Leviticus 11:20-32 and the number of feet on a grasshopper

[Pyrotex]

So now we see the basic different between science and religion. ...Religion can be used to make people believe anything is real, science is used to see what is real independent of belief.

Well said.

 

Having been a "goku" in my earlier years, I can tell you that the brain process of the "believer" is based more on moral conviction than on reason.

"The bible MUST be right, it CAN'T be wrong, therefore, there MUST be an explanation, even if I can't see it right now. Maybe I can't see it because my faith isn't strong enough. Lord, please give me more faith. And while you're at it, please smite these freakin' heathens with thy merciful wrath. Amen."

[HydrogenBond]

When I look at the locust eating, especially if you watched the video to the end, it uses the two front legs like arms. These are not called arms, according to science traditions, but in terms of function and form, they are being used like arms when it eats. Maybe biology could sub-classify six legged insects.

 

What we might do is trace the nervous wiring into the brain, for all three sets of legs to see if they are wired differently. In the case of locust, I would guess three distinct wiring diagrams, with the term legs, too vague for wiring distinctions. The older convention would probably better reflect the three wiring distinctions.

 

Also the locust has wings, or a fourth set of appendages, giving it have a total of 8 locomotion appendages coming out of the body. We call the extra set, two wings, but we could have called them flying legs, if that had been the tradition. It so happens to have as many appendages as spiders, which don't get leg wings.

 

I think wings are sort of look upon as arms, since that is where the arms of a bird should be. But a flying lizard, which is a glider, has the wings sometimes attached to all four legs. This is a four legged flying animal.

 

Apes who walk on all fours are not called four legged. It has arms. The raccoon does the same thing, but the tradition gives him four legs. Maybe Darwin pulled a few strings and liked apes better. Traditions are less based on logic as consensus.

[CraigD]

This thread having, IMHO, established that people who believe every verse of all or a particular version of the Bible must always be right will do almost anything to prove it, while reasonable people understand the Bible to be the result of a long, complicated chain of human writings, transcribings, and translations, I’m back to my original question:

 

How or why could anybody, regardless of culture or vocation, miscount the number of legs on a grasshopper, and perpetuate the error for thousands of years?

 

So far, I’ve seen my original 3 proposed explanations reasonably well demolished, leaving, I think, just a few new possible ones:

1. “Walks on all fours” is not an actual precise count of a number of legs, but an idiom meaning “walks on more than two feet”. Hence, animals with obviously more than 4 feet, such as centipedes and millipedes, would still be described by ancient Jewish scribes who wrote the earliest versions of Leviticus, and understood by their contemporaries, as “walking on all fours”.
   
2. The authors never saw a grasshopper, or saw but never thought to or accurately counted the legs
   
3. That the authors believed that the front pair of legs on a grasshopper were not used as legs, but like arms, as with a mantis

I wouldn’t have thought #2 possible, but for Goku’s admission that he never thought of or thought to count the legs on a grasshopper, and the assumption that he’s representative of many people. This still seems strange to me, as I can’t remember a time even in my earliest childhood that I couldn’t recall from memory lots of information about grasshoppers, including how many legs they have (though with such fragilely attached hopper legs, 5 and fewer-legged grasshoppers were common in my experience, and, it shames me to admit, occasionally caused by it)

 

For the same reason, I’d not think anyone would believe #3, that grasshoppers every walk on only 4 of their legs, mantis-fashion (I’ve seen grasshoppers walk with their back hopper-legs held off the ground, which I think they do when they’ve injured or exhausted them, or perhaps as a mating signal, but never with the front one up). For those who can’t just walk outside to watch grasshoppers, this stock video website, the first that appears in a google search of “grasshopper walking”, has a good embedded 15 second Flash or Quicktime clip of one. Again, experience in this thread has shown that I may badly overestimate the powers of observation of the typical human.

 

I’m leaning toward #1, that “walks on all fours” is an ancient Hebrew idiom for “walks on more than two feet”. Confirming this, however, seems a daunting bit of ancient history scholarship, more than my casual curiosity warrants, … unless the internet can amazingly do it for me? :singer:

[InfiniteNow]

Nice point, Craig. However, I must be lazy, or something, as I cannot justify the mental gymnastics required to hold contradictory beliefs like this sacred. Me? I'm going to take the more reasonable and rational approach, recognize that these stories are simply false fictional writings from iron age tribal peoples, and just move on... dismissing them in the process.

[freeztar]

Excellent analysis Craig.

 

I've seen "daddy longleg" spiders (upon researching this, I'm not sure what the ubiquitous insects I normally see here in Georgia should be called scientifically) with only three legs. Should I then assume that all spiders only have three legs?

 

This whole argument seems silly to me. I'm open to the possibility that I'm missing something, but remained unconvinced.

 

Even if the bible had systematically, and scientifically, labeled such things, it still remains that the claim of a grasshopper having four legs is inconsistent with observational evidence.

 

These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do. :phones:

[REASON]

When I was young I asked my father if it really rained for 40 days and 40 nights on Noah and his Ark, and my dad explained that using the term 40 days was symbolic in the Bible to mean "many." So I understood that Jesus roamed the desert for "many" days before he began his ministry, as opposed to asctually spending 40 days in the desert.

 

40, or variations of it, is used throuout the Bible in many instances as referenced here. I can't help but wonder if the "four" mentioned relative to the number of legs is as Craig noted, intended to denote "many" or "multiple," and that we are not intended to take the reference literally.

 

If this is so, this defence of usage in the Bible does not help those who choose to continue to take each word as the literal word of god. But it might explain why it seems to have been missed for so long.

[modest]

1. “Walks on all fours” is not an actual precise count of a number of legs, but an idiom meaning “walks on more than two feet”. Hence, animals with obviously more than 4 feet, such as centipedes and millipedes, would still be described by ancient Jewish scribes who wrote the earliest versions of Leviticus, and understood by their contemporaries, as “walking on all fours”.

 

40, or variations of it, is used throuout the Bible in many instances as referenced here. I can't help but wonder if the "four" mentioned reletive to the number of legs is as Craig noted, intended to denote "many" or "multiple," and that we are not intended to take the reference literally.

 

This sounds nice :) Unfortunately :doh: the author of Lev. 11 mentions critters with more than 4 legs and actually distinguishes them from the 4-legged variety,

Whatsoever goes upon the belly, and whatsoever goes upon all four, or whatsoever has more [than 4] feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them all of you shall not eat; for they are an abomination.

If "upon all four" is an idiom meaning "more than 2" then this sentence becomes incoherent. It really only makes sense if "upon all four" means "upon all four" :naughty:

 

I also, when first looking at this, had an inclination to believe it was a kind of idiom. In particular because the Hebrew word ar-bah (four) is so similar to the Hebrew raw-bah (to sprawl on fours (ie. to sprawl flat or lie down)).

 

But, this makes less and less sense the more you look at it. In particular, the language used in the chapter itself. It says 'goes upon fours' and 'has 4 feet' and it's hard to believe they're both idiomatic. It then later says 'upon all fours or more feet'. It really only makes sense if 4 is used as a number.

 

Most convincingly, the Torah was translated by Hebrew scholars into Greek around 250 BC. This was only two or three hundred years after the book was written. If the language meant something other than "4 footed" then it's very hard to believe it would have been translated into the Septuagint as "all winged creatures that creep, which go upon four feet". But, it is.

 

So, I'm inclined to believe:

 

2. The authors never saw a grasshopper, or saw but never thought to or accurately counted the legs

3. That the authors believed that the front pair of legs on a grasshopper were not used as legs, but like arms, as with a mantis

 

Both these seem about equally plausible to me.

 

~modest