Reflecting on your point I came to realize that God actually gave the job of classifing and naming the animals to us (humans).
So no, I don't agree with you. I don't think God would have given them a lesson on how he thought they should be classified.
I think God would have used whatever classification they were using at the time.
If they classified bats as bird then he would have listed them among the birds.
Talk about a stretch. The verse you quoted say nothing at all about classifying anything. It simply says that the man was to NAME the animals. Naming is different from classifying.
But let's give you this argument a moment. Let's say that Adam did classify the animals. There are a few things to consider. Even if he did, then that does not necessarily mean that his classification scheme made it through the supposed flood spoken of in the Bible and down to Moses for him to use. And if it did, then Adam's classification of animals is a mess if he includes a bat as a bird.
But even if god did leave the classification of animals up to man, the Bible, a timeless book, could have expressed that bats, along with the birds mentioned, are unclean and not to be eaten, without touching on the word "bird." There are simple grammatical ways to do this and a perfect god could have done that (especially if an imperfect person like myself could come up with a way to do it).
Bats have more in common with birds than the ability to fly. Bats and birds both have 2 legs. You are in error there.
You would have done just fine in Bible times, then. You are very, very wrong here. Bats do NOT have two legs. They indeed do have four. And when the walk and crawl, they do so ON ALL FOUR. Their front legs are their wings. The finger/toes of those front legs are very long with skin stretched between them and this allows them to fly with them. Birds do not have this structure and when they walk they do so only on their two legs. Bats, once again, walk on all fours when they walk.
From the direction the discussion has taken at this point, you seem to have dropped grasshoppers and locusts.
Does that mean you are accepting that there may be a way to see them being classified as having 4 legs?
Not at all. I responded about beetles because of what you said about beetles. I was simply responding to you. Nothing more. Nothing less. Grasshoppers and Locusts all have six legs. Legs are commonly understood as those limbs that a being/creature uses to get about, to walk, hop, jump, etc. All of the mentioned creatures (grasshopper, locust and beetle) use all six of their limbs to move about. It is obvious to just about anyone (except possibly you and Moses) that these creatures have six legs and not four. The Bible is in error.
As to the beetle, I'm sorry I wasn't trying to give an absolute answer here. I was trying to express that there is more than one way to classify ... well anything. What the actual criteria they used to classify beetles as having 4 I have no way of knowing.
It doesn't really matter how they classified them. They were wrong to say they had four legs.
But it seems obvious to me that however they classified the number of legs, they were not confused by the description at all and if anyone should have found it a faith destroying error, they would have. Or else you think they were a pretty stupid people as a nation.
Well, the vast majority of that nation today believes the Bible to be a superstitious myth. Many of the Jews in antiquity did as well.
As far as the Law goes (that which supposedly was given to Israel by god through Moses), Israel hardly ever paid any attention to it, according to what is written in the Bible itself. Read the Old Testament and you will find that most of the time the nation did not even perform certain rituals such as the Passover, etc. So it is likely that they did not even pay attention to the number of legs written about in the passages I have quoted.
I maintain it is an error that is dependant on how you interpret it.
And that can be said for any "contradiction" when the Christian gets involved and feels the need to maintain that the Bible is the perfect word of god.
"Hey, son! Look at that car over there?"
"What car, dad?"
"That car! The one with the wings!"
"Dad! That's a plane!"
"Son, that all depends on how you interpret it!"
"Well, then I see two of 'em!"
"If that is how you interpret it, then good for you, son! Good for you!"
With the sort of logic you are employing, nothing has meaning and so does everything
. I can say that 2+2=4 and you would tell me that it all depends on how you interpret it. That is a loose and fluid way of examining things and, when it is fully employed, nothing can ever be proven wrong. I could write my own Bible and get away with it using this logic.
I definitely do see room for interpretation of what is a leg and what is not a leg.
Otherwise it would simply say
"that goeth upon [all] four"
and not add in the extra clarification
"that goeth upon [all] four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;"
which I believe could indicate direction or something else not thought of.
Then you don't understand the language (Hebrew) in which these things were written. You don't understand how they used their language to convey thoughts and ideas. You don't understand the way things are emphasized in Hebrew. And, as a result, you can then "interpret" it any way you want.
You seem to have quite a good grasp of Herew and I do not argue against what you are saying. I could not, even if I wanted to.
However I do not agree with your interpretation and you do not agree with mine.
I think we should leave the grasshopper, locust, beetle, bat enigma at that or else we will just go around in circles and not get anywhere.
You want to drop it and call it an "enigma" when it is an error. You can tell me a plane is a car all you want and interpret a plane as a car all you want, but that does not mean you are correct. But you cannot admit the Bible is in error, so it is safer to call it an enigma than to admit that the perfect Bible may not be perfect at all.
And, as a result, this is the fate for any argument that anyone could bring against the Bible. Once some of these contradictions are brought up (such as in the list that Tiles provided) they will be explained away via interpretation (which varies from church to church and denomination to denomination) and, if not explained, will not be admitted as a contradiction, but relegated to the realm of an enigma.
