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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