Due to a post that I read on davitree, I felt abliged to post this paper that I wrote many years ago. I got a "B" on the paper. :(
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Rob McBryde
Dr. Wayne Grudem
Introduction to Theology
November 18, 1999
Brief Paper on Leviticus 11:6
There is an alleged difficulty in Leviticus where it states “The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof” (Leviticus 11:6, NIV). At first, I only knew it was difficult because it was on the list of Possible Topics for ST 511 Paper. What is “cud” anyway? After asking around and looking in dictionaries, I discovered that cud is chewed food and that rabbits do not chew their cud. But the Bible says they do chew their cud. This is a problem. Or is it?
Cud is defined as (1) “food regurgitated from the first stomach to the mouth of a ruminant and chewed again” or (2) “something held in the mouth and chewed again.”[1] Ruminant is defined as “any of various hoofed, even-toed, usually horned mammals of the suborder Ruminantia, such as cattle and sheep, characteristically having a stomach divided into four compartments and chewing a cud consisting of regurgitated, partially digested food.”[2] According to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (TWOT), rabbits do not chew their cud.[3] The TWOT goes on to explain how Leviticus 11:6 could state this and still be inerrant. The “rabbit” or “hare” referred to in Leviticus is “probably an extinct animal because no known hare chews its cud” and the “exact meaning is unknown and best left untranslated as ‘arnabet’.[4]
At this point I was relieved that there was an adequate explanation for the alleged difficulty, but it seemed too easy. Through my own brainstorming I considered the possibility of natural selection. The rabbit could have at one time chewed its cud, but eventually evolved in such a way that made it no longer necessary to ruminate. This is feasible, but it would be difficult, nearly impossible, to find support for it. Time to consult the professionals.
Further investigation revealed another explanation of the alleged cud-chewing rabbit. Perspective. For example, “descriptions of the sun rising and setting (Eccl. 1:5; et al) merely portray events as they appear from the perspective of the human observer, and, from that perspective, they give an accurate description.”[5] Two different commentaries written almost one hundred years apart are in agreement that Leviticus 11:6 is not false because of the intended audience’s perspective. Both Robert Tuck in 1891 and Gleason Archer in 1982 wrote that the sideways movement of a rabbit’s jaws could lead the observer to conclude that the animal be a ruminant.[6,7] Tuck wrote “the similarity between this movement and that of the cow’s mouth when chewing the cud could not fail to strike the unscientific observer, who would naturally give the same explanation for each case.”
Archer offers one more solution to explain the debated eating habits of the forbidden rabbits. He cites G.S. Cansdale’s information about the rabbits which states:
Hares, like rabbits, are now known to practice “refection”: at certain times of day, when the hare is resting, it passes droppings of different texture, which it at once eats. Thus the hare appears to be chewing without taking fresh greens into its mouth. On its first passage through the gut, indigestible vegetable matter is acted on by bacteria and can be better assimilated the second time through. Almost the same principle is involved as in chewing the cud (“Hare,” in Tenney, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, 3:33).
This is a viable explanation which describes (graphically) that the rabbit is more of a ruminant that one first believed.
Thankfully, I still uphold the view of Biblical inerrancy and can offer multiple explanations of this alleged error in Leviticus 11:6. I believe that all of these explanations (extinction, evolution, perspective, or semi-ruminant) are plausible possibilities that give significant reason to conclude that this verse is not erred. If forced to choose one, I would pick perspective to explain the text. Perspective is easier to explain because there are other examples available in the Bible such as the sun “rising and setting” which use this argument.
[1] American Heritage College Dictionary, p. 336.
[2] American Heritage College Dictionary, p. 1193.
[3] Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p. 123a.
[4] Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, p. 123a.
[5] Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 273.
[6,7] Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, p.126.
Tuck, A Handbook of Scientific and Literary Bible Difficulties, p. 343.
