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Bible Encyclopedias
Reptiles
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia
or In the Biblical account of creation the "creeping things" are divided into the "moving" creatures of the sea (Genesis 1:20) and "everything that creepeth upon the ground" (Genesis 1:25). As a group parallel to the "beasts" and the "fowls of the air" they are indicated by the word "remes" in Genesis 6:7 and elsewhere.
The Talmud uses, for the amphibia and small animals, the generic terms "reḥesh" (moving things), "shereáº" (creeping things), and "sheḳeáº" (things which arouse disgust; Ḥul. 10a, 126b; Nid. 21a). But small mammals also, as the weasel, mouse, hedgehog, and mole, are sometimes comprised under the word "shereáº" (comp. Shab. 107a et seq.). Maimonides ("Yad," Ma'akalot Asurot, , §§ 12 et seq.) makes the following distinction: "ShereẠha-mayim" are creatures not belonging to the fish tribe, but yet living in the water (leeches, seals, etc.); "romes 'al ha-areáº" are the parasitic organisms which arise from the decomposition of foreign substances (intestinal worms, dung-beetles, etc.); while "shoreẠ'al ha-areáº" are the creatures produced by the "generatio propagativa." All reptiles are poisonous, but only the snake is deadly ('Ab. Zarah 31b). A characteristic common to all creeping things is that the white and the yolk in their eggs are not separated (Ḥul. 64a). See also Abomination; CREEPING THINGS.
- Tristram, Nat. Hist. p. 245;
- Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds, pp. 4, 218.
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Singer, Isidore, Ph.D, Projector and Managing Editor. Entry for 'Reptiles'. 1901 The Jewish Encyclopedia. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tje/r/reptiles.html. 1901.
