Insight from Leviticus 11<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong the terrestrial creatures, the clean include those that are both split-hooved and cud-chewing (Lev. 11:2\u20138). Hooved animals are ungulates, animals that use the tip of their toe (or hoof) to support the weight of their bodies. They thus touch as little of the dust as possible, their weight resting on the hard or rubbery sole and a hard wall formed by a thick nail rolled around the tip of the toe. Clean animals had to be both split-hooved (double protection from the cursed dust) and cud-chewing, the latter of which means that they were ruminants\u2014herbivores that spend extra time \u201cruminating\u201d (or meditating) on the food that God supplies. No clean land animal was a predator. The unclean land animals were those that do not align with both the features above. They were animals with paws\u2014those walking directly on the ground with no \u201cprotection\u201d (11:27). They were also all the swarming creatures, which surround and infest (11:29\u201331) or which have multiple legs and crawl on their bellies in the dust (11:41\u201343).<\/p>\n
As for the water creatures, clean animals were those with both fins and scales (11:9\u201312). Fins propel and give balance, whereas scales shield or guard. The unclean subterranean creatures were those that lacked this type of stability or protection\u2014features also missing from Adam\u2019s leadership in the garden.<\/p>\n
Finally, Leviticus gives no specific criteria to distinguish clean flying animals, though it does list nonpermitted birds and insects (11:13\u201323). Those bugs that hop on the ground (perhaps portraying the defeat of the curse) are clean. In contrast, all birds of prey that thrive on consuming flesh are unclean, as are all winged insects that do not hop on the ground but rest there.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_crdt_document":""},"class_list":["post-4605","reading-plan","type-reading-plan","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reading-plan\/4605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reading-plan"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/reading-plan"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}