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Did Moses Make An Error When He Called A Bat A Bird?
Bodie
Hodge, M.Sc., B.Sc., PEI
Biblical
Authority Ministries May15, 2025 (Donate)
Moses, who was one of the most-learned in Egypt, has been attacked in several cases to undermine biblical authority. This is another of those attacks to get people to doubt that God was speaking through Moses. Let’s evaluate such a claim in more detail. The passage reads (Leviticus 11:13–19, NKJV):
13 ‘And these you shall regard as an abomination
among the birds [05775 ‘owph]; they shall not be eaten, they are an
abomination: the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard,
14 ‘the
kite, and the falcon after its kind;
15 ‘every
raven after its kind,
16 ‘the
ostrich, the short-eared owl, the sea gull, and the hawk after its kind;
17 ‘the
little owl, the fisher owl, and the screech owl;
18 ‘the
white owl, the jackdaw, and the carrion vulture;
19 ‘the
stork, the heron after its kind, the hoopoe, and the bat.
Bat hanging in
Mammoth Cave, KY, April 2025; Picture by Bodie Hodge
Owph Includes
Birds, But Is Not Limited To Birds
The Hebrew
word for bird is actually owph which means “winged creature.”[1] It includes
fowls and birds. The word owph simply means specifically that it “has a
wing.” So, the word includes birds, bats, pterodactyls, and even flying
insects. So, with a proper understanding of the Hebrew word, this alleged
contradiction disappears. Bats are clearly winged creatures and operate those
wings for flights. The issue is how it is translated.
This word is used in Genesis 1:20-23 referring to the winged or flying creatures during creation week. Often times, it is translated birds or fowl there too. Alleged problems appears due to translation of owph as bird.
Again, birds
are included in the word owph, but owph is not limited to “only” birds.
The primary group of flying creatures is birds so you can see how translators
simply put birds and it covers the most obvious creatures.
But this
shows that translators aren't always perfect when handling the inerrant Word of
God. This is why all translations need to be judged by original language texts.
Flightless
Birds Too?
Owph also
includes winged creatures that are flightless today. For instance, ostriches
(which may have originally had the ability to fly but may have lost it in this
sin-cursed and broken world down through generations) is still labeled under
the term owph. The ostrich is mentioned in Leviticus 11:16 by Moses in
the context of owph.
Ostrich; Picture by Bodie Hodge
When it comes to ostriches, emus, dodos, and kiwis we sometimes get caught in this idea that their ancestors have always been flightless but we need to remember detrimental changes have been occurring since sin. It could be that they lost the ability to soar through the air through inbreeding and mutational deterioration.
US President Ronald Reagan receives the annual White House
Thanksgiving turkey from the National Turkey Federation; November 21, 1983; White
House Photographic Office; Public Domain.
Consider the
big white turkeys that are used for meat production today. One look at these
winged birds and you can tell they are flightless. But they have been bred to
be like this in recent times.
Their wild
and tame “cousin” turkeys can still fly amazingly when they need to. Were
ostriches or kiwis like this? It is possible. Some huge Andean Condors can be
just slightly smaller in size and weight of an emu, but they can fly
beautifully.
Nevertheless, owph includes hosts of wings creatures—including the bat—and God is not being contradictory at all.
Originally here: https://answersingenesis.org/birds/bats-of-a-feather/; Updated and expanded; Republished by permission.
[1]
F. Brown, S.
Driver, and C. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Brigg Hebrew and English Lexicon,
9th printing (Hendrickson Publishers, September 2005), p. 773
