Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Leviticus 11:9-19 comments: more dietary restrictions for the ancient Hebrews

 

Leviticus 11:9 ¶  These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. 10  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: 11  They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases  in abomination. 12  Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you. 13  And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14  And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; 15  Every raven after his kind; 16  And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, 17  And the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, 18  And the swan, and the pelican, and the gier eagle, 19  And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

 

For fish, as long as it has fins and scales it was okay to eat. There is no point in saying, “what about crabs, oysters, eels, and clams?” It says what it says. In Greek mythology Carcinus was giant crab that gave rise to the constellation Cancer. But, this might render the idea that animals forbidden previously were forbidden because of their worship among the heathen as wrong because fish with scales and fins were also worshipped and they were okay for the Hebrews to eat. The Philistine Dagon (daw gohn) may have been a fish-god as the name means fish.

1Samuel 5:1 ¶  And the Philistines took the ark of God, and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. 2  When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon, and set it by Dagon. 3  And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. 4  And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. 5  Therefore neither the priests of Dagon, nor any that come into Dagon’s house, tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day.

 

Of interest to us in the list of fowls that are forbidden are bats. Since today we call a bat a mammal and not a bird we need to use our brains and look further to understand this association in Leviticus. Bats were not classified as mammals until 1758 when Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish zoologist and the father of modern taxonomy, listed them as primates. They got their own Order later given to them by a German naturalist named Blumenbach. The word mammal then is not coined until well after this Bible was translated. In addition, ancient and medieval writers like Aristotle in his History of Animals, Pliny the Elder, and Isidore of Seville referred to them as a peculiar type of bird which were also known as fowls. It was a bird, a flying creature, that gives birth to living young. And, as early as 1499 to batfowle was to go after birds at night. A bird or fowl as a strictly feathered creature developed later with modern taxonomic classifications.

Bats were linked with the Devil in the Middle Ages as he is depicted sometimes with a bat’s wings. It is curious also to note that the word birds was used up until the 1400s for the offspring of not only fowl but of fish, snakes, bees, and even humans. And so, the word fowl, according to some authorities, may have had its roots in an ancient word simply meaning to fly through the air with wings and could even include insects at one time although we mostly now only use it for barnyard birds like chickens and perhaps geese.

The other birds or fowls listed include carrion and scavengers. Eagles will eat dead animals in addition to the fish and rodents they hunt. The ossifrage is a very interesting name as the Latin ossifraga was a large vulture, literally a bone-breaker. The word in 1600 referred to a sea-eagle, osprey, a fishing-hawk.  So there were a number of definitions of this word for a bird-of-prey and a scavenger and both ossifrage and ospray and vulture are all linked here with predators and scavengers of the air which were forbidden to be eaten. Except for the most obvious names like eagle and swan and owl there are differences of opinion as to what exactly these names referred to but it is safe to say that birds-of-prey and scavengers were forbidden to be eaten. Even if the birds ingest animals only incidently and are mainly herbivores like the swan they are forbidden for their tendency to eat meat.

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