Bats are birds. Just not our kind of bird.

Rei:It may be a little stretch to say, "the Hebrew people were ignorant of the structure of bats."Bats lived in caves then as now, and Hebrews were familiar with caves as well as bats. Surely from time to time an inquisitive Hebrew closely examined a dead bat and clearly noticed its "structure" and its obvious differences and similarities to birds, particularly the bat's grotesque facial features that resemble a pig-faced mole.Evidence of Hebrew knowledge of bats in this sense: "And they shall go into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver and his idols of gold which they made each one for himself to worship to the moles and the bats." (Isaiah 2:19 & 20)"Casting idols to the moles and the bats" implies carrying the idols into dark caverns or desolate places, where bats and moles live, in order to consign the idols to desolation and ruin.It's interesting that bats and moles should be associated alongside one another in this verse of Isaiah, in both Deuteronomy 14 and Leviticus 11 where this thread draws its list of "shagetz birds," the bat is lumped in (Deut. 14:18 and Lev. 11:19) with unclean birds (the Hebrew word for bat,"atalleph," implies "flying in the night"), and the mole is lumped in with the chameleon, the lizard, and the snail (see Lev. 11:30).Now, the word used in Leviticus for mole, "tinshemeth," also is used for, or has been translated as, some sort of hissing lizard in other scriptural texts from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English.Furthermore, these kosher/shagetz lists found throughout Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy sometimes jumble one oddball type of animal into a category with other more closely related kinds. Leviticus 11:30 even lumps obvious mammals and reptiles together in one string, making it even more difficult to determine whether to read "tinshemeth" as "mole" or "hissing lizard."Anyway, back to bat: I propose that Hebrews knew full well that bats were not birds or even feathered creatures, but that they resembled some sort of flying "mole," and that the scribes simply lumped them into a category of shagetz flying creatures in order to make more sense to the congregation members who might perceive bats as "flying-at-night, bird-like creatures."[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-16-2003]

Quote: "That's impossible, unless they didn't know that ostriches can't fly, because ostriches are in the same category."There is still some controversy whether the Hebrew word given in the passage translates as "ostrich;" however, that is the generally accepted translation. The Hebrews would have known that ostriches don't fly just as the Hebrews would have been familiar with mud bricks as you and others correctly postulated in another thread due to direct and long-term contact with Egyptians.Quote: "Besides, knowing that many bats live in caves and knowing the anatomy of bats are entirely different things."I pose that Hebrews as scholarly people did know the anatomy of bats and suggest that for much the same reason as you and others postulated in another thread that due to direct and long-term contact with Egyptians, the Hebrews knew or had ample opportunity to know a great deal about the anatomy of a great number of creatures.

In post 15, I pointed out that "bats" appear in the bird category, and "moles" appear in the "lizard" category of Leviticus. Don't two negatives make a positive around here?

Regarding: "Only if you're a bible literalist. "Well then, Queen Rei, that does indeed raise a quandry. Since if I were a literalist, I would have to hold that on the fourth day, the Creator assembled birds from elemental earth, water, air, and fire, and dispersed them fully feathered and flying directly out of the firmament of heaven, which of course explains clearly why bats are listed in the bird category.Now as to ostriches, rheas, penguins, emus, and other flightless birds (don't even mention the extinct dodo) they must have suffered a hard landing, and a well-deserved ruffling of feathers, as they obviously are the "fallen angels" of Birdkind.

Quoting Mr. Jack's possibility #1 of 2: "The ancient hebrew scholars were so ignorant of bats that despite being able to identify them as seperate from all those other kinds of creature and knowing of their habits in caves they had failed to notice the lack of feathers, lack of beak and presence of fur."Come on now, Jack, do you seriously think anyone who closely observes a bat either in flight, eating, sleeping, or dead on the ground could possibly "fail to notice the lack of feathers, lack of beak, or lack of fur?" Get a grip. Eyesight, powers of observation, and simple deductive reasoning has not evolved all that much since these verses were written about 500 BCE. So how can we explain the apparent "misconceptions" regarding bats as birds, moles as lizards, etc.? Simple. Look at the theology that these scribes had to defend:Genesis 1-1: When God initiated creation, he manufactured primordal matter from absolute nothingness. This primordal matter was in a state of total chaotic disorder but contained the prime elements of all future creation. God then separated the undefined amalgamation of primordal matter into two layers: (1) a layer that while still without form or substance contained the as yet undistilled prime elements that would constitute all things in heaven, and (2) another formless layer that contained the as yet undistilled prime elements that would constitute all things below heaven.Genesis 1-2: From the lower of the two layers, God decided to manifest four prime elements: earth, air, fire, and water. The prime elements were arranged and remain arranged in spherical, heirarchical layers like atmosphere surrounding the space within which the Earth was to be created and subsequently occupy.Genesis 1-3: From the upper of the two layers of primordal matter, God created everlasting light.Genesis 1-4: God decided that while the light is everlasting, it would be dispersed in accordance to God's will. So, God established a measure, limits, and apportionment of everlasting light so that darkness also is manifest by comparison. (The creation of light occured in the upper layer of primordal matter, and as yet the light had not yet penetrated and appeared within the lower level.)Genesis 1-5: The universal balance of light being established, "Yayikra," God differentiated between night and day so that primordal matter and prime elements existed for one period of darkness (night) followed by a period (day) where light then shined upon the prime elements of the lower layer, and forever establishing that darkness, void, and chaos preceeds light, substance, and order; (and that a single, 24-hour revolution the diurnal sphere is measured from the occurance of darkness to its reoccurance the following evening). Voila! Day One.
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Okay, Mr. Jack, are you with me so far? As Emeril would say, "this ain't rocket science." But it is the type of scientific approach taken by the scholars and rabbis that instructed and directed the scribes. My point is that once you're locked into this approach to natural and physical science, what follows is:Genesis 1-20: God created all creatures that live in water by saying, "let the fundamental nature of the prime elements of fire, earth, air, and water spontaneously produce fully developed life forms that will swarm within the waters that lay upon the surface of Earth and let the fundamental nature of fire, earth, air, and water spontaneously produce fully developed life forms that fly directly from the heavenly firmament and into the air above the surface of Earth." End Day Five.Genesis 1-24/25 (Day Six): God created all creatures that live on land by saying, "let (yada yada) the prime elements (blah blah blah) produce living land animals, according to their kind, herbivorous, carnivorous, domesticated, wild, hoofed, clawed, creeping, crawling, slithering, four-legged, six-legged, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------So now we have three basic categories into which animals are lumped:1) Those that sprang up from sea mud and live in water.
2) Those that popped out of the clouds and fly with wings.
3) Those that sprang up from dirt and crawl, slither, hop, spring, scamper, run, or ambulate about on dry land.Now, Jack, put yourself in the sandals of a scribe in Judah or Babylon, 500 BCE, a straight-laced, unyielding, dogmatron rabbi for a boss ... into which of the three categories does "bat" go? As Buzsaw would say, "It's a no-brainer."[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-17-2003]

Re: Post 24: Into which of the three categories would you put:Avimimus?
and Archaeopteryx?

Quoting Mr. Jack: "Er, that's exactly my point, Abshalom."Apparently, sometimes I get too wrapped up in the topic and miss the point. Point taken.

Quoting Peter: "I thought bats were non-kosher ... doesn't that mean
some-one knew about them to exclude them from the
feeding list?"All the animals listed in the Leviticus section are shagetz. The original question posed is "why are bats included in a list of birds" and that somehow the bats' inclusion in a verse with ostriches represents a biological defect in the Bible or faulty reasoning on the part of biblical writers.The question alluded to by "someone knew about them to exclude them from the kosher food lists" poses another question altogether, and a very interesting and age-old, controversial question ... "what are the reasons, or what are the criteria for shagetz with regard to such diverse animals as pigs, cormorants, ostriches, shrimp, oysters, and catfish; and why then on the other hand are hippoes not mentioned and ducks, turkeys, and tuna kosher?" Also, the question "why is the boiling of a young goat or calf in its mother's milk forbidden not only in dietary code, but inserted in other places as a part of ritual code?" But these questions may represent a whole different thread.But to directly answer your question, Peter, yes someone had to know a great deal about the physiological details of bats to include them in the list whether they are included with birds or with other rodent-like creatures that live underground. Afterall, there are many birds that roost or nest in caves or nooks in clifts that are not declared unfit to eat simply due to their "burrowing" or "underground" habits or what they eat for lunch.[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-18-2003]

Yes, Dr. Bill, I am partially plagarizing Maimonides in an effort to demonstrate the type of convoluted natural science that otherwise extremely keen minds can develop when trying to discover truth while perpetuating myth. For a more modern example of the same, click on this: http://www.e-universe.com/lmfhome/real_eve.htm

Dr. Bill: (Re: Post #33) There does seem to be a close similarity between Aristotle and Maimonides (who I think were contemporaries) regarding their "scientific" views of material creation and placement of the stars and planets.Error 404 | Emory University | Atlanta GA(sorry for the edits, but I'm having a little trouble with this link communicating with my printer or something. Anyway, the footnotes are as interesting as the text.)[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-19-2003][This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-19-2003]

Peter:I provided the link to show that even "enlightened" contemporaries of Aristotle continued to interpret creation texts to indicate that birds and other flying, non-insects were assembled biologically, and fully mature, from elements extant in the "firmament above" as opposed to non-flying, land animals created from elements of the "firmament below."Please excuse my mistakenly attributing the text to Moses ben Maimon. It was written by Moses ben Nachman, a kabbalist.Either way, the level of biological knowledge should've been much higher than exhibited by Nachman's writing which only attempts to perpetuate antiquated creation myths by embellishing them with nearly incomprehensible, newfangled (for the times), metaphysical hogwash (much the same as we now see from so-called "creationist science").[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 01-07-2004]