"The Hare cud what the Cow would"

I was recently sent another atheist podcast from a friend.  These podcasts are notorious for hosting a very knowledgeable atheist host taking calls from well-meaning but uninformed Christians. It is very entertaining for the atheist audience as the host makes sport of the willing participant. This video however is flavored with a sweeter tone. The host is very knowledgeable but gentle when articulating his view, especially since the participant appears to be a young, sweet girl trying to articulate her faith.  I will post a link to the video at the end of our discussion. The video is slightly less than an hour long, so I will not be able to review the whole video in this post, but I think we can demonstrate how misleading they can be by using a few examples. 

The host begins to try and dismantle the young girl's faith by presenting some absurd statements made by the Bible that factually are simply not true. One being the rabbit and the cud. In a couple of places, the Bible list the rabbit as an unclean animal in the list of clean and unclean based upon the fact it chews the cud. "Nevertheless, of those that chew the cud or have cloven hooves, you shall not eat, such as these: the camel, the hare, and the rock hyrax; for they chew the cud but do not have cloven hooves; they are unclean for you." (Deuteronomy 14:7) The young girl tries to answer this obvious error, however, she is left having to concede the Bible is wrong, and the audience realizes the obvious, another Christian refusing rational thinking over blind faith. 

I came across this years ago but couldn't remember how the issue was addressed. So I did a little research and discovered some interesting facts. The Hebrew phrase stated placed the rabbit accurately in the correct category. The rabbit does indeed regurgitate its food like cattle, sheep, deer, it just uses a different process. The animals that chew the cud are called ruminants, meaning they have four stomach compartments. They swallow their food into one stomach compartment where food is partially digested. Then the food is regurgitated back into the mouth, chewed again, and then swallowed into a different stomach compartment. 

Rabbits use a process called cecotrophy. (Cecotrophy) Cecotropes are small pellets of partially digested food that are passed through the animal and are then reingested. As part of the normal digestive process, some partially digested food is concentrated in the cecum, where it undergoes a degree of fermentation to form these cecotropes. They are then covered in mucin and passed through the anus. The rabbit ingests the cecotropes, which serve as a very important source of nutrition for the animal. Although the cecotropes are swallowed whole and not chewed, experts have observed that rabbits keep the cecotrophe in the mouth for a time before swallowing, the chewing motion that is seen is the rabbit kneading the cecotrophe making it easier to digest. 

The translating of this cecotrophy process into the word cud is simply a result of the Hebrew word having a broader meaning than our English word, which is now narrowly understood only as the process used by ruminants. However, the Biblical audience of the time would have understood the meaning in its fuller context.  

The result in the end is the host misleading his audience with false information. Worse, presenting himself to this young girl as being an informed authority, leading her to think something false about her faith that was indeed true, was more than a simply misleading of an audience. 

He points to the absurd statement of the sun standing still, it is found in Joshua 10:12, At that time Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon." This event would necessitate that the earth stop rotating on its axes, which he points out would be absurd, alluding to the natural catastrophic results of such a thing happening. One can certainly understand the naturalist view of an atheist concerning this one, however, if one allows for a creator, it would be a logical conclusion that the one who created the earth in rotation could stop the rotation while suspending all adverse effects with the greatest ease. That's a no-brainer. This event is also relative to the next point made by the host if it is rotating on its axes. 

The host states to this young girl that the Bible obviously suggest that the earth is flat. Of course his audience believes his statement to be true which is misleading them, and he again is misleading this young girl to believe something about her faith that is false. Such statements are derived from certain passages taken out of context. For instance, Revelation 7:1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. The statement "four corners" are taken as a reference to the shape of the earth, but the context is in reference to four distance directions, not the shape of the earth. Other references to the "ends of the earth" are said to imply a flat earth, when again the context is of distance not shape. The Bible simply does not, nor does it have a reason, for commenting on the shape of the earth. It does state, however, in Job 26:10 He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. For that to be possible, the earth would need to be a sphere. It speaks in similar language in Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;. 

The host of the podcast makes the statement to his audience and this young girl that the Bible speaks of the earth as being flat. However, it does not indicate it is flat or spherical, certain passages taken out of their context could be used to support both views. These views are derived from scriptures that are not addressing the shape of the earth in their context. Reading these verses to obtain support for either view can only be done by conjecture. 

Hope this was helpful,

David 

Video Link: Podcast