Lee Stout had good questions. It made me study because what he said appeared correct. First looks are not always right. For example, I am gay (happy). Gay has a different meaning in the last 20 years compared to the previous 200+ years.
In Moses’ day there were less restrictive meanings compared to now. Birds were called anything that flew, thus that is why a bat was a strange bird. They did not define it as a mammal. It has been only since the mid 1800s that we have had the word “ dinosaur.” Before that they were called dragons. In the bible they describe two dinosaurs. China has festivals with dragons, and knights were known to fight dragons. Myth or was there some bit of truth?
I found out that rabbits do chew their cud. In olden times “Chew the cud” meant “rising up what has been swallowed”. Rabbits pass out a special type of dropping, and then re-eat it, which, having only been partially digested which nourishes the animal.
The bible did not say insects have four legs like you claimed. It said do not eat creeping things that go upon all four legs. The exclusion was the grasshopper and beetle. Grasshoppers have four legs that crawl and the other two legs, which are above the front legs, are used for jumping. In Hebrew the word “beetle” actually comes from the verb “to leap.” This implies a similar leaping insect, not necessarily our modern beetle.
The Bible is like us understanding Chinese. When born Chinese, we will start understand Chinese as a child. We must be born again to understand some things in the Bible and some things we will not understand. Like judging angels.
Each of the four gospels are eyewitness accounts and have different purposes. John is to prove Jesus is the Son of God and equal to God, Matt was wrote for Jew’s, Luke wrote to present his case in court. This is why some accounts are skipped, some are duplicated.
Matt. 21:12,13 and John 2:11-16 – there is a very simple explanation here. Jesus “cleansed” the temple on two separate occasions. One was early on in his ministry (recorded by John) the other was later (recorded in Matt.; also recorded in Mark 11; 15-17 and Luke 19:45-48).
Matt. 26:17, Mark14:12, and Luke 22:7 – all three passages are accounts of Jesus preparing for the Passover which each account containing different details of the same event. John 13:1, 2, 39; 18:28; and 19:14-31-42 are all accounts of things that took place after the Passover meal. The “Passover” consists of more than just a meal – it was a specific period of time (more than a day) in which different things were observed and participated in.
In closing everything you pointed out as wrong, is misunderstood. If you would like to have any contradictions explained (or anyone else) I would be glad to get together with you and discuss them.
Walter Hammermeister
Enumclaw