Zoology.
“Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two [or by sevens of clean according to another account] unto Noah into the ark” (Gen. vii, 8, 9).
The animal kingdom, including insects, etc., comprises more than 1,000,000 species. According to the Bible, two or more of every species from every clime—polar animals accustomed to a temperature of fifty degrees below zero, and tropical, to one hundred degrees above—were brought together and preserved for a year in an ark. If the teachings of Natural History be true, this Bible story is false.
The Bible pronounces unclean and unfit for food the following animals:
“The camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof” (Lev. xi, 4).
“The coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof” (xi, v).
“The hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof” (xi, 6).
“The swine, though he divideth the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud” (xi, 7).
Every statement proclaims the writer’s ignorance of the simple facts of Zoology. The camel does divide the hoof; the coney does not chew the cud; the hare does not chew the cud; the swine is not cloven-footed (bisulcate), but four-toed.
“All ruminants have the foot cleft, and they only have it.”—Cuvier.
“Every one of the four instances or illustrations brought forward by the Biblical writer is necessarily erroneous; any attempt at defending them implies an impotent struggle against Science.”—Dr. Kalisch.
Scarcely less erroneous are the following passages: “And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls: ... the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing and the bat.
“All fowls that creep, going upon all four, shall be an abomination unto you.
“Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
“Even these of them may ye eat: the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you” (Lev. xi, 13–23).
“And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Gen. iii, 14).
The serpent does not eat dust, while Science shows that it crawled upon its belly before the curse just as it did afterward.