Bats are birds. Just not our kind of bird.

There are quite a few problems here. How do you know that it is an error, as you say we may not know what the author was referring to, but since you do not 'know' then it may well be an error. You cannot say that this is an 'oft quoted' error if you have not substantiated that it is. You have just totally undermined your opening argument. By this statement you are yourself open to the possibility that they did mean that the bat is a bird, you do not know what they were thinking so they may well have been thinking exactly what the bible says. It MAY , so you really do not know.Tell me, why do you assume that this is the most oft quoted error when you do not know if it is an error or not?Do you know what Hebrew word is used in the reference?Why do you think that many very learned men have translated the word as 'Bird' when it may not have been, there must be a reason why they translated it as bird?Is the word used for 'bird' in the 'Bat' reference the same word used for every other reference to bird in the OT?What seems more likely to you, that Moses' wife looked like a little bird, or that she looked like a 'flying non-insect'? And we cannot know if the biblical name for 'insect' means 'insect' or if 'yom' means 'day' or if the arnebeth was a hare, or any number of things.The most likely scenario is that whoever wrote Genesis thought that as the bat flies then it is a bird.Brian.

Yes there is a point.You have said that we do not know for sure what the biblical author meant by the word 'bird'.If we do not know what they meant then the possibility that they meant the same as the modern day meaning of the word is at least a possibility.To say that it is the most oft-quoted error would mean that you have shown that it actually is an error to begin with. You have not shown that it is an error, therefore your argument is flawed.Is the word used in the 'bat' passage the same as the word used for bird in other references whose meaning can only be bird in the modern sense?What leads you to think that linguistically this is an error, or does it simply have to be an error because there are no errors in 'God's Word'?Brian.

I would be happier if you supported your claim that it is an error with somehting substantial rather than your psycho-analysis of a 3000 year old scribe.It does make your argumnent flawed because in laying down the permises of your argument you claim that we do not know what the original author meant by 'bird', why can't the author mean that he thinks that bat belongs to the same family as a raven or a dove and is thus in error?You haven't shown anything to support your argument at all. You have just given your opinion based on what you think the original author may be referring to. Why not, all birds are non-flying insects aren't they? Why didn't they call the bat a flying mouse or the night bird?I think the problem that some sceptics have is that the fundies claim that the Bible is God's word and it was revealed to his prophets who wrote it down, in this case it was meant to be Moses whom no one except the most extreme fundy would believe actually wrote it. The problem is, not that the prophet didn't know that the bat isn't a bird, but why has God told the scribe to list bats in with the birds.It really has nothing to do with the world view of the author, it has to do with God passing on false information. So you wouldn't consider a dove to be a bird then, or a lapwing or a heron as the bible authors did?They obviously thought that everything that flew in the air with two wings was a bird, they are incorrect. Yes, that is logical, and they have categorised a bat as being a bird, doesn't it strike you as surprising that everything else listed is actually a bird?Brian.

Hi, Yes but then there is much more of the Bible that we wouldnt understand then. The thing is, you have to look at what else has been categorised along with the bat here, everything else is a bird isn't it?Also, our modern defintion in regard to 'insect' is anachronistic as well, and our defintion of 'fish' too. The translators had to give it a defintion that makes sense to us, they would have to justify their choice of word to the committees that scrutinised the translations. It is unscientific though isn't it? So if the Bible is unscientific, or prescientific, why are so many believers intent on proving that there is indeed accurate scientific information in the Bible.I do not think that we are that far apart here, we both appear to believe that the Bible should be read for what it is, a collection of ancient literature written for a specific religious purpose.The authors were not interested in giving accurate scientific information, they were only intent in informing their audience about the relationship between God and Israel, His chosen people.The only point I had to bring up was that you couldn't say this is the most 'oft-quoted error' when we do not know for a fact if it is an error or not, you admit yourself that we don't know exactly what they meant, so they could have meant it was a 'bird'. They could have meant that they believed that the bat belonged to the same 'kind' as lapwings and doves and the other listed birds. This isn't the issue with the debate over this information, the issue is that God should know and he should have passed on accurate information to his prophets, this is what the whole issue is. The arguments over this apparent error is not because the protagonists think that the ancients didn't have our definitions, the argument is over why God lumped the bat in with the birds. It tells me that they are a very naive society. I would guess that most children would think that the bat is a bird and this reflects the child like presentation of the listings.This is what undermines the inerrantists belief here, not that they authors placed bats in with birds but that God told Moses that a bat is a bird. This naivety just reflects the prescientific approach that the author had, and shows that the Bible is just the work of the human imagination.Brian.

Cheers!Brian.