Creationists acknowledge evolution makes sense

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
^ I never said that study solved things by allegorizing did I? In the example I gave it was pretty clear that an apparent contradicition was easily solved by assuming that the circumference given was external (a more natual measurment to give) and the diameter was internal (more relevant to the volume it could contain). Nothing allegorical there.

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You mean they didn't understand or were not interested in the relationship between circumference and volume when constructing a container for liquid? Did these people learn nothing from the Egyptians? [b] [QUOTE]To discuss the rabbits we need to find out all about the translation issues of 'chewing cud'[/b][/QUOTE]Oh ok then.
The word used for chewing in the context of Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 is alah. This word has a range of meanings around a root sense of raising up or bringing up and its use in this context shows that the ancient Hebrew's understood pretty well what was involved in chewing the cud. The word for cud is gerah and is cognate with the modern Arabic jirrah, used in exactly the same sense.I have seen it argued that alah could be translated as "bringing forth" in this case, but the root sense is certainly one of bringing up. I fact, rather than translating this as chewing the cud, a better translation is that the animals in question "bring up the cud."It is certainly clear from the context of the passages that the writer regards hares and coneys as digesting their cud in the same manner as ruminants - there is no distinction made in the passages which indicates any knowledge of any difference. Any interpretation that the writer did not intend it to be understood so requires a a considerable amount of information external to the text: there is no 'self-sufficient' interpretation that fits our knowledge of the biology of these animals, or of the hyrax or some of the other animals which have been identified as potential candidates.Of course, the passages have absolutely no significance for the redemption of man from sin or the acceptance of Jesus, and him crucified. It's difficult to believe anyone would find this error a a barrier or challenge to their faith, compared to say, the problem of evil, unless that faith happened to be in a linguistically unsustainable literalism.

I agree with most of what you say, except for one minor quibble. Just as it is untenable to expect the bible to literally true in its every utterance, so one shouldn't go to the other extreme and deny that there is nothing in the bible that is literally true! Yet sometimes it seems that this is what those who oppose literalism are accused of. It most certainly is not an all-or-nothing choice.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
My point was that the phrase/word transalted as 'chewing the cud' may simply mean grass eating in Hebrew.

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It doesn't.

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Originally posted by Tranquility Base:
Although rabbits are not ruminants they do eat their own pellets as pointed out by AIG and we would hence suspect that this was categrized as the Hebrew 'alah'.

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No it wouldn't be categorized as alah - if the Hebrews knew that rabbits ate their own fecal matter I suspect their scrupulous hygienic laws would have rather more to say about it!They use exactly the same phrase as they use for chewing the cud - and the word is the same word as is commonly used for cud in semitic languages today (pastoral terms are amongst the most entrenched usages in linguistics). The only argument you could use to render another meaning is that the Bible cannot be wrong, so we must extend the meaning of chewing the cud to encompass this.Note a few things - the word alah is used for bringing up the cud. They were aware of the difference between this and vomiting - for which they use the cognate words Qayah, Qow and Qe. Remember that they do not actually say the Hebrew "chewing" the cud, but "bringing up" the cud. There is actually no mention of chewing - they had special words for that too: araq and G'ramThere is no reason to suppose they would not have made a similar distinction for the very distinctive behaviour of rabbits - or the digestive complexities of the hyrax for that matter.So the passages do not mean that Hebrew's were aware that bunnies munch their grassy poo - it means they thought they chewed the cud just like ruminants. And they were wrong. Which is ok, if the author was an ancient Hebrew and only a problem if you believe he was some sort of stenographer for the Almighty.