Bible

Biology

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
 Bible Biology

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 Biology

Bible Biology
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 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.
If it were really true that Bible authors revealed in their works scientific facts that were not
discovered until centuries later, this would indeed be a formidable argument for the verbal
inspiration of the Bible, but the evidence that bibliolaters point to to prove their theory is
entirely too speculative to be convincing. Some inerrantists, for example, have absurdly seen
evidence 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, that
they 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 radio
and 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 to
begin commenting on them. For one thing, it violates a principle of common sense that
should tell DeHoff and his inerrancy cohorts that a clear-cut, undeniable case of scientific
foreknowledge would have to be stated in language so obvious in meaning that there could
be no disagreement in interpretation. In my response to Jerry McDonald's article elsewhere
in this issue, I used the rule of Occam's razor to discredit his claim that Hosea meant for "the
blood of Jezreel" to refer to the murder of Naboth. The rule is equally applicable to DeHoff's
claim 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 a
primitive writer into the physics of transmitting sound by electricity, then there is no force at
all 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 would
certainly seem so. Why, for example, couldn't it mean no more than that lightning announces
its presence by the natural sound it makes? This is a phenomenon we have all witnessed
during thunderstorms. In his discourse to Job, Elihu said, "He (God) covers his hands with
lightning, 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 that
God 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 seems
to 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 the
statements they point to can successfully pass the test of Occam's razor. All pose the
possibility 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 plodding
advancement it has made? If, for example, Job 38:35 really meant what DeHoff claims it
meant, then why didn't someone among the millions and millions of people who read it
during the past 3,000 years recognize its meaning and apply it long before
telecommunication systems were finally invented? The same could be asked of all the other
alleged 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 them
long ago? Why did the world have to wait through the centuries until scientists, working
independently of the Bible, discovered the life-sustaining properties of blood, the female
ovum, the water cycle, and the many other scientific facts that bibliolaters claim were
foreknown by Bible writers? There is something very suspect about after-the-fact biblical
interpretations 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 be
learned through the long, arduous task of scientific experimentation. The Bible offered no
help, 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 widespread
acceptance of superstitious nonsense found in it. Those who believe and practice superstition
aren't the kind of people who make scientific discoveries. Science advances through the
efforts 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. These
mistakes 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 one
who was able to influence color patterns in Laban's sheep and goats by controlling the
environment in which they bred (Gen. 30:37-43). This is certainly a peculiar mistake for a
book 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 female
reproductive system, the spherical shape of the earth, and a host of other scientific secrets
but neglected to reveal a very basic genetic fact. Strange indeed! Many of the biological
mistakes 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 thought
insects were four-legged creatures:
All winged creeping things that go upon all FOURS are an abomination to you. Yet these
may you eat of all winged creeping things that go on all FOURS, which have legs above
their 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 its
kind. 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 passage
indicate that insects were the creatures under consideration, a curious thing about the
Hebrew word oph that is here translated "winged creeping things" is that it was the same
word used SIX times in the creation story (Gen. 1:20-30) to refer to BIRDS. It is the same
word 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 upon
all four, shall be an abomination unto you."
Four-legged fowls! That would be a biological blunder indeed, but since the context clearly
indicated 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. Suffice
it to say, however, that it does seem strange that a people to whom God routinely gave
insights into complex scientific matters like gynecology, hematology, telecommunications,
and aerodynamics would have no word in their language to distinguish birds from winged
insects. We are supposed to be impressed with the religious musings of a people no more
sophisticated than that?
An immensely greater problem than linguistic and translation flaws in this passage is the fact
that whoever wrote it consistently referred to winged insects as four-legged creatures, a
mistake that practically any modern-day elementary student would know better than to
make. What educated person today doesn't know that insects have six legs? We have to
wonder why God, who so routinely gave scientific insights to his inspired writers, couldn't at
least 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 address
the problem of four-legged insects in their works, but knowing inerrancy defenders as I do, I
can 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 include
all 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 the
Gerasenes, but Matthew, describing the same incident (8:28-34), put the location in the land
of 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 the
numerical 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 occupants
called themselves "Legion" (Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p. 325).
Inerrantists use this same lame argument to explain why Matthew said that Jesus healed two
blind men at Jericho (20:29) but Mark (10:46) and Luke (18:35) mentioned only one who
was healed. As an argument, it grants entirely too much freedom of selection to the writers
and completely ignores the fact that they were presumably being verbally guided by the Holy
Spirit. 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 we
have every right to ask them. What is there about insects that would warrant writing a
description (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 insects
were clean (edible) and which were unclean (forbidden), and the description presented the
clean locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers as creatures that "go on all fours." But these insects
don't "go on all fours"; they go on all sixes. That's a strange oversight from an author writing
under the direction of an omniscient deity who routinely gave marvelous scientific insights
to his inspired crew.
But the insect problems aren't over. After declaring all "winged creeping things that go upon
all fours" an abomination, the Leviticus writer then made locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers
exceptions to this restriction. His rationale was that these were creeping things that go on all
fours, "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 clean
and can be eaten. If not, why not? That's the only reason the description gave for exempting
locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers from insects that were unclean or forbidden. Now I want
some enterprising inerrancy defender to give us a list of insects that don't have legs above
their feet. How could any creeping thing "go on all fours" without having legs above those
four (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 his
four-footed insects. After stating the two characteristics that clean animals must have (part
the hoof and chew the cud), he declared hares and coneys unclean because they "chew the
cud" but do not part the hoof (vv:3-6). Deuteronomy 14:7 also described hares and coneys as
cud-chewers. The biological facts, however,are these: hares and coneys have no hoofs to
part, but they have no cuds to chew either. The Leviticus writer made a serious biological
error in describing them as cud-chewers.
"What About Scientific Foreknowledge in the Bible?" (Fall 1990) briefly discussed the
Leviticus writer's cud-chewing hares and coneys and the attempts of bibliolaters to explain
them away. Wayne Jackson, one of two staff members at Apologetics Press who were
invited 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 and
coney "are rare and difficult" in Hebrew; the writer was perhaps using "phenomenal
language" to describe what hares and coneys actually appear to be doing; etc. After all of this
was said, however, a proven biological fact still remained. Hares and coneys do not chew the
cud.
In an end-run attempt to circumvent this problem, Jackson resorted to equivocation by
suddenly 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" is
simply "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 been
learned rather recently that hares pass two types of fecal material. "In addition to normal
waste, they pass a second type of pellet known as a caecotroph. The very instant the
caecotroph is passed, it is grabbed and chewed again.... As soon as the caecotroph is
chewed thoroughly and swallowed, it aggregates in the cardiac region of the stomach where
it 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 needs
defining, not "ruminate." The Hebrew word translated "cud" was gerah (cud), from garar (to
bring 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 literal
meaning of the expression and not some figurative or "phenomenal" manner that bibliolaters
might dream up to protect their precious inerrancy doctrine.
If, however, Mr. Jackson is going to quote Webster's definition of ruminate, he should
refrain 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 conveniently
omitted the underlined part of the definition, and in this respect hares certainly don't qualify
as "ruminants," because the caecotrophs of hares consist of materials that have been chewed
once 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 "the
caecotroph is chewed thoroughly (by the hare) and swallowed." Are we to believe that hares
thoroughly chew the material in their caecotrophs but only slightly chew it the first time
through?

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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 that
hares 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 animal
native to Australia, has been biologically classified as a mammal because the female nurtures
its young with milk. But the female platypus has no teats for her offspring to suck in order to
get the milk. There are glands on her stomach that "sweat" the milk, which her young then
suck from strands of hair that it has collected on. This unusual method of nurturing offspring
achieves the same purpose as the mammary glands of other mammals, but if one should say
that a platypus has teats with which she nurtures her young, he would be biologically
incorrect.
In the same way, the Leviticus writer was wrong when he said that hares and coneys "chew
the cud." That he intended this to mean true cud-chewing was indicated in his use of the
camel (11:4) as another example of a cud-chewing animal. Camels are anatomically
equipped 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 with
hares and coneys as examples of animals that "chew the cud" leaves little doubt about what
he meant. Perhaps he did superficially look at hares and assume from appearance that they
were 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 writers
amazing 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." His
reference (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 no
attempt to classify either the hare or the hyrax as ruminants. If Mr. Jackson will send us a
specific reference and the exact quotation that classifies hares and hyraxes as ruminants, we
will publish it in a future issue. While he is at it, we would like for him to answer this
question: Do hares chew the cud? They either do or they don't, so there is no reason why he
can't give a YES or NO answer to the question.

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Some errors in Bible biology concerned behavioral misconceptions. Proverbs 6:7-8

described the ant as an industrious creature, "which having no chief, overseer, or ruler
provides her bread in the summer, and gathers her food in harvest." No one disputes the ant's
industry, but what is this about its "having no chief, overseer, or ruler"? Inerrantists seem to
like 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 consider
slave 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 Bible
says, however, that ants have no chiefs, overseers, or rulers. The Bible is wrong. Why didn't
God 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 speaking
to 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 may
crush 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 then
treats her young harshly after they have hatched. The New American Bible affixes this
frankly 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 thereby
cruelly 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 well
as Grzimek's (vol 7, pp. 91-95), describe ostriches as very caring parents. The female lays
her eggs on the ground, but so do many other species of birds. The eggs are not abandoned to
the heat of the sand, but in the female's absence, the male incubates the nest. When the
young 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. Its
labor is not in vain, as the passage above incorrectly declares. Yet Yahweh himself, who
presumably 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 careless
maternal 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 to
find insightful statements about electronics, oceanography, meteorology, etc. in the Bible
text and worry more about explaining why a divinely inspired, inerrant book has so many
obvious scientificerrors in it. And if the Bible is riddled with scientific errors, they should
wonder too about the truth of that often parroted claim that the Bible is inerrant in all details
of history, geography, chronology, etc., as well as in matters of faith and practice. It just ain't
so!

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