In an effort to attack Christian faith as a whole, many critics attempt to discredit the Bible. Many of their criticisms are similar and can be grouped into a few categories. Most of the criticisms in one category can be rebutted in pretty much the same way so it's important that Christians learn how to identify common criticisms so that we can give a proper response (1 Peter 3:15).
One such category is “reverse etymology” (as identified in “Exegetical Fallacies” by D. A. Carson). Reverse etymology occurs when we force our modern understanding of a term onto the original meaning of the term. Look at the following example:
“These, moreover, you shall detest among the birds; they are abhorrent, not to be eaten: the eagle and the vulture and the buzzard,... and the stork, the heron in its kinds, and the hoopoe, and the bat.” (Leviticus 11:13,19, NASB)
Now, everyone knows that bats are not birds and so this “proves” the Bible is wrong, right? Well, bats are not birds according to modern taxonomy. However, when Moses penned Leviticus, Linnean taxonomy was still a few dozen centuries away. As a matter of fact, the word “bird” likely did not even exist yet since it is an English word.
The word translated above as “bird” (“fowl” in the KJV) is the Hebrew word “oph” (עוף) which literally means “winged.” Regardless of how we define a bird today (feathered, egg-laying, etc), the Jews of antiquity were certainly not wrong to identify both birds and bats as winged!
In the same chapter of Leviticus we see a similar “problem” when the Bible says the hare chews its cud (Leviticus 11:6). Again, what is meant by the term “chew cud”? We have a specific, scientific understanding of the term but our modern understanding isn't what the ancient Jews would have understood. Cows have a divided stomach and regurgitate partially digested food to chew further. Rabbits do not have a divided stomachs but they do pass stools of partially digested food which they then eat and chew in much the same manner as a cow chews its cud. The difference between the two is a modern technicality. The Bible is certainly not “wrong” for not clearly distinguishing the hare from what are now identified as ruminants.
Still another example concerns the whale. Jonah 1:17 says that the Lord had prepared “a great fish” to swallow Jonah. However, later, in Matthew 12:40, Jesus said that Jonah was swallowed by a “whale” (KJV). Seeing these verses side by side, it looks as though the Bible is calling a whale a fish. Yet again, “fish” is a modern, English word that has a specific meaning (scales, gills, etc). The Greek word in Matthew is kētos (κῆτος), which is rendered in other translations as “sea monster.” A marine animal large enough to swallow a man can be correctly identified as a “sea monster.” The exact species of animal it was is unknown.
One final example from this category concerns insects. If we again look in Leviticus 11, vv. 20-23 seem to indicate that insects have only 4 legs. Here, the critic believes is an inescapable error; after all, surely the Bible can't have a different understanding of the word “leg,” can it? In a sense, that is exactly the case! The solution is found in Leviticus 11:21 – the four legs used for walking are distinguished from the two legs used for jumping.
We can see that arguments like these are very shallow and fail to stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. Still, these arguments and other like them persist and so we must be ready. Don't get caught off guard by such a simple canard.
