke


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that only one demoniac and blind man needed to be mentioned but when he was "inspiring"Matthew, he suddenly decided that both demoniacs and blind men should be mentioned?

Whether our inerrantist readers will attempt to apply this line of reasoning to the Bible's

four-legged insects remains to be seen, but if they do, I hope they will address a question wehave every right to ask them. What is there about insects that would warrant writing adescription (like the one in the Leviticus passage) that mentions only four of their six legs?After all, this was a legalistic description that was intended to let Jews know which insectswere clean (edible) and which were unclean (forbidden), and the description presented theclean locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers as creatures that "go on all fours." But these insectsdon't "go on all fours"; they go on all sixes. That's a strange oversight from an author writingunder the direction of an omniscient deity who routinely gave marvelous scientific insightsto his inspired crew.

But the insect problems aren't over. After declaring all "winged creeping things that go uponall fours" an abomination, the Leviticus writer then made locusts, crickets, and grasshoppersexceptions to this restriction. His rationale was that these were creeping things that go on allfours, "which have legs above their feet" (v:21). So if insects that go about on all fours(presumably with their other two immobilized) have "legs above their feet," they are cleanand can be eaten. If not, why not? That's the only reason the description gave for exemptinglocusts, crickets, and grasshoppers from insects that were unclean or forbidden. Now I wantsome enterprising inerrancy defender to give us a list of insects that don't have legs abovetheir feet. How could any creeping thing "go on all fours" without having legs above thosefour (feet)? Feet without legs! It could happen only in Bible biology.

Another anatomical mistake was made by the Leviticus writer in the same context with hisfour-footed insects. After stating the two characteristics that clean animals must have (partthe hoof and chew the cud), he declared hares and coneys unclean because they "chew thecud" but do not part the hoof (vv:3-6). Deuteronomy 14:7 also described hares and coneys ascud-chewers. The biological facts, however,are these: hares and coneys have no hoofs topart, but they have no cuds to chew either. The Leviticus writer made a serious biologicalerror in describing them as cud-chewers.

"What About Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible?" (Fall 1990) briefly discussed theLeviticus writer's cud-chewing hares and coneys and the attempts of bibliolaters to explainthem away. Wayne Jackson, one of two staff members at Apologetics Press who wereinvited to write a response to the article, declined the invitation but reviewed this section of the article in Reason and Revelation (December 1989) prior to its publication in The


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Skeptical Review. He resorted to the usual rationalizations: the words translated hare andconey "are rare and difficult" in Hebrew; the writer was perhaps using "phenomenallanguage" to describe what hares and coneys actually appear to be doing; etc. After all of thiswas said, however, a proven biological fact still remained. Hares and coneys do not chew thecud.

In an end-run attempt to circumvent this problem, Jackson resorted to equivocation bysuddenly substituting the word ruminate for "chew the cud":

There is, however, another factor that must be taken into consideration. Rumination does not necessarily involve a compartmentalized stomach system. One definition of "ruminate" issimply "to chew again that which has been swallowed" (Webster). And oddly enough, that is

precisely what the hare does. Though the hare does not have a multi-chambered stomach,which is characteristic of most ruminants, it does chew its food a second time. It has beenlearned rather recently that hares pass two types of fecal material. "In addition to normalwaste, they pass a second type of pellet known as a caecotroph. The very instant thecaecotroph is passed, it is grabbed and chewed again.... As soon as the caecotroph ischewed thoroughly and swallowed, it aggregates in the cardiac region of the stomach whereit undergoes a second digestion" (Jean Morton, Science in the Bible, pp. 179-181).

Unfortunately for Mr. Jackson's end-run, "chew the cud" is the expression that needsdefining, not "ruminate." The Hebrew word translated "cud" was gerah (cud), from garar (tobring up). The word translated "chew" was alah (to cause to come up). Young's Literal

Translation of the Bible rendered the combination of the two words "bringing up the cud."Obviously, then, the Leviticus writer was speaking of animals that chew the cud in the literalmeaning of the expression and not some figurative or "phenomenal" manner that bibliolatersmight dream up to protect their precious inerrancy doctrine.

If, however, Mr. Jackson is going to quote Webster's definition of ruminate, he shouldrefrain from doctoring it to suit his needs. In its entirety, Webster's definition of ruminate is"to chew again what has been slightly chewed and swallowed." Jackson convenientlyomitted the underlined part of the definition, and in this respect hares certainly don't qualifyas "ruminants," because the caecotrophs of hares consist of materials that have been chewedonce and then passed through the digestive tract. This would hardly be material that has been"slightly chewed and swallowed." Notice too that Jackson's reference states that "thecaecotroph is chewed thoroughly (by the hare) and swallowed." Are we to believe that haresthoroughly chew the material in their caecotrophs but only slightly chew it the first timethrough?


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The main weakness in Jackson's caecotrophic solution to the problem of cud-chewing hares,however, is its complete failure to explain away the biological error of the Leviticus writer.After all has been said about what hares appear to be doing and how their reingesting of caecotrophic materials achieves the same purpose as cud-chewing, the fact still remains thathares do not chew the cud. Perhaps an analogy would underscore the ineffectiveness of Jackson's resolution of the problem. The duck-billed platypus, a peculiar egg-laying animalnative to Australia, has been biologically classified as a mammal because the female nurturesits young with milk. But the female platypus has no teats for her offspring to suck in order toget the milk. There are glands on her stomach that "sweat" the milk, which her young thensuck from strands of hair that it has collected on. This unusual method of nurturing offspringachieves the same purpose as the mammary glands of other mammals, but if one should saythat a platypus has teats with which she nurtures her young, he would be biologicallyincorrect.

In the same way, the Leviticus writer was wrong when he said that hares and coneys "chewthe cud." That he intended this to mean true cud-chewing was indicated in his use of thecamel (11:4) as another example of a cud-chewing animal. Camels are anatomicallyequipped with the same Ruminantia as cattle, goats, buffaloes, antelopes, giraffes, llamas,deer, and bison. Camels are true cud-chewers, and the Leviticus writer's grouping them withhares and coneys as examples of animals that "chew the cud" leaves little doubt about whathe meant. Perhaps he did superficially look at hares and assume from appearance that theywere cud-chewers, but that is hardly a satisfactory explanation of the problem. After all,

inerrantists ask us to believe that time and time again God gave to his inspired writersamazing insights into complex scientific matters. He did all that but couldn't reveal to one of his writers a simple fact about cud-chewing? It's too incredible to believe.

Jackson's final act of desperation was a claim that Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia has"classified the hare as a ruminant" and "considers the hyrax (coney) as a ruminant." Hisreference (1975, pp. 421, 422) did not cite a volume number, but I read these page numbers,as well as the entire sections about rabbits, hares, and hyrexes, in volume 12 and found noattempt to classify either the hare or the hyrax as ruminants. If Mr. Jackson will send us aspecific reference and the exact quotation that classifies hares and hyraxes as ruminants, wewill publish it in a future issue. While he is at it, we would like for him to answer thisquestion: Do hares chew the cud? They either do or they don't, so there is no reason why hecan't give a YES or NO answer to the question.


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Some errors in Bible biology concerned behavioral misconceptions. Proverbs 6:7-8described the ant as an industrious creature, "which having no chief, overseer, or rulerprovides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in harvest." No one disputes the ant'sindustry, but what is this about its "having no chief, overseer, or ruler"? Inerrantists seem tolike Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia, so I suggest that they read what it says about ants(Vol. 2, pp. 441-453). The various species of this insect are therein presented as members of highly structured social hierarchies having queens, workers, soldiers, and drones. Clearly,then, ants have overseers and rulers. If inerrantists wish to dispute this, they should considerslave ants, because some species of ants actually take captives in war and make them slaves.Surely, it would be proper to speak of slave ants as having overseers or rulers. The Biblesays, however, that ants have no chiefs, overseers, or rulers. The Bible is wrong. Why didn'tGod instill in this inspired writer's mind an insight into the social structure of ant colonies?Perhaps he was too busy telling Job about the physics of sound transmission.

Even Yahweh himself was a little rusty in his understanding of animal behavior. In speakingto Job from the whirlwind, he said this of the ostrich:

The wings of the Ostrich wave proudly; but are they the pinions and plumage of love? For she leaves her eggs on the earth, and warms them in the dust, and forgets that the foot maycrush them, or that the wild beast may trample them. She deals harshly with her young ones,as if they were not hers: Though her labor be in vain, she is without fear; because Eloah(God) has deprived her of wisdom, neither has he imparted to her understanding (39:13-17,

Bethel Bible).

Reflected in this passage is a primitive, but incorrect, belief that the ostrich is a stupid bird that lays its eggs on the ground, leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the sand, and thentreats her young harshly after they have hatched. The New American Bible affixes thisfrankly honest footnote to what Yahweh said of the Ostrich:

It was popularly believed that, because the ostrich laid her eggs on the sand, she was therebycruelly abandoning them.

Modern biologists know better than what the "scientifically insightful" author of Job

mistakenly thought about the ostrich. Both Encyclopedia Americana and Britannica, as wellas Grzimek's (vol 7, pp. 91-95), describe ostriches as very caring parents . The female laysher eggs on the ground, but so do many other species of birds. The eggs are not abandoned tothe heat of the sand, but in the female's absence, the male incubates the nest. When theyoung hatch, they are given watchful care by their mother. As a biological creature, the


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ostrich has survived for thousands of years, so obviously it is a successful procreator. Itslabor is not in vain, as the passage above incorrectly declares. Yet Yahweh himself, whopresumably created all living things, didn't know these behavioral facts about the ostrich. He"inspired" Jeremiah to perpetuate the primitive misconception of the ostrich's carelessmaternal instincts by having him write this about the women of Israel:

Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people has become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness. The tongue of the sucking child clings to the roof of his mouth for thirst: The young children ask bread, and no man breaks it to them (Lam. 4:3-4, BB).

Amazing scientific foreknowledge in the Bible? Hardly! Bibliolaters should stop trying tofind insightful statements about electronics, oceanography, meteorology, etc. in the Bibletext and worry more about explaining why a divinely inspired, inerrant book has so manyobvious scientificerrors in it. And if the Bible is riddled with scientific errors, they shouldwonder too about the truth of that often parroted claim that the Bible is inerrant in all detailsof history, geography, chronology, etc., as well as in matters of faith and practice. It just ain'tso!

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Bible Biology by Farrell Till