[B-Greek] question about chickens in the NT
Jonathan Robie
jonathan.robie at datadirect.com
Tue Mar 23 07:06:23 EST 2004
Since modern chickens are the result of a long history of intentional
breeding, I assume that no chicken in the NT time would be quite like a
chicken today. But chickens had been domesticated for a very long time
in China and India before the time of Christ, and had been imported at
least into Egypt by 1 BC. I assume that these were domseticated
chickens, but I did not quickly find much information on domesticated
chickens of the time. I tried a web search for ancient chickens, and
came up with species from many places, including the ancient near east.
So google is your friend, and it may take some time.
I didn't go to the library, but the following book may be worth a look:
The Complete Chicken: An Entertaining History of Chickens
Author: Pam Percy
Publisher: Voyageur Press; (September 2002)
ISBN: 0896585573
It does seem to be at the light, entertaining, lay level.
As far as I know, there is only one reference that identifies a
particular species of chicken in the New Testament - the OUDE HEN of
John 1.3, which was apparently created without the Logos ;->
Jonathan
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