Bible animals : $b being a description of every living creature mentioned in the Scripture, from the ape to the coral.Wood, J. G. (John George)
Religion
Bible animals : $b being a description of every living creature mentioned in the Scripture, from the ape to the coral.
Wood, J. G. (John George)
Animals in the Bible; Nature in the Bible
We will now proceed to the uses of the Camel, and first take it in the
light of food.
By the Mosaic law, the Camel was a forbidden animal, because it did
not divide the hoof, although it chewed the cud. Yet, although the
Jews might not eat its flesh, they probably used the milk for food, as
they do at the present day. No distinct Scriptural reference is made
to the milk of the Camel; but, as the Jews of the present day are
quite as fastidious as their ancestors in keeping the Mosaic law, we
are justified in concluding that, although they would not eat the
flesh of the animal, they drank its milk. At the present time, the
milk is used, like that of the sheep, goat, and cow, both in a fresh
and curdled state, the latter being generally preferred to the former.
A kind of cheese is made from it, but is not much to the taste of the
European traveller, on account of the quantity of salt which is put in
it. Butter is churned in a very simple manner, the fresh milk being
poured into a skin bag, and the bag beaten with a stick until the
butter makes its appearance.
That it was really used in the patriarchal times is evident by the
passage which has already been mentioned, where Jacob is related to
have brought as a present to his brother Esau thirty milch Camels,
together with their young. So decided a stress would certainly not
have been laid upon the fact that the animals were milch Camels unless
the milk were intended for use.
Perhaps the use of the Camel's milk might be justified by saying that
the prohibition extended only to eating and not to drinking, and that
therefore the milk might be used though the flesh was prohibited.
There was another mode in which the Camel might be used by travellers
to sustain life.
The reader is probably aware that, even in the burning climate in
which it dwells, the Camel is able to go for a long time without
drinking,--not that it requires less liquid nourishment than other
animals, but that it is able, by means of its internal construction,
to imbibe at one draught a quantity of water which will last for a
considerable time. It is furnished with a series of cells, into which
the water runs as fast as it is drunk, and in which it can be kept for
some time without losing its life-preserving qualities. As much as
twenty gallons have been imbibed by a Camel at one draught, and this
amount will serve it for several days, as it has the power of
consuming by degrees the water which it has drunk in a few minutes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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