Leviticus 11

God provides Moses and Aaron with a litany of animals that the Israelites may not eat. The NIV Study Bible notes that while some scholars have tried to explain the cleanliness/uncleanliness of specific animals via hygiene concerns, the truth is that there's no consistent, logical dividing line between clean and unclean animals. Surely God had a reason for not allowing His chosen people to eat scrumptious pork, ham, bacon, and baby back ribs, but He probably meant said reason to remain cryptic until we get to Heaven. ("Crypt" is a good word to use in Hangman if you want to use a word people will actually know.) I mean, the overwrought, hammy (sorry) histrionics of Wilbur the Pig certainly don't do pigs any favors. (In the sage words of Templeton the rat, "It says, 'Crunchy.'")

God is oddly specific about the different kinds of owls that the Israelites aren't supposed to eat. It is just a tad creepy how far owls can turn their heads around, so why eat something that freaks you out? Contrary to popular belief, owls are not necessarily wiser than other birds; A. A. Milne was on to something. A few factual errors pop up in this chapter as well; insects do not have four legs (verse 20), though I suppose if you were one of those little hellions who liked to roast ants with a magnifying glass and pull the wings off flies, it isn't too much of a stretch to wrench two of an insect's legs off. And bats aren't birds. (They aren't bugs either, as Calvin found out the hard way.) I wouldn't be surprised if these were semantics/translation issues, though.

This chapter has made me aware of the existence of three animals, though: the hyrax (verse 5), the hoopoe (verse 19), and the skink (verse 30). The hyrax, despite looking like a small rodent, is actually closely related to the elephant and the sea cow; all three species store their testes inside the abdomen. Hoopoes are small birds with zebra-striped wings and impressive crests. (I actually remember the word "hoopoe" from when I read through the Bible back in middle school because the word sounded so funny. But this was in the days way back before the wide use of the Internet, so I was too lazy to go to the library and look it up.) Finally, the skink is a lizard (not a relative to the skunk); I know lizards aren't newts, but I can't help thinking about Sir Isaac Newton from Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Jeremy Fisher when I look at pictures of the skink.

God makes the point that one becomes unclean if an unclean animal "dies and falls on something" (verse 32). I know the death of an animal is usually no laughing matter, but I can't shake the image of this eagle flying around, minding its own business, when it suddenly dies and plummets to the ground, only to land on the sorry head of some consternated Israelite. "Gee, not only did I have this huge honking eagle land right on my head, but now I'm unclean to boot!" Yet even if one's uncleanliness arises from mischance, God still tells His followers to "be holy, because I am holy" (verse 45). If I am to be holy, I can only be so with God's guidance and power in me.