Talk:Animals in the Bible

Untitled
The 4th snake noted in the article is described as : "'צֶפַע tsif‘ōnî (Isaiah 59:5), "the hisser"... so deadly that... its hissing alone, even its look, was fatal."

The article goes on to say : "It was probably a small viper, perhaps a cerastes, possibly the daboia zanthina, according to Cheyne"

Based on this description I suggest that the animal is most likely the Puff Adder, Bitis arietans which is found in Israel/Palestine as well as the Arabian Peninsula and Sub Saharan Africa.One of the most dangerous snakes in those regions.

Wikipedia Puff_adder Quasimodoquasimondi (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC) --Quasimodoquasimondi (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Numerals
Why does this list sometimes contain roman numerals, and sometimes Arabic numerals. My feeling is that references to bible texts should be in one or the other. The best option would be to have all references be in Arabic numerals.

Animal problems
"Some Young Earth Creationists think it's a dinosaur like the Apatosaurus or the Brachiosaurus, so well known to the ancient Egyptians." Is that a joke? Egyptians weren't like the Flintstones. 81.155.45.200 (talk) 15:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that, too. Other problems: -"Bison, According to several authors, the re'em of the Bible. It belongs to the same genus as the aurochs, but being indigenous to America (whence its name, bos americanus), and specifically different from the aurochs, cannot possibly have been known by the Hebrews." What? The American Bison is native to America, but the European Bison is not. (Admittedly, it's still not Middle Eastern, but...)

-"Being a denizen of marshy and swampy lands, the buffalo must have been scarcely known by the Hebrews" - water buffalo, maybe, but there are other buffalos! Cape buffalo live in pretty dry lands...

-"Dispas." The word is "dipsas".

-Practically every scientific name given is obsolete. This needs some serious cleanup; I can fix some of the really egregious things, but someone with more knowledge needs to work on it.Vultur (talk) 21:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Baruch/Jeremiah
The section on cats talks about a reference to cats in Baruch chapter six. It then says 'Moreover, the deuterocanonical Book of Jeremiah mentions the cat.'.

I believe these are both referring to the same passage. The Book of Jeremiah is regular canonical, and the thing considered the *deutero*canonical book of Jeremiah is what we call Baruch (unless I've confused myself over the matter). The printed Apocrypha I have uses 'The Epistle of Jeremiah' as the title of Baruch vi (which is an enjoyably repetitious cat/idol rumination).

(I guess my main point here is, the quoted sentence is redundant, and its 'moreover' is based on the assumption that this one passage is in two different books).


 * I agree, have changed it  Tigerboy1966  08:32, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Baruch 6 was, I think, printed as a separate book (The Letter/Epistle of Jeremiah) in some old editions.  Tigerboy1966  10:05, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Original research/no citations
There are a lot of things on this page that have no citations and are really hard to parse - like the reference to painting animals under the *Ass* paragraph. I'm happy to clean it up (& try to find citations when I have more time) but I'm concerned that this'll make the page into a stub. The last time anyone discussed this was over a decade ago so I wanted to see if anyone else agreed or had a better idea before I do anything? Blue-Sonnet (talk) 17:15, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Calf
Psalm 111:13 can't be, because that psalm has only 10 verses, and the often meant Psalm 112 the same. -- Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:07, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Dog
A totally antisemic/hate statement that Hebrew elders refer to non Jews as dogs. This is totally false and doesn't belong here nor anywhere. 190.215.251.245 (talk) 11:49, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I have removed it as it is contentious and unreferenced, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 22:01, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Animals in the Bible
I propose to merge Animals in the Bible here, basically as a header for this topic. BD2412 T 02:16, 30 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Not an admin, but I do agree. Also, what is with the writing style of this article? Large portions of it seem to be lifted from this encyclopedia originally published in 1907, verbatim (albeit with Palestine replaced with 'Israel', and a few newer scientific names).
 * I'll do a big fix of the article some time between now and the heat death of the Universe... -Corsican Warrah (talk to me) 15:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I second the merger support, and would also recommend (and happy to help) adding more citations to the entries. Additionally, several of the entries  seem to focus more on the new testament. I’ve been trying to add some more focus on the Hebrew Bible as well Bbreslau (talk) 19:33, 8 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Support merge as no need for seperate articles in this case, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

Douay-Rheims centrism & reformatting
As I've brought up, this article appears to largely be a verbatim copy of the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia, obsolete scientific names and outdated, un-PC descriptions of Middle Eastern cultures and all. The Encyclopedia seems to be written with the assumption that the Douay-Rheims is one of the most popular Bible translations, which doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Some of the animal entries will need to be shifted around, like "Cherogrillus" (hyrax) or "Porphyrion" (swamphen). Also, perhaps a formatting more like List of plants in the Bible (where the entries are just listed along with their Hebrew, Greek and scientific names, and references in the Bible, with minimal natural history info) would be better, don't you think? --Corsican Warrah (talk to me) 15:18, 4 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I support this, and/or the merger discussed above. I would also request adding Judaism to the list of Wikiprojects here, as it is on the plant list Bbreslau (talk) 11:14, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Merger
Hi, i've merged Animals in the Bible into the introduction of this article. I haven't cut much out so if anyone wants to edit it down, please go ahead, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 19:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)