Step into the multitudes of languages of the Bible and join the worldwide conversation!
Language: Dutch
Dutch (nld) is a(n) Indo-European language of Aruba, Belgium, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Brazil, Curaçao, Germany, French Guiana, Guyana, Netherlands, Suriname, Sint Maarten (Dutch part), marked as not endangered
The Hebrew assonance tohu wa-bohu is often translated in English as “formless void” or some equivalent, but in some translations and languages attempts have been made to recreate some of its literary flavor:
English: wild and waste (Everett Fox 1995); welter and waste (Robert Alter 2004); void and vacant (James Moffatt 1935); complete chaos (NRSVue 2021)
German: Irrsal und Wirrsal (Buber / Rosenzweig 1976); wüst und wirr (Einheitsübersetzung, 1980/2016)
French: vide et vague (La Bible de Jérusalem, 1975)
Ancient Greek: aóratos kaí akataskévastos (ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος) (Septuagint)
A number of modern languages have also adopted form of tohu wa-bohu as an idiom for a state of chaos. These include:
In Psalm 96, an acrostic on the Name of God is found. In verse 11a, the Hebrew reads: ישמחו השמים ותגל הארצ (highlights added). The initial letters compose יהוה, the tetragrammaton. In the DutchTot Lof van God translation by Frans Croese (publ. 2010) this is translated as Ja, dat de hemelen zich verheugen, heel de aarde zij blij (highlights in the original version) forming JHVH, the Dutch equivalent of YHWH. (Source: Thamara van Eijzeren)
The Greek that is translated by English versions with a wide range of translations, including “male prostitutes, sodomites” or some terminology involving “homosexuality” is translated in Ixcatlán Mazatec as “feminine men and men who sleep with feminine men” since the typically-used term for “homosexual” is the passive or feminine partner, while here both passive and active partners are specified. (Source: Robert Bascom)
in Low German it is translated as Lüd, de an lütte Kinner sich vergaht oder mit Jungns wat vörhebbt or “people who abuse little children or who have [nefarious] plans with boys” (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006). In the German Protestant Luther translation and the Catholic Einheitsübersetzung it says Lustknaben und Knabenschänder, literally “boys to be abused for lust and abuser of boys”. In the Pennsylvania Dutch translation it is adda dee vo shanda dreiva, mennah mitt mennah un veibsleit mitt veibsleit or “all those who sin, men with men and women with women.” (Source: Zetzsche)
In the DutchNBV21 it is translated as “men who prostitute themselves or those who abuse other men.”
In Mairasi it is translated as “people who sell/discard themselves and play bad games/dances, and those who turn sides bad [act shamefully] with just men, just women [homosexuals].” (Source: Enggavoter 2004)
The Greek that means “catch (or: capture) alive” is usually translated as “catch (people)” of “fish (for people)” in English which implies the fact that the captured or caught are still alive.
The Syriac Aramaic (Classical Syriac)Peshitta translation, however, makes the meaning of “catch alive” more explicit by translating ṣāeḏ ləẖayye (ܨܳܐܶܕ݂ ܠܚܰܝܶܐ) or “catch alive.” Following that translation, other translations that are based on the Peshitta, including the Classical Armenian Bible (vorsayts’es i keans [որսայցես ի կեանս] or “catch for life”), the Afrikaans PWL translation (publ. 2016) (mense vang tot verlossing or ” catch [people] to salvation”), the Dutch translation by Egbert Nierop (publ. 2020) (vangen tot redding or “catch to save”) or various English translations (see here ) explicitly highlight the “alive” as well. (Source: Ivan Borshchevsky)
Some languages have to find strategies on how to deal with the metaphor of “catching.” “In some cases the metaphor can be rendered rather literally, cp. ‘seeking for men’ (Kekchí, where ‘to seek fish’ is the idiomatic rendering of ‘to catch fish’). In several other languages, however, more radical adjustments are necessary, such as making explicit the underlying simile, ‘you will catch men as if you were catching fish’ (Inupiaq); or a shift to a non-metaphorical rendering, sacrificing the play-on-words, e.g. ‘you will be a bringer of men’ (Northern Grebo). In some cases the durative aspect of the construction is best expressed by n occupational term, e.g. ‘youwill be one-whose-trade-is catching men’ (Tae’ and Toraja-Sa’dan).” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Other translations include:
Uma: “teach people to become my followers” (source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “fetch people to follow me” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “look for people so that they might be my disciples” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “persuade people” (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “as-it-were catch/hunt/fish-for” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The now commonly-used English idiom “eye for an eye” (meaning revenge or retribution) was first coined in 1526 in the English New Testament translation of William Tyndale. (Source: Crystal 2010, p. 285)
Likewise in Mandarin Chinese, the phrasing that was coined to translate “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” — yǐyǎn huányǎn, yǐyá huányá (以眼还眼,以牙还牙 / 以眼還眼,以牙還牙) — has also become a Chinese proverb (see here ).
Other languages that have idioms based on the Hebrew that is translated “an eye for an eye” in English include:
In Alekano it is translated as “if someone gouges out your eye, gouge out his eye,” since in that language body parts need to have an obligatory possessive designator attached. (Source: Larson 1998, p. 42)
The translation of the Greek οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (hoi Ioudaioi), traditionally “the Jews” in English, is used particularly often in the Gospel of John and has been receiving attention in the last 50 years. Below you’ll find an overview of how some English translators and translation have translated it, why they did so and the solutions some other languages have chosen.
Starting in the late 1960s, at the time the English Today’s English Version (Good News Bible) and respective translations in other languages (see below) were published, many translators started to question the translation of hoi Ioudaioi with “the Jews.”
“In order to better understand the meaning of ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel of John, we must first look at the use and meaning of ‘the world’ in this Gospel. The author sees everything in terms of opposite forces: light and darkness, truth and error, life and death, God and the Devil. And he makes a sharp distinction between the world and Jesus and his followers, especially in the last half of the Gospel. Of course the world is the object of God’s love and of Christ’s saving mission (John 3:16–17; 12:47; 17:21, 23), but it is not the object of the love of the followers of Jesus: they are not commanded to love the world. The disciples of Jesus are in the world (John 13:1), but they do not belong to it (John 15:19). The world hates Jesus and his disciples, because they do not belong to it (John 15:18–19; 17:14, 15, 16). The world loves only those who belong to it (John 15:19). It does not know Jesus (John 1:10), or the Father (John 17:25), and cannot receive the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). The world’s ruler is to be overthrown (John 12:31, 14:30; 16:11). When Jesus is parted from his disciples, they will be sad, but the world will be glad (John 16:20). Jesus has overcome the world (John 16:33); his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). In the Gospel of John ‘the world’ stands in opposition to Jesus and his disciples.
“‘The Jews’ belong to ‘the world,’ as compared with Jesus and his followers. The Jews, like the world, do not know the Father. They have never heard his voice or seen his face, nor do they believe in the one whom he sent (John 5:37, 38). Jesus says to the Jews. ‘You come from this world, but I do not come from this world’ (John 8:23). (…)
“The author clearly places himself, and those whom he represents, as separate from the Jews. He speaks of ‘the Passover of the Jews’ (John 2:13; 6:4; 11:55), the religious rules of the Jews about purification (John 2:6), a religious festival of the Jews (John 5:1), the Festival of Shelters of the Jews (John 7:2), the Day of Preparation of the Jews (John 19:42), and the way in which Jews prepare a body for burial (19:40).
“And quite as clearly he regards Jesus as not ‘a Jew’. In talking to the Jews. Jesus speaks of ‘your Law’ (John 7:19; 8:17; 10:34) and ‘your circumcision’ (John 7:22). Abraham is ‘your father’ (John 8:56). When the Jews say to him. ‘Our ancestors ate manna in the desert’ (John 6:31), Jesus replies, ‘What Moses gave you was not the bread from heaven’ (John 6:32), and later on says, ‘Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert’ (John 6:49).
“It is true that twice Jesus is called a Jew: by the Samaritan woman (John 4:9) and by Pilate (John 18:35). But in both instances the term is used in its sense of ‘person of Judah’, contrasted with the Samaritan and the Roman. The same applies in John 4:22, where Jesus says to the Samaritan woman. ‘You (Samaritans) do not really know whom you worship; we (Jews) know whom we worship, for salvation comes from the Jews.’
“Apart from those two instances, it is only in John 1:11 that Jesus is identified as a Jew. in the statement that he came to ‘his own country’, but ‘his own people’ did not receive him. This passage, however, does not go against the Gospel as a whole, in which Jesus is shown as not being a part of ‘the Jews.’
“What accounts for this? It seems clear that the deep differences shown between Jesus and ‘the Jews’ of his time reflect the hostility between Church and Synagogue at the time the author wrote his Gospel. He has moved back the disputes and arguments of his own time into the time of Jesus, and they are represented as taking place between Jesus and the people of his time.
“The prominent part played by the Pharisees in the opposition to Jesus is worthy of note here. The High Priest and the chief priests are mentioned often, especially in chapters 18-19, as we would expect. They were, after all, the religious authorities responsible for arresting Jesus and turning him over to Pilate. What is surprising is that the Pharisees appear so often in the Gospel (see John 1:24; 4:1; 7:32, 47, 48; 8:13; 9:13, 15, 16, 40; 11:46; 12:19, 42), and are at times identified as ‘the Jews’, that is, the authorities. Their part in relation to Jesus in the Gospel of John is different from the part they play in the other Gospels. In John it is their refusal to believe in Jesus and his claims that brings them into conflict with him. They are not, as in the other Gospels, condemned by Jesus because of their hypocrisy or their understanding of the Law. (…)
“The translator is bound to represent faithfully the way in which the author describes the ministry of Jesus. But the way in which he will translate the Greek hoi loudaioi every time it appears in the Gospel is not an easy matter to decide. (1) Should he not, always and everywhere, translate it by ‘the Jews’? This certainly may be argued, since the author does not use the expression in a precise national or racial sense of the people of Israel in the years A.D. 30-33, but of the opponents of his own time who denied the claims the Church makes about Jesus the Messiah. If the translator did this, however, he would almost be forced to use quotation marks — ‘the Jews’ — to show the strangeness of the phrase. (2) But since the author has placed these disputes in the time of Jesus, it is at this level that the translation must take place, so that ‘the Jews’ must be identified in terms of the people of Jesus’ own time. But as a matter of fact Jesus was a Jew, and to translate a passage, for example. ‘Jesus, in Jerusalem, said to the Jews’, is as unnatural as to say, ‘The President, in Washington, said to the Americans’, or, ‘The Queen, in London, said to the British.’
“In translating on this ‘historical’ level, however, does not the translator somehow distort the meaning of the text? The answer depends on whether we believe that the author intended his readers to understand his Gospel as reporting historical events which took place in Judea, Samaria, and Galilee in the early part of the first century. Assuming that he did, it seems to me that the translator does not have much of a choice, unless he says something like ‘the enemies of Jesus’, or ‘the unbelievers’ every time ‘the Jews’ is used of the opponents of Jesus.
“Consequently, in following the course which I think is the only right one to take, the translator must carefully observe the different senses in which ‘the Jews’ is used in the Gospel of John—and this is what will be done in this study, with an examination of every occurrence of the phrase and its meaning in the ‘historical’ setting of the Gospel. (…)
“According to this review, ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel of John may have four different meanings:
its natural sense, meaning simply Jewish people
Judeans, people who live in and near Jerusalem
people hostile to Jesus
the authorities in Jerusalem
For the Contemporary English Version in the 1990s, similar translation strategies were taken, as explained by David Burke, a member of the translation team (see the reprint from an original article in TIC TALK 24, 1993 ). Other English translations that use varied translations for hoi Ioudaioi include the Living Bible, New International Version, Common English Bible, New Living Translation, The Inclusive New Testament, and others.
For a recent translation of the New Testament, its translator and Eastern Orthodox scholar David B. Hart (2017) explains why he chose to use ‘Judaean’ for every occurrence of the singular Ioudaios or the plural Ioudaioi throughout the New Testament (for more see here):
“The next term is Ioudaios — or Ioudaioi in the plural — which is usually rendered ‘Jew’ or ‘Jews,’ except in places where ‘Judaean’ or ‘Judaeans’ seems better to fit the context: again a perfectly justifiable practice, but also one that inadvertently introduces a distinction into the text that would not have been entirely intended by the authors. The books of the New Testament were written in an age in which national, ethnic, religious, and racial identities were not arranged in the often pernicious categories that came to hold sway in subsequent centuries; and it would be a severe distortion of the texts of the New Testament to allow these later developments to cast a shadow backward onto a time innocent of the evils of mediaeval or modern history. For example—and the most striking example — the Gospel of John has often been accused of anti-Semitism, despite the anachronism of the very concept. Where English readers are accustomed to reading the Gospel as referring, often opprobriously, to ‘the Jews,’ the original text is usually referring to the indigenous Temple and synagogue authorities of Judaea, or to Judaeans living outside Judaea, or even to ‘Judaeans’ as opposed to ‘Galileans’ (see, for instance, John 7:1). The Gospel definitely reflects the disenchantment of Jewish Christians in Asia Minor with those they saw as having expelled them from the synagogue, and later Christian culture certainly often took this as an excuse for anti-Jewish violence and injustice, but it would be absurd to impute to the Gospel the sort of religious prejudices born in later generations, or certainly the racial ideologies that are so much a part of the special legacy of post-Enlightenment modernity. I have rendered the word as ‘Judaean’ or ‘Judaeans’ throughout, even where that sounds somewhat awkward, and even in places where ‘Jew’ or ‘Jews’ would be an utterly anodyne or bracingly affirmative translation. After all, the general extension of the term ‘Jews’ to all who worshipped Israel’s God meant principally that their cultic life was focused on the Temple in Jerusalem. Again, my rationale for doing this, and for ignoring my own twinge of reluctance whenever it produced a somewhat inept construction, is that I thought it better to preserve the unity of the word and the concept in the language of the ancient authors than to impose distinctions that would make the texts conform more readily to our cultural categories (and historical sins). (source: Hart 2017, p. 548f.)
Other English translations that use Judeans in most passages in John for Ioudaioi include N.T. Wright’s Kingdom New Testament (in the UK: New Testament for Everyone), the Messianic Jewish Bible Project’s Tree of Life translation, and David Stern’s Jewish New Testament.
Amy-Jill Levine argues about both of those translation choices (in Christian Century 2023 ) (for more see here):
“Second is the move to substitute for ‘Jews’ terms such as ‘Judeans,’ ‘Jewish leaders,’ or ‘religious leaders.’ ‘Judeans’ is a legitimate translation of Ioudaioi. But this approach draws attention to itself as a failed attempt to get around the problem: the lector says ‘Judeans,’ but the congregation hears ‘Jews.’
“A consistent reading of ‘Judean’ rather than ‘Jew’ also strips Jesus, his family, and his disciples of their Jewish identity—especially since in John’s Gospel they are not Judeans but Galileans. Further, the translation ‘Judean’ undercuts Jewish continuity over time and disallows the idea of speaking of Jesus and Paul as Jews. The upshot is that to replace the word ‘Jews’ with something else is to create or construct a judenrein text, to use the German term, a text ‘purified’ of Jews.
“Replacing ‘Jews’ with ‘Jewish leaders’ and ‘religious leaders’ is already compromised because John’s Gospel reads not ‘leaders’ but ‘Jews.’ Next, the literary sensibilities of the Gospels merge various Jewish groups. The Gospel of Matthew begins the process of lumping together Pharisees and Sadducees, inserts Pharisees into Mark’s template to increase their vilification, then speaks of ‘all the people’ (27:25), and finally mentions ‘the Jews’ (28:15) strategically to indicate those who believe the ridiculous story that Roman soldiers would have admitted to falling asleep while guarding Jesus’ tomb. John’s Gospel omits the Sadducees and morphs Pharisees and/or priests into ‘Jews.’
“‘Religious leaders’ also gives an unclear impression since the high priest, appointed by Rome, does not lead a ‘religion’ in terms of doctrine or practice, save for his oversight of the Jerusalem temple. Moreover, even if we do speak of ‘leaders,’ it remains the case that most Jews chose not to follow the lead of Jesus and his disciples.”
In The Jewish Gospel of John its translator explains why he chose to not translate but instead transliterate virtually every occurrence of Ioudaioi (for more see here):
“The Gospel of John was initially written for a particular audience consisting of a variety of intra-Israelite groups, one of the main ones being the Samaritan Israelites. To them, unlike for us today, the word Ioudaioi did not mean ‘the People of Israel,’ i.e. ‘the Jewish people’ as we call them today. For these people, the people I propose are one of the main audiences for the Gospel of John, the Ioudaioi, meant something different.
“One modern example that illustrates this ancient dynamic comes from an Eastern European setting. The Ukrainians often called Russians, with whom they had an uneasy relationship to say the least, ‘Maskali.’ The Ukrainian word ‘Maskal’ comes from the name of the Russian Imperial Capital — Moscow. Those who were either of Russian ethnic descent, or who even as much as acknowledged Moscow’s authority or leading role in the region, could be referred to as ‘Maskal.’ In fact, the Maskal did not have to be from Moscow or be ethnically Russian at all. The individual simply needed to be (or be perceived to be) a supporter of a Moscow-led political agenda. Other peoples outside of the Russian-Ukrainian political conflict, who were familiar with the issues, never used the designation ‘Maskali’ themselves, knowing that it was a Ukrainian term for the Russians and Russia’s affiliates.
“Therefore, using a similar analogy, those who acknowledged the Jerusalem-approved authorities in Kfar Nahum (Capernaum) and Cana, which were far from Jerusalem, were also referred to by the principal name for the Jerusalemite formal rulers and leading sect — the Ioudaioi. All members of the Jerusalem-led system became the Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John. This is very similar to the way ‘Russians’ became ‘Maskali’ to Ukrainians and to others who witnessed their polemic. So when the audience for John’s Gospel heard these anti-Ioudaioi statements (like John 7:1-2), whom did they think the author/s had in mind? This is the key question.
“To Samaritan Israelites, whatever else the Ioudaioi may have been, they were certainly Judeans –- members of the former Southern Kingdom of Israel who had adopted a wide variety of innovations that were contrary to the Torah as Samaritans understood it. Judging from this Gospel, the original audience understood that, as well as simply being Judeans, the Ioudaioi were: i) Judean authorities, and (ii) affiliated members of this authority structure living outside of Judea.
“These affiliates were located both in the territories of the former Northern Kingdom of Israel (Galilee) and in the large Israelite diaspora outside the Land of Israel, both in the Roman Empire and beyond. In this way, the Gospel of John, like the other Gospels, portrayed Jesus’ antagonists as representatives of sub-groups within Israel, and not the people of Israel as a whole. In other words Ioudaioi (‘the Jews’ in most translations) in this Gospel are not ‘the Jewish People’ in the modern sense of the word.
“The translation of Ioudaioi always and only as ‘Jews’ sends the reader in the opposite direction from what the author intended. While the translation of this word simply as ‘Judeans,’ is a more accurate choice than ‘Jews,’ it is still not fully adequate –- for three reasons that come to mind:
The English word Jews evokes, in the minds of modern peoples, the idea of Jewish religion (i.e. Jews are people who profess a religion called Judaism) and therefore cannot be used indiscriminately to translate the term Ioudaioi, since, in the first century, there was no separate category for religion (Judaism, when it was used, meant something much more all-encompassing than what it means to us today). In a sense, it was only when non-Israelite Christ-followers, in an attempt to self-establish and self-define, created the category called Christianity, that the category called Judaism, as we know it today, was also born. Since then most Christian theologians and most Jewish theologians after them project our modern definition of Judaism back into the New Testament.
On the other hand, the English word Judean evokes in the minds of modern people, oftentimes, an almost exclusively geographical definition (a Judean is the person who lives in Judea or used to live in Judea) and hence cannot be used indiscriminately either, since today it does not imply everything it intended to imply in late antiquity.
The word Judean, without clarification and nuancing, does not account for the complex relationship of the outside-of-Judea affiliates with the Jerusalem authorities either.
“Because of the lack of a perfect word to describe what was meant by Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John, I suggest that the word is best left untranslated.” (source: Lizorkin-Eyzenberg 2015, p. XIff.)
In other languages, many common language versions (approximate equivalents to the English Today’s English Version (Good News Bible) or other simplified translations (as well as non-simplified versions) use varied translations for Ioudaioi in John as well. Below are some examples of translations of hoi Ioudaioi in John 1:19:
Portuguese: líderes judeus (Jewish leaders) (in Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje — New Translation in Today’s Language)
French: autórités juives (Jewish authorities) (in Bible en français courant — Bible in Modern French) or chefs juifs (Jewish leaders) (in Parole de Vie — Word of Life)
Spanish: autoridades judías (Jewish authorities) (in Dios Habla Hoy — God Speaks Today)
Italian: autorità ebraiche (Jewish authorities) (in Traduzione Interconfessionale in Lingua Corrente — Interconfessional Translation into Modern Language)
Dutch: Joodse leiders (Jewish leaders) (in BasisBijbel — Basic Bible)
German: führende Männer (leading men) (in Die Gute Nachricht: Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch — Good News: The Bible in Today’s German), führende Männer des jüdischen Volkes (leading men of the Jewish people) (in Neue Genfer Übersetzung — New Geneva Translation), or jüdische Behörden (Jewish authorities) (in BasisBibel — Basic Bible)
Indonesian: penguasa Yahudi (Jewish authorities) (in Alkitab dalam Bahasa Indonesia Masa Kini — The Bible in Today’s Indonesian)
Hindi: यहूदी धर्म-गुरुओं ने Yahūdī dharma-guruoan ne (Jewish religious leaders (in पवित्र बाइबिल CL — Holy Bible CL)
Nepali: यहूदी अगुवाहरूले Yahūdī aguvāharūlē (Jewish leaders) (in सरल नेपाली पवित्र बाइबल (Simple Nepali Holy Bible)
Hebrew: רָאשֵׁי הַיְּהוּדִים rashei hayehudim (heads of the Jews) (Modern Hebrew New Testament)
Wendland (1998, p. 93) gives a large range of translations that was used in Chichewa interconfessional translation (publ. 1999): “Jewish leaders” (John 2:18); “people” (John 7:35); Jewish guards of the Temple (John 18:12); “Jewish elders/authorities” (John 18:28); “tribe/nation of Jews” (John 18:33); “whole crowd” (John 18:38).
In French, the phrase criez-le sur les toits or “shout it from the rooftops” is today used as an idiom for “to tell everyone” (source: Muller 1991, p. 16). It is also used in German (Etwas von den (or: allen) Dächern rufen), Dutch (Van de daken schreeuwen), and of course English.
Although the majority of English versions have roebuck, which is the male form of roe deer many biblical zoologists reject this rendering. They argue that roe deer while being fairly common in biblical times live singly or in pairs for part of the year but not in herds they are extremely shy and difficult to hunt as they live in thick undergrowth and seldom leave it. They are rarely even seen in areas where they live. Thus the argument goes it would have been almost impossible for large numbers of roe deer to have been brought to Solomon’s table on a daily basis as recorded in 1 Kings 4:23. However others argue that trapping roe deer would have been easy even though hunting was not.
The consensus among the zoologists supports the translation “bubal hartebeest” which was well known and could easily have been kept in semi-domesticated herds as were deer [Note that bubal hartebeest are now extinct]. In Egypt and to a lesser extent in Sinai the bubal hartebeest was depicted in murals and stone carvings and many mummified hartebeests have also been found in Egyptian sites. Both Canaanite and Israelite archeological sites have yielded hartebeest bones in fairly large quantities. They have even been found in close proximity to Canaanite altars suggesting that the Canaanites sacrificed them.
The Hebrew name yachmur is probably derived from a root ch-m-r, which means “red” and is the same root from which the Hebrew name for a donkey is derived. The bubal hartebeest is both red and remarkably like a horned donkey. It is also known as the red hartebeest. The word “hartebeest” is a word borrowed from Dutch and literally means “deer-cow”.
Interestingly, the Septuagint translates yachmur as bubalos “water buffalo”, which was an animal well known to the Israelites. Water buffalo were domesticated in Babylonia and Syria and were found in the marshes of northern Israel around Lake Huleh. However this translation has no support among modern scholars. The name bubal in bubal hartebeest is derived from this same Greek word.
Roe Deer capreolus capreolus are small deer, the adult males having short horns that have three prongs. Their fur is brownish in summer and gray in winter. They live singly or in pairs in the undergrowth of forests and thick woodland, never moving more than one or two meters (3-6 feet) from cover, even when feeding.
The Bubal or Red Hartebeest alcelaphus buselaphus is a large antelope about 1.5 meters (5 feet) high at the shoulder. Both males and females have very long faces with a large lump on the head from which sprout short thick horns. These curve upward and forward for half their length and then angle sharply backwards. Hartebeests are reddish brown in color.
They are plains animals and graze in herds often among gazelles zebras or other antelope. Although they look slightly ungainly with their sloping backs hartebeests are very good runners and can sustain high speed for as much as 10 kilometers (6 miles) easily outrunning any other animal over this distance.
These animals were once found all over North Africa and the plains of the land of Israel where they were known as “wild cows” by Bedouin. In some Jewish versions of the Bible yachmur is translated as “wild cow”. The bubal hartebeest has disappeared from those areas, but it is still found in the Kalahari semidesert in Botswana and in adjacent areas in Angola Namibia Zambia and Zimbabwe. Very similar hartebeests alcelaphus lelwel and alcelaphus cokei are also found in Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. In the latter two countries they are known by their Swahili name “kongoni”.
If the interpretation “roe deer” is chosen, then the local name for this deer can be used, where roe deer are known. In areas where roe deer are not known, names for other similar small deer can be used, as for instance: India, Myanmar (Burma), and Southeast Asia: Muntjak or Barking Deer muntiacus muntiacus; Latin America: Pampas Deer blastocerus bezoarticus of Brazil and Argentina. In areas of Africa where deer are not known, the name of a small solitary antelope, such as one of the duikers, can be used. Elsewhere an expression such as “small deer” (in contrast to “large deer” for the fallow deer), or a transliteration, can be used.
If the choice is for red or bubal hartebeest the following possibilities exist: Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe: the local word for Red Hartebeest alcelaphus buselaphus; East Africa: the Coke’s Hartebeest or Kongoni alcelaphus cokei; Chad and Sudan: Lelwel Hartebeest alcelaphus lelwel; Southern Africa: Cape Hartebeest alcelaphus caama, Tsessebe damaliscus lunatus, Bontebok damaliscus pygargus, or Blesbok damaliscus albifrons. Elsewhere a name like “wild cow” can be used.