Fact-Checking the Torah -- the ants

I am constantly impressed by how much contact Talmudic rabbis had with agriculture and their environment. A statement in Mishnah Kilayim 1:4 declaring peaches and almonds to be prohibited (the planting them together) turns out to be logical, because almonds are drupes like peaches, not true nuts like hickories, and the almond is analogous to the kernel inside a peach seed shell, the one that is supposed to dose you with laetrile (although that is not clinically supported as a cancer preventative).

It's logical because they didn't have seed stores back in those days, they had to breed their own seeds. Hybrid plants and animals are not self-reproducing in most cases; the number of female mules that are fertile is tiny. Ancient people needed to preserve reproductive capacity in domesticated plants and animals. The way to do that, was to plant in separate blocks. So there's a practical basis to the laws of kilayim that we are oblivious to because we have over a century of experience with hybrids -- which won't do us any good in a true SHTF situation because the hybrid seeds that are left will produce exactly one crop and then the only people who will eat are those preserving open-pollinated plants for seed. (rant over)

So I was listening to Babylonian Talmud Moed Katan 6b and they are talking about how to kill ants. Which is to get some soil from at least a parasang away and put it in the holes of the ants you want to kill.

This works for two reasons, one of which is stated in the gemara: ants are fiercely territorial as well as everywhere, and the soil you put in the holes likely contains ants. The strangers and natives will fight each other to the death.

The second reason is one that could only be discovered after the microscope was invented and we found out about microbes. See this paper, which suggests that ant colonies modify the soil they live in. Soil from another colony or another place will have a different microbial population. It provokes an immune response in the ants. Between the battle with the strangers and the induced disease, you can succeed in wiping out a nest.

So now let's look at Exodus 21:35, "a man's ox pushing another person's ox." I'm sure you all think I am mistranslating and I mean "goring," but that's in verses 28-32. Here the verb is not nogach but nogaf, pushing. What's the difference? Cattle push each other in a dominance display. All social animals have dominance displays. The difference is that pushing is not supposed to cause death, but stuff happens. 

But a goring ox is using its horns, and the owner is put on notice to keep it locked up. If he fails, he's in serious trouble. He ought to be put to death with his ox but he can redeem himself by a fine.

Don't ignore those bits and pieces. Do your fact-checking, sure, But don't automatically assume that just because the material is one to three thousand years old, it's nonsense.