I said you were
going to have trouble believing this, so just wait till you see the list. At
first I thought I had a virus but there it was—a 3,221 year-old bird list God
gave Moses. Most everyone knows about pork and the Hebrews, how God gave the law
to Moses to pass along. Old Testament, Leviticus 11: 9-11 and most Roman
Catholic fisherman know about verse 12, “eat only things from the sea that have
fins and scales.” But few know about verse 13. Among the birds listed, these are
the ones you may not eat: Eagle, Metire, Ossifrage a.k.a. “Lammergeier,” Vulture
Family, Osprey, Falcon(all kinds), Kite, Raven (all kinds), Ostrich, Night Hawk,
Seagull, Hawk (all kinds), Owl (specifically, Great Owl) Cormorant, Ibis, Marsh
Hen (extinct), Pelican, Vulture, Stork, Herons (all kinds), Hoopoe, Lapwing and
Bat. Let’s look at the list, since taxonomy was not born
yet. This was 3000 years before Carl Linnaeus’s time, and I would guess Moses
somehow got a bat on his bird list. If anyone out there knows what a Lapwing or
Hoopoe is, please call me. I suspect if a bat made the list they may not
necessarily have to be birds, just flying things. I compared the list in Greek
with English and a literal translation of Hebrew to English. I am stumped as to
what a Metire is but in Greek it is an Ossifrage. A friend e-mailed me and said
it is in Madagascar. Some of the translations included extra birds such as:
“Little Owl,” as well as “Great Cuckow” which I believe to be a Marsh Hen,
“Swan,” “Gier Eagle,” and “Buzzard.” Leviticus
11:14-19goes on with details of things we should not do with them, other than
have them for dinner, such as touching their dead bodies or eating crops grown
from where their dead bodies fell. Wow! Doesn’t this bring
up a lot of questions? Why these birds? Is it because they are all meat eaters?
What about the birds who are not on the list? Or could this list be all the
birds that were known at the time? What is okay about a wren, sparrow or dove?
Why would God not want us to have anything to do with these birds in particular?
The Bible was translated from Hebrew and parts from Greek to English. Things are
always lost in translation. Gallis is an Old World word