Let's start with a fairly simple one. Please consider the following two passages from the Bible:





In both passages we find a list of "birds." Included in the list of birds is a bird call a bat. Since when is a bat a bird?

Now, in the first passage the word fowl is used and this is because of the Hebrew word used which is different than the Hebrew word behind the word bird in the Deuteronomy passage. The word translated as "fowl" is for a winged creature and, yes, a bat is a winged creature. However, the list consists only of what we call "birds" with the one exception of the bat. The passage in Deuteronomy is a parallel. It also lists birds and incorporates the bat in with this list. However, it begins by saying that all the clean birds you can eat and then lists those which cannot be eaten because they are not clean. The Hebrew word translated "birds" is the word tziporim which literally means birds. The list that follows makes it obvious that the writer intends birds and that he includes the bat as a bird. Being parallel passages it is obvious that the writer of both passages includes the bat as a bird.

Bats aren't birds.

But let's look a little beyond this one passage. Let's go back to Leviticus for a moment and look at the following verse (which follows the other Leviticus passage I quoted above):



The Israelites are here commanded to not eat any fowls (winged creatures, according to the Hebrew word used) that creep, going up all four. Please name for me the winged creature that has four legs or four feet?

Before you do, the Bible gives you some examples of the four footed flying creatures in its list of the clean ones that can be eaten. Here is the passage:



Here the writer lists a few "four footed" creatures that fly: the locust, the beetle and the grasshopper. However, the last time I checked, all of these creatures had more than four feet!