Bird Bat, Bird Brained

Remember the post I made about a certain television preacher who said that ancient Hebrews doesn't have any idea regarding taxonomy (AKA animal classification) that's why they included the bat in a list of birds?

Well, my issue here is that if the preacher was correct, then the claim of the so-called "scientific foreknowledge of the bible" is questionable.

I received a comment on that post - a sort of an apologetic response - but, it really didn't tackle the issue. Instead, it tried to justify the list of "birds." According to the comment, Leviticus 11:13-19 was talking about "flying creatures" not just birds, because the "original Hebrew text" says flying creatures.

OK, so let's take a look at this.
Lev 11:13 'These, moreover, you shall detest among the birds;

Hmmm...
So, Leviticus 11:13 is a start of a list. A list of 20 "birds" that you should not eat. On that list, in Leviticus 11:19 it says that  "...and the bat.” The twentieth, and only the twentieth in the list, is not a bird. The bat is a mammal.

Other bible translations use the word fowls instead of birds. Well, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, a fowl is a bird.

But, but the original Hebrew says...

To get away from the situation, apologists use the "Original Hebrew" translation card. According to Errancy.org, Leviticus 11:13-19 is a translation issue since the ancient Hebrew word ('owph) that was translated as "birds" or "fowls" in our modern bibles was not really an accurate translation. The proper word was "things that fly" or "flying creatures." OK...

So, it's OK to include the "bat" as a flying creature, right?

Yet I wonder.

Why do most bible says it's "bird" and not "flying creatures?"

I think it was only in the English Standard Version that says it is a flying creature. Does this imply that Hebrew scholars often can't agree on the translation?

But suppose we accept the "things that fly" or "flying creatures" as the accurate translation? Then we now have a new issue. The ostrich, which was included in the list, doesn't fly.

So now we have 2 issues and a dilemma:  the bat and the ostrich. If we accepted the translation as "birds" then the bat is in the wrong list, but if we accepted the translation as "flying creatures" then the ostrich is in the wrong list.

Yet the King James Version, New Living Translation, Webster's Bible Translation, Young's Literal Translation,  and the New International Version doesn't have the word "ostrich" in Lev. 11:16. 

However, some bibles have it. The New American Bible, New American Standard Bible, New King James Version (NKJV), Christian Standard Bible, International Standard Version, GOD'S WORD® Translation, Douay-Rheims Bible, the Good News Bible, the Leningrad Codex, The Orthodox Jewish Bible, and the New Revised Standard Version are some examples. Even the English Standard Version who gives "things that fly" as a suggested alternate translation also have the ostrich in its list.

So, whose's the correct one? I guess that will just be tackled in some other future posts.

Isn't biblical apologetic funny.

Ciao