Does the hare chew the cud, and is a bat a bird? Leviticus 11

The passages

And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

Leviticus 11:6

And the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat.

Leviticus 11:19

The problem

Hares do not chew the cud in the strict sense of ruminants, which regurgitate and rechew food from a multi-chambered stomach. Hares, like rabbits, re-eat special droppings (cecotropes), which can look similar to the eye. And the bat is listed among the "fowls" (Hebrew 'oph), but it is a mammal. The objection is that a text from God would not misclassify animals.

What believers and scholars say

Different categories. The Hebrew 'oph means "flying creature", and covers insects too in verse 20. In that wider sense the bat is not misclassified. The Hebrew phrase "bring up the cud" (ma'aleh gerah) is probably a description of how the jaw moves, and a hare's chewing motion looks the same as a ruminant's.

Everyday classification. Wenham and Milgrom say the laws use observable categories that the Israelites could use, not modern taxonomy. The statement is a sensible description at the level of ordinary observation.

An anthropological view. Mary Douglas argued that the laws classify animals by whether they fit their category cleanly, such as a cud-chewing, split-hoofed land animal. In her view, the point of the laws was symbolic order, and the exact biology was beside the point.

Critical view. Some skeptical readers hold that the passage shows plain pre-scientific error and that the explanations are after-the-fact.

Where this leaves it

The Hebrew is more flexible than the English suggests, and the "bird" problem nearly disappears if 'oph means any winged thing. The hare case depends on how literally "chew the cud" is meant. These are not large problems unless one expects the Law to be a manual of zoology, which neither the text nor the surrounding laws suggest.