Please see http://www.theskepticalreview.com/tsrmag/4chew94.html
The Hebrew Language: Now here is the clincher!
According to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible,
"cud" [gerah] in Leviticus
11:6 means, "the cud [as scraping the throat]: --cud"
(word 1625). The American Heritage Dictionary defines cud
as, "Food regurgitated from the first stomach to the mouth of a
ruminant and chewed again." Strong doesn't help the refection
theory since his translation is the same as the English definition,
and its root meaning in Hebrew was "scraping the throat." So cud is
cud, not rabbit pellets. In what sense could rabbit pellets be
considered a scraping of the throat?
The word chews in Leviticus
11:6 , translated from the Hebrew word `alah, more
accurately means, "[cause to] ascend up" (Strong's, word 5927).
Thus, the Hebrew phrase for "chews the cud" translated literally
means, "brings up the cud." This conclusively proves
that Leviticus
11:6gives a description of regurgitation, characteristic of
true rumination but in no sense characteristic of refection.
Refection does not involve regurgitation; thus, the phrase "brings
up the cud" cannot refer to the eating of excrement. To
claim this would distort the writer's intended meaning. It
would be very inaccurate to say of an animal, e.g., a dog, seen
frequently eating its feces, "Fido has been bringing up his food."
This would sound ridiculous and would even be misleading, because
it suggests that "Fido has been vomiting." When the inerrantists
use the refection argument, they assume they need to prove that the
rabbit chews, redigests, or forms cud, but this distracts from the
real issue. They need to prove that the rabbit brings up the cud!
The refection argument fails to prove this. Until it does, we may
consider it erroneous, and that is not all!What
inerrantists also need to prove is that gerah in this verse means
something other than regurgitated cud and that `alah means
something other than regurgitation. All of this needs to be proven
with verifiable evidence. Refection has a few
characteristics similar to rumination but not the most important
one: regurgitation, the same characteristic the Bible refers to!
The best the inerrantist can claim is that the phrase
"chews the cud" can apply to refection in some forced, nonsensical,
strained, ludicrous, and unnatural sense. The inerrantist
cannot prove it is even unlikely that "brings up the cud" refers to
regurgitation of cud! So one wonders why the writer of Leviticus
did not use the Hebrew word for "dung" if he meant
refection!
You can do better than just a link that vague... amibiguous
explanation of a simple sentence , BIC...
How is my link http://creation.com/do-rabbits-chew-their-cud vague
and ambiguous in its explanation? Don't just make assertions, back
it up.
In modern English, animals that ‘chew the cud’ are
called ruminants. They hardly chew their food
when first eaten, but swallow it into a special stomach where the
food is partially digested. Then it is regurgitated, chewed again,
and swallowed into a different stomach. Animals which do this
include cows, sheep and goats, and they all have four stomachs.
Coneys and rabbits are not ruminants in this modern
sense. Obviously, rabbits do not share the digestive
anatomy of modern ruminants. However, to describe rabbits chewing
the cud is not incorrect. Simply stated, it is not reasonable to
accuse a 3500-year-old document of error because it does not adhere
to a modern man-made classification system.
However, the Hebrew phrase for ‘chew the cud’ simply
means ‘raising up what
has been swallowed’. Coneys and rabbits go
through such similar motions to ruminants that Linnaeus, the father
of modern classification (and a creationist), at first classified
them as ruminants. Also, rabbits and hares practise
refection, which is essentially the same principle as
rumination, and does indeed ‘raise up what has been
swallowed’. The food goes right through the
rabbit and is passed out as a special type of dropping. These are
re-eaten, and can now nourish the rabbit as they have already been
partly digested. Is this the same as cud? In the final analysis, it
is. Cud-chewing completes the digestion of partially digested food.
Why would it be strange to think that centuries ago, the idea of
“cud” had a somewhat broader meaning than a modern definition.
But does the rabbit actually chew the cud? The Hebrew
word translated “chew” is the word ‘alah. With any attempt
to translate one language to another, it is understood that there
is often more than one meaning for a given word. A cursory glace at
any Hebrew lexicon reveals that ‘alah can mean go up,
ascend, climb, go up into, out of a place, depart, rise up, cause
to ascend, bring up from, among others. Here it carries the
implication of moving something from one place to another. So the
phrase translated to English as “chew the cud” literally means
something on the order of “eats that which is brought forth
again.”
So is the Bible in error here? No it is not. It
is not an error of Scripture that ‘chewing the cud’ now has a more
restrictive meaning than it did in Moses’ day. Indeed, rabbits and
hares do ‘chew the cud’ in an even more
specific sense. Rabbits re-ingest partially digested foods, as do
modern ruminants. They just do so without the aid of multiple
stomach compartments. Once again, the Bible is right and the
sceptics are wrong.
