The class of insects includes roaches, ants, beetles, bees, and butterflies, all of which a person might easily see in their lifetime. Their body, encased in an exoskeleton made of chitin, is segmented in three main parts, the head, thorax, and abdomen, with three pairs of legs fastened to the thorax. Contemporary taxonomy would classify insects as such, and the language assigned to this broad group of animals is a malleable, arbitrary social construct like all other human language--words are not scientific environments or objects, so they can be contrived, discarded, or changed even if nature does change. All the same, in the dietary laws of the Torah, the word insect is used for bugs that walk on all fours. Twice are these dietary laws detailed: once in Leviticus 11 and once in Deuteronomy 14.
Now, Deuteronomy 14:19 only says that flying insects/bugs are not to be eaten, mentioning nothing about the number of legs in their basic anatomy either as a figure of speech or as an exact description. It is Leviticus 11 that mentions a number of appendages. Locusts, katydids, crickets, and grasshoppers are permitted here as food because they are said to walk on all fours despite being flying bugs, having "jointed legs for hopping on the ground" (11:20-23). These back jointed legs are noticeably different from the other four and are used for jumping. In the text, these bugs are called insects. Some have assumed that this means the Bible asserts that insects as people might think of them in the modern sense have the incorrect number of limbs and thus the Bible is in error and incapable of originating from God.
Ancient Israel would not have used English, though, and thus would not have employed the word "insect" with its modern definition. The Hebrew word is, like the casual meaning of the English word bug, supposed to be for miniscule creeping things in general. Insect would be a loosely connected term chosen by translators. However, at the time of writing this, the Google definition of insect includes a more colloquial, broad usage of the word in reference to any small invertebrate animal without specifying three pairs of legs. Even within conventional modern English, not that words have any sort of ultimate meaning beyond what the speaker means by them [1] or that words cannot shift in their general societal application, insect does not have to strictly mean a bug with three pairs of legs.
The text of Leviticus 11 still acknowledges that organisms like grasshoppers and crickets walk on four legs and have a pair of legs for jumping. Altogether, this would be six legs, and having three pairs does not mean that the likes of a grasshopper would always walk on six legs; they might do this sometimes and other times walk about without using their back legs, as can be occasionally observed. Assuming another culture's language will always have words that exactly correspond to a different language thousands of years later is idiotic (even if the idea was true, it is regardless always idiotic to assume anything whatsoever, for one is thus not relying on logical proof and blindly believes to some extent). Holding that every single one of the kosher bugs can only use all six legs when walking is likewise asinine. Anyway, phrases like "walking on all fours" can be used to somewhat literally speak of otherwise inapplicable events like humans crawling with their hands, though they are actually bipedal, and the kosher "insects" do walk on four legs; they just also have another pair which can also be used in walking.
As an analogy, the Bible speaks of the sun and moon and stars (Genesis 1:16, 37:9, Deuteronomy 4:19, 17:3, Revelation 12:1). The sun can itself be one of many stars in the universe, as modern cosmological evidence would indicate, and still someone on the ground could distinctively refer to the sun, the primary source of daytime light, the moon, the primary source of nighttime light, and the additional, seemingly smaller objects of light that can be seen dotting the night sky. There is no inherent conceptual difference here which logically excludes the sun also being a star that just happens to be closer to Earth and thus much more prominent. Different words are being used for what in this case would ultimately be the same type of cosmic body. Likewise, the Bible using the word insect more loosely in English translations and saying that bugs like grasshoppers walk on all fours does not contradict anything about formal taxonomy.
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