Crispy Crunchy Locust Legs (Part 2)

Hypothesize…experiment…analyze…publish.

The “four legs” problem (dissected in part one) is not particularly difficult to solve, and this is why it serves as a “red flag” for irrationality. Those who express confidence in this being an “error” are simultaneously expressing some combination of ignorance, prejudice, and a lack of critical thinking. When confronted with the reality of this “error”, it’s not uncommon for truly rational skeptics, or those who are simply repeating the “error” they heard from someone else, to admit that it’s not a mistake. I recently took an opportunity to send up this particular test balloon, to see if those advocating “critical thinking” could actually do as they advised others to.

The experiment happened on a fairly typical anti-Christianity site where non-believers get together to make fun of believers and pat each other on the back. These are not sites conducive to deep discussion – no one there is interested in having their lack of belief challenged. In truth, that’s perfectly fine. Not every site on the internet needs to be an open invitation to argument. I had no intentions of challenging the non-belief of the website’s participants. That would have been pointless, particularly given the style of…“conversation”… being engaged in (or perpetrated) there.

At any rate, one of the non-believers on the site was challenged (pointlessly) to prove something in the Bible wrong. In response, they mentioned the “four legs” canard and went so far as to call it an “easy” mistake, chiding the questioner to use critical thinking. I figured that was a good enough opportunity to see how such critic(s) would respond to some actual critical thinking regarding the issue. The “four legs” issue should be trivial to an atheist or other non-believer. That the Bible is correct on such an obvious and minor detail isn’t the slightest bit threatening to the views of a person who rejects the Bible.

My idea was to start by mentioning the most obvious flaw in the attack: is it really sensible to suggest that a person who ate these insects didn’t know how many legs they had? That alone puts all of the burden of proof on the one making the attack: unless they can prove beyond any doubt that the passage can only be interpreted as in error, then it is unreasonable to call it one.

If needed, I was prepared to drill down into the language, context, and so forth to see if or when this type of skeptic would finally say, “okay, fine. It’s not wrong. This does nothing for my unbelief, but I guess that’s not actually an error.” In theory, a truly rational non-believer ought to be able to look at the evidence, examine the passage, and comfortably admit that it’s not a mistake. Needless to say, this is not what happened.^[1]

The first, and most frequent, responder to my challenge went through quite a metamorphosis during the conversation. He started off with typical derision, making strained attempts to force his preferred implication on the English text. In the process, he spilled gallons of ink creating elaborate faux-Christian responses, attempting to be witty, and typing the words LEGS and FEET in all-caps as though net-shouting was going to turn bad arguments into good.

When I noted that there were two separate Hebrew words used, with different anatomical implications, he went for the haymaker, tripped, and fell flat on his face:

Now let us re-examine what Medicineman said about the Hebrew word Ke'ra

MM: "The word translated “leg” is ke’ra which can be a more literal “insect-type-leg”.

I see so do you tell me now that the FLOCK [in Leviticus 1:9, also using the word kera’] refers to a FLOCK of LOCUSTS or animals with SEGMENTED LEGS?

We go deeper and deeper into the surreal world of Christian apologetics.

The solution offered just creates more problems. As I said the simplest solution is that the authors of the Bible in their rush to write a work purportedly with God make fallible mistakes in their observations, language and simple logic.

But lets not try to blame too much..... teh modern christian apologist is adamant that since they made such a simple mistake, they couldn't be making a mistake and hence DISTORTS reason, logic as well as language.

I indicated that the definition of the word kera’ could include both the shank bone and the insect leg. He called me a liar. After I confronted him about making such an accusation, he apologized. Then he switched gears.

His new strategy was twofold. On one hand, he would continue to claim that the verse clearly meant a total of four legs, because that’s what his bias-inserted version of the English said.

On the other hand, he tried to suggest that the verse merely stated that these feet were attached to jointed legs. He neglected to explain what purpose there would be in including such a detail. Nor did he recall that the description of the two “jumping” legs is what separated the clean from unclean animals. If this was merely a reminder that bugs have legs attached to their feet, it would have been useless as a means to separate good from bad. Why would it have been written at all?

I noted his arguments’ repeated failures and made the point that it was unwise to treat those who disagree with you as stupid or brainwashed, especially when the one making such accusations is plainly unknowledgeable about the topic. At that point, he passed into the “grumpy” phase where he accused me of attempting to “score points” for daring to judge his approach on the basis of his own words, including comments such as these:

Xtianity = stupidity is rewarded by praise

In fact, he accused me of pursuing a “personal vendetta”. This, after I acknowledged his apology and reminded him of my problems with his approach, not his person.

The person who originally brought up the “error” had little else to say, other than calling me a troll for sticking to the evidence. She was content to chip in terms like “buybullnuts” (Bible nuts), claim that she was talking about God, not the person who wrote the passage (huh?) and breathlessly ask the primary commenter when he was going to write a book. That’s not satirical. She actually asked for an autographed copy.

Another “contributor” to the conversation could be fairly described as Sammy Skeptic going through his late-teenage angst period. Armed with a grand total of eight or nine shiny, well-worn pet phrases, a fetish for verbal abuse, and an incredibly fragile ego, he not only laid on the derision, but wanted to expand the topic of conversation to include pretty much the entire known universe. A quick scan through his recent comments uncovered gems like these from some of his other conversations:

So now that you get my point, f**k off, you language nazi. And if you don't like it get the f**k out of dodge, you stupid motherf**ker.

[you are] another mental midget Christian…

Characteristically speaking, all you can offer -- being a christian -- is silly superstitions, massive delusion and morbid ignorance.

Now that’s a person ready for an intelligent debate!

I wish I could say that this type of commenter is always a non-believer. Unfortunately, I run into people of all versions of faith or non-faith who act exactly this way. Verbally abusive, preoccupied with mindless caricatures, and absolutely brimming with insecurity.

They open the conversation by packing more irrelevant straw-men into one sentence than some can fit in a paragraph. When their target declines to participate, they declare victory and pile on some more self-stroking insults. They assume beforehand that you can’t possibly have anything worthwhile to say. They simultaneously complain about being disagreed with, and yet demand that you to do so.

It’s nothing more complicated than overcompensation. This kind of person lacks the knowledge or ability to actually discuss that which they so angrily disagree with. So, they work to make actual conversation impossible. Then, they convince themselves that they won, and repeat with the next person. Needless to say, I was content to let this person spin their wheels alone. Why not? Argue with an idiot and it gets hard to tell which is which.

Predictably, this was interpreted as surrender. Several times over, in fact, complete with ostentatious net-laughter (who’s protesting too much, again?) Hey, whatever it takes to protect that eggshell ego, right?

One particular commenter noted the ultimate irrelevancy of the point at hand, and encouraged me to look more deeply into my faith. He warned me that intelligence used to uphold a lie is ultimately wasted. (When I agreed with his assessment, but stated that I obviously disagreed on what “the lie” was, another contributor jumped in with some paranoid, defensive comments as though my agreement was some kind of character slur.)

Strangely, he also suggested that maybe I was really trying to convince myself, rather than others. It was odd, in his mind, to discuss such a trivial point at such great length. I would have thought he’d see that going both ways. In fact, given the gymnastics the other commenters went through, he would have been better off directing that sentiment towards them.

That, after all, was my ultimate question to this group. Why defend such an overtly silly, clearly impotent, and ultimately trivial attack on the Bible? Doesn’t that make them look irrational, prejudiced, and closed-minded? Why take the attitude that every single word, letter, and phrase in the Bible must be wrong? That’s not rational, or sensible. It’s just bigoted.

It’s exactly the same thing I hate about partisan politics. If the “other party” says the sky is blue, then there’s a fight to the death to say it is green. If “they” say that this bill is good, it msut be opposed. Or, in this case, if the Bible says it, it must be wrong. If the Bible says something correct, then it’s still wrong, because it must be wrong. Four legs gooood…six legs baaaad!

Some people see images of Mary in their toast, and their trees, and their carpet. Some see a UFO in every midnight sky. Some see ghosts in every bump or creak of the house. And, unfortunately, some skeptics see errors in every verse, every line, every letter of the Bible.

The most eye-rolling, predictably inane absurdities came in response to my non-participation in further discussion. I had no chance of convincing anyone, and I had no reason to believe that open-mindedness would ensue – they couldn’t even let go of a trivial point, why expect reason on something with more weight?

And yet, I knew that a polite “no thanks” to debates on deeper issues would be spun as “yeah – we won!” by the kind of insecure posters active on these sites. And, as soon as it was clear I was no longer participating, there was a general sense of high-fiving, patting on the back, juvenile bad-mouthing, and assorted declarations of victory. Shrug.

As of this writing, not a single person commenting on the site had yet admitted that the “four legs” passage is not a mistake. Perhaps they’ve decided as much in their own minds, and won’t use it again…but I doubt it.

The point of what happened seems totally lost on them: they could not engage me rationally on a trivial point; they changed the subject, delivered insults and accusations, and dodged the need to drop the “four legs” question repeatedly. Therefore, I declined to discuss more substantial issues. That’s just common sense. Yet, they seemed unwilling to believe that that my motivations for declining their challenges might be motivated by exactly what I said they were: indifference. Incredibly, those banding together to dodge a simple point of rationality, from the safety of numbers and home-field advantage on a skeptical website, accused me of fearing their scrutiny of my beliefs.

Hence, the practical value of the “red flag” issues. At the least, they can help separate the unaware from the unwilling.


[1] - As usual, I'm not in the habit of posting direct links to hostile sites. Also as usual, I saved a transcript of the conversation [as of 5-14-09 @11:14 PM] so that there's no doubt as to what was said when and by whom. If you'd like to see the madness unfold for yourself, you can copy this URL into your browser: http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2008/03/i-dont-have-enough-faith-to-be.html#disqus_thread and search for the phrase, "The buybull says insects have four legs."

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Crispy Crunchy Locust Legs (Part 1)

Id' rather count 'em than eat 'em...

I recently encountered of one of the “red flag” criticisms used by some detractors of Christianity. By “red flag”, I mean one of those attacks on the Bible that’s particularly badly reasoned, obviously flawed, and trivial. Using such a claim “red flags” the attacker as someone less than informed at best, unreasonably prejudiced, in all likelihood, and willingly irrational at worst. This particular “red flag” is the claim that the Bible incorrectly notes the number of legs on an insect.

The claim is that Leviticus 11:21, combined with Leviticus 11:23, indicate that insects have four legs. Since insects have six legs, not four, this is supposedly an error. There are two responses, one of which is purely meant to affect the approach to resolution, the second of which shows that there is, in fact, no error.

A super-short answer: the actual Hebrew words describe two different kind of legs: one used more or less for walking/crawling, the other more or less for leaping. The Bible correctly notes that the insects in question have four of the former and two of the latter. When it uses the number “four” it uses the word referring to the crawling legs. The Hebrews simply thought of the crawling legs and the jumping legs as different enough to warrant different terms, much as we might see a difference between a finger and a thumb. Even before, that, it’s silly to think someone who ate locusts wouldn’t know how many legs they had.

First of all, common sense says that a person (Moses, the writer of Leviticus, in this case) who lived around, among, and under threat of these insects on a daily basis, and especially one who ate them on a regular basis, would actually know how many legs those insects had. The idea that a person who ate locusts didn’t realize that they had six legs, not four, strains credulity. This places all of the burden of proof on the one making the attack; it is unreasonable to assume that anyone living in that culture would have made such an overt mistake.

As an analogy, imagine meeting a doctor from some foreign nation. You hold up both hands, and ask him how many fingers he sees. He looks at them and says, “eight”. Do you assume he’s ignorant, blind, or stupid? Or do you assume that his definition of “fingers” does not include “thumbs”? He has plenty of knowledge of what fingers and thumbs are, he can see, and (assuming you aren’t missing something) you’re not a unique example.

If you challenge him, he’ll probably respond like this: “No, you have eight fingers. Each hand has four fingers and one thumb. You have ten digits, but only eight fingers.”

Now, this might be confusing to someone who speaks English. But it’s not wrong. There is no factual disagreement, only a terminology difference. “Fingers” and “thumbs” are two separate things to this doctor, though there is a word that includes fingers AND thumbs (digits). This is an important point (demonstrated later).

Secondly, and most importantly, the verses do not say what skeptics claim they do. This is definitely one place in the Bible where translation issues become comprehension issues. Some words are very difficult to translate into other languages, especially when those languages have very different ways of organizing, arranging, or analyzing what is being discussed. In translated English, the verses look like this:

KJV: (v.21) 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…(v.23) But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you.

NASB: (v.21)Yet these you may eat among all the winged insects which walk on all fours: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth...(v.23) But all other winged insects which are four-footed are detestable to you.

There is one phrase, and two relevant words to note. The phrase “go on all four(s)” reads, both in English, and in Hebrew, as a figure of speech. It’s far more literal in Hebrew, which the other two words will clarify. The implication of a crawling movement is there, not a literal indication of four limbs.

The Hebrew word kera’ has two meanings: an insect leg or the shank (shin) bone of a sacrifical animal. Those seem like very different things, but they are somewhat related. Consider that words in English, such as “cleave”, are so context-dependent that they can mean opposite things: “cleave to your wife in marriage, then cleave this log with an axe.” Kera’ sticks to legs, at least.

The Hebrew word regel has a greater number of meanings, but a narrower focus. It generally means a foot, ankle, big toe, or “the extensions from the trunk of the body that touch the ground.” In the specific context given, it means the crawling legs of the insect.

Finally, you can see the difference in phrasing between the KJV and the NASB regarding jointed feet. The NASB uses linguistic context to create a more easily understood phrasing. The KJV makes it less clear what the leaping legs are.

The following re-inserts the Hebrew words, includes quotation marks around the figurative phrase, and makes the jointed feet references braced to show how they are intended to be read:

KJV [notations mine]: (v.21) Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that “goeth upon all four”, which have regels above their {kera’s to leap withal upon the earth}…(v.23) But all other flying creeping things, which have four regels, shall be an abomination unto you.

NASB [notations mine]: (v.21)Yet these you may eat among all the winged insects which “walk on all fours”: those which have above their regels {kera’s with which to jump on the earth}...(v.23) But all other winged insects which are four-regeled are detestable to you.

The passage is now much easier to understand. The insects have leaping legs, different from their (four) walking legs, as defined by the Hebrews. The English word “legs” covers both regels and kera’s, like “digits” covers both fingers and thumbs. Saying that these insects have four regels and also kera’ is no different than saying that humans have eight fingers and also thumbs.

Some complain that this is confusing for the modern reader. Well, that’s why “the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things”. This was a ceremonial law given to Old Covenant Israel, fulfilled and no longer applicable for Christians. It had to make sense to the people who actually needed to follow it. It would have been absurd for God to phrase the law in a way confusing to those who needed it, for the sake of future generations who would not. And, of course, for anyone who really wants to know, it can be sensibly understood.

No error, no problem. That doesn’t stop some people from using the “four legs” attack, and going to embarrassing lengths to defend it, as part two will show.

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