Why Did Greeks Call Hippopotamuses "Horses"?

[Joseph Antley]

In the other horse-tapir thread, Dr. Peterson noted that ancient Greeks called hippopotamuses "horses." Kevin Graham retorted that that was a bad parallel because Greeks actually called them "river-horses" (the actual meaning of Hippopotamus), thus distinguishing them from true horses.

I did some very quick research to find ancient references to hippopotamuses, and the first account I came across was from Diodorus Siculus, a 1st century BC Greek historian. Diodorus gives a detailed description of the hippopotamus as he describes peculiar Egyptian animals, but Diodorus simply calls it the hippos, or "horse."

As for animals, the Nile breeds many of peculiar form, and two which surpass the others, the crocodile and what is called the horse. ... The animal called the horse is not less than five cubits high, and is four-footed and cloven-hoofed like the ox.

Diodorus Siciulus, 1.35.

Although in a later book he will call it the "river-horse," here they're just the animals called hippoi. The way Diodorus phrases it ("the animal called the horse") implies that that is what the animal is popularly called.

Why would Greeks/Egyptians use the word "horse" to describe the hippopotamus? Do they look like horses? Did people ride or eat hippos? Did they use them for pack animals or for travel? I can think of almost no parallels between horses and hippos other than that they are both four legged hoofed animals. Perhaps someone else with more insight into ancient zoology can help us out.

But that established, the most interesting question is, Do hippopotamuses or tapirs more closely resemble horses in resemblance or utilitarian function? It seems much more conceivable that a group of ancient people would have used the word "horse" to describe a tapir than a hippopotamus, especially if the group naming the tapirs no longer had true horses to confuse them with. But here we have ancient peoples calling these giant tusked river-dwelling animals "horses," even though the Greeks still have true horses!

I am not sure if the theory is actually the case or not, but virtually every single criticism against the apologetic theory that the Book of Mormon's "horses" may actually have been tapirs instantly breaks down in light of the well-known fact that ancient Greeks did the exact same thing in an even more unlikely circumstance.

[KevinG]

Because "Mother In Law" wasn't as easy to chisel into marble?

[TAO]

Because "Mother In Law" wasn't as easy to chisel into marble?

*regains his composure*

Some MiLs are very nice though =).

[Calm]

Because "Mother In Law" wasn't as easy to chisel into marble?

You are on a roll today, DG

[Joseph Antley]

Which one looks more like a horse?

[Duncan]

I always thought that Hippos were just super cool popotamuses!

[BCSpace]

I am not sure if the theory is actually the case or not, but virtually every single criticism against the apologetic theory that the Book of Mormon's "horses" may actually have been tapirs instantly breaks down in light of the well-known fact that ancient Greeks did the exact same thing in an even more unlikely circumstance.

I disagree. I think the Greek hippopotamus argument, and all others like unto it, breaks down in light of the fact that the plates were translated by the gift and power of God. Either the power of God rendered the text into English making a horse a horse, or the power of God showed JS horses and he wrote "horses".

We also have to contend with elephants and asses. The list of possible substituted loan-shifted animals grows thin, especially when one also has to add in cureloms and cumoms.

Science has not precluded any of these. It is still quite possible to hypothesize real horses because there is no evidence against.

Edited August 26, 2011 by BCSpace

[Joseph Antley]

I disagree. I think the Greek hippopotamus argument, and all others like unto it, breaks down in light of the fact that the plates were translated by the gift and power of God. Either the power of God rendered the text into English making a horse a horse, or the power of God showed JS horses and he wrote "horses".

If Mormon had written the Nephite equivalent of the word "horse" on the gold plate to describe a tapir, why would God have changed it while Joseph Smith was translating? Maybe I don't understand your point.

We also have to contend with elephants and asses. The list of possible substituted loan-shifted animals grows thin, especially when one also has to add in cureloms and cumoms.

I'm not sure it grows that thin. I think there are probably reasonable equivalents for all of them.

Science has not precluded any of these. It is still quite possible to hypothesize real horses because there is no evidence against.

And I'm not strongly advocating against that. I'm merely pointing out that the common criticisms against the horse-tapir theory (or the horse-llama theory or the horse-any-other-indigenous-animal theory) don't hold weight. It remains a valid hypothesis.

[BCSpace]

If Mormon had written the Nephite equivalent of the word "horse" on the gold plate to describe a tapir, why would God have changed it while Joseph Smith was translating? Maybe I don't understand your point.

I think my point is that if Mormon was describing a tapir, he would have used the Nephite/Lamanite word for that particular animal and God in teh translation process would have revealed the English word "tapir" to JS, or if JS din't know what a tapir was, we might have a word like "curelom".

We also have to contend with elephants and asses. The list of possible substituted loan-shifted animals grows thin, especially when one also has to add in cureloms and cumoms.

I'm not sure it grows that thin. I think there are probably reasonable equivalents for all of them.

Not much to go one. Say you substitute tapir for horse. What is the sub for asses? What about elephant? What is the English equivalent of curelom and cumom? Perhaps llama and......? But what if llama is already loan-shifted for asses? There really aren't many choices.

And I'm not strongly advocating against that. I'm merely pointing out that the common criticisms against the horse-tapir theory (or the horse-llama theory or the horse-any-other-indigenous-animal theory) don't hold weight. It remains a valid hypothesis.

I think they make horse-tapir highly implausible.

[LeSellers]

Why would Greeks/Egyptians use the word "horse" to describe the hippopotamus?

Because, when the hippo is nearly submerged, it leaves only its eyes, ears, and nostrils above the water line. Seen in this way, it looks very much as a horse would look if that were all you could see.

Lehi

Edited August 26, 2011 by LeSellers

[Benjamin McGuire]

Joseph,

You should probably read some of the material by Umberto Eco. I recommend his book Kant and the Platypus as a mid-level introduction to how to answer this kind of question. As he describes his own book:

So what is this book about? Apart from the platypus, it's about cats, dogs, mice, and horses, but also chairs, plates, trees, mountains, and other things we see every day, and it's about the reasons why we can tell an elephant from an armadillo (as well as why we don't normally mistake our wife for a hat). This is a formidable philosophical problem that has obsessed human thought from Plato to present-day cognitivists, and it is one that even Kant (as we shall see) not only failed to solve but didn't even manage to express in satisfactory terms. So you can imagine how much chance I've got.

I think it's quite helpful in framing the issues in this particular discussion.

Ben M.

[ebeddoulos]

I do not know about the Hippo but I found out some interesting things about Baird's Tapir, the largest animal in Central America. Around Veracruz and Oaxaca, it is known as the "anteburro" and around Lacandon it is known as "cash-i-tzimin" which means "jungle horse".

Edited to add:

Its running is remarkably similar to a horse, Compare the following two videos:

Young colt and mother:

Tapir:

Edited August 26, 2011 by ebeddoulos

[Storm Rider]

Because, when the hippo is nearly submerged, it leaves only its eyes, ears, and nostrils above the water line. Seen in this way, it looks very much as a horse would look if that were all you could see.

Lehi

qualify: a very very, ugly horse.

[LeSellers]

qualify: a very very, ugly horse.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. (I agree with you.)

Lehi

[thesometimesaint]

Storm Rider:

A face only a mother could love.

[cinepro]

I disagree. I think the Greek hippopotamus argument, and all others like unto it, breaks down in light of the fact that the plates were translated by the gift and power of God. Either the power of God rendered the text into English making a horse a horse, or the power of God showed JS horses and he wrote "horses".

Listen to BCSpace, people! He speaks the truth!

As I've said several times in the past couple of days, the problem isn't that Nephi called something a "horse". The problem is that hundreds of years later, certain animals were still being called a "horse". Even if Nephi knew what was going on, there is no way Alma would have known what an old-world "horse" was when he used the word, so by that time, Nephi's word would have changed meaning and now meant "tapir" or "deer" or whatever.

If we us the Greeks and hippos as an example, it would be like the Greeks colonizing a place where there were hippos but no horses, and originally calling the hippos "horses". The colony survives for 500+ years, with the people always calling the hippos "horses", but not knowing what an old-world equis is.

So now someone has to translate their writings into English, and they encounter their word. If the translator knows that the Greek colony was calling the hippos "horses", does he just translate that into "horse"? Or does he call it a "hippo"? What if there are some instances in the text where actual horses are being referred to? Does he still just call everything a "horse", even though he knows that sometimes a non-horse is actually being referred to?

Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the "gift and power of God". He didn't read Reformed Egyptian, so the actual Reformed Egyptian-to-English translation had to be done by a supernatural entity. So why did Joseph dictate "horse" if it wasn't a horse?

[Joseph Antley]

I think my point is that if Mormon was describing a tapir, he would have used the Nephite/Lamanite word for that particular animal and God in teh translation process would have revealed the English word "tapir" to JS, or if JS din't know what a tapir was, we might have a word like "curelom".

But if Mormon's Nephite word for "tapir" was derived from an Old World Hebrew/Egyptian word for "horse," and if Joseph Smith did not know what a tapir was, isn't it reasonable that he would simply have translated it as "horse"?

I am not sure that that's what happened, but it remains plausible in my mind.

[phaedrus ut]

I always thought that Hippos were just super cool popotamuses!

RIP Mitch

Phaedrus

[Joseph Antley]

So now someone has to translate their writings into English, and they encounter their word. If the translator knows that the Greek colony was calling the hippos "horses", does he just translate that into "horse"? Or does he call it a "hippo"? What if there are some instances in the text where actual horses are being referred to? Does he still just call everything a "horse", even though he knows that sometimes a non-horse is actually being referred to?

Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by the "gift and power of God". He didn't read Reformed Egyptian, so the actual Reformed Egyptian-to-English translation had to be done by a supernatural entity. So why did Joseph dictate "horse" if it wasn't a horse?

The issue then seems to be one of theory of translation method. I believe a plausible scenario is that the first Nephites (I like to blame Zoram for most things) called tapirs (or possible another New World animal) "horses," and centuries later Mormon is etching in Hebrew/Egyptian the Old World word (or a word derived from it) for "horse." Since Joseph Smith does not know what a tapir is (and neither will his immediate readers or most of his future readers for quite a while), the "gift and power of God" renders it in English as "horse," probably out of convenience to both the translator and the readers.

If this is the case, then Moroni's cureloms and cumoms must have either 1) not been derived from an Old World word for a similar animal; and/or 2) Joseph Smith must not have been aware of that animal's existence.

If that scenario doesn't fly with you then the issue must remain one of how the Book of Mormon was translated, for which we would all probably have a hard time agreeing exactly.

(I would add that the alternative explanation seems almost less reasonable to me: that there were in fact horses, asses, cattle, etc. in the Americas for several centuries but all conveniently went extinct (only to be brought back by Europeans and subsequently flourish) and left no discernible archaeological record.)

[Calm]

But if Mormon's Nephite word for "tapir" was derived from an Old World Hebrew/Egyptian word for "horse," and if Joseph Smith did not know what a tapir was, isn't it reasonable that he would simply have translated it as "horse"?

I am not sure that that's what happened, but it remains plausible in my mind.

Another way of putting it is 'did JS translate what the word itself actually meant (a broad definition where the word used was simply the label which was used for both the Old World animal labeled 'horse' by the Jews and the New World animal given the same label by the migrants) or what it should have meant or what the animal was?' ("should" in the sense that current readers would know exactly which animal he was talking about, 'what the animal was' called by current readers).

-----

I am now imagining a scenario where it has been revealed sometime in the future that, yes, tapir corresponds with the word "horse" in the original translation of the BoM and having dealt with what the word 'means' the argument is shifted purely to whether or not one actually buys revelation occurs at all, at least until the text is translated into the dialect of those down around Lacandon using the term cash-i-tzimin but the English word "tapir" is still used for 'clarity's sake and Lacandon critics start complaining why LDS don't just say "horse" if they mean "horse".

[TrespassersW]

Two points:

1 - This may be an old thought, but it just occurred to me. It wasn't necessarily Nephi (or any of the early Nephites) who made the subsitution. It could very well have been Mormon. Perhaps the Nephites called tapirs by the common Mayan word for tapir, but Mormon, when translating into reformed Egyptian was stuck for a word for tapir and simply used "horse" as the closest equivalent (maybe it was a choice between that or "dromedary" ).

2 - Just because the book was translated "by the power of God" doesn't necessarily mean that the actual word choice was God's. If Joseph received impressions that he translated into English, and he wasn't familiar with tapirs, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that he might use the word "horse"--particularly if that was the word actually on the plates. Or, if God had appointed some other spiritual being to actually perform the translation (possibly even Mormon or Moroni), then it doesn't seem all that unlikely that they would choose the same word they had chosen when writing it originally. Especially if they had to work within the limitations of Joseph's vocabulary. Delegating the actual legwork to some other spiritual being doesn't preclude it from having been performed "by the power of God". And it need not be considered a "perfect" translation (if such a thing is even possible).

So many of these arguments seem to be based on "I don't think God would do that." To my mind, the scriptures are full of God doing things that many people would have thought He wouldn't. So, I'm not convinced that it's a really good foundation for an argument.

[cinepro]

Here's another way to look at this issue:

- The Book of Mormon says "horse" because it was printed to say "horse".

- It was printed to say "horse" because the printer's manuscript said "horse".

- The printer's manuscript said "horse" because the original document written by Oliver (and other scribes) said "horse".

- The original document said "horse" because that's what the scribe heard Joseph Smith say.

So...why did Joseph Smith say "horse"?

Bonus question:

- The original document also said "cumom" and "curelom". Why did Joseph Smith say "cumom" and "curelom"?

[ERayR]

Here's another way to look at this issue:

- The Book of Mormon says "horse" because it was printed to say "horse".

- It was printed to say "horse" because the printer's manuscript said "horse".

- The printer's manuscript said "horse" because the original document written by Oliver (and other scribes) said "horse".

- The original document said "horse" because that's what the scribe heard Joseph Smith say.

So...why did Joseph Smith say "horse"?

Bonus question:

- The original document also said "cumom" and "curelom". Why did Joseph Smith say "cumom" and "curelom"?

He wanted to have something for message board participants to haggle over?

[TrespassersW]

Here's another way to look at this issue:

...

So...why did Joseph Smith say "horse"?

...Because he felt it was a reasonable rendition of what was actually on the plates?

...Or, because whoever actually performed the translation (be it Joseph, God Himself, or some other spiritual being) felt that it was as close as they were going to get within the limits of Joseph's vocabulary?

I really don't see the problem.

Bonus question:

- The original document also said "cumom" and "curelom". Why did Joseph Smith say "cumom" and "curelom"?

Again, the translator felt that it was as close as they were going to get. In the case of "horse," perhaps they felt that the animal was a close enough match to make sense, but no such animal provided a reasonably close match in these cases, so they did the best that they could within the limitations of what they had to work with?

It seems to me that there are so very many possibilities here that I genuinely don't understand arguments that come from a position of "There's no way that this would have happened if the translation occurred by the power of God."

[Benjamin McGuire]

The issue that I have here is that neither BCSpace or Cinepro describe something that remotely resembles the way language actually works. In the other thread, I offered an example presented by Umberto Eco as illustrating part of this issue. In his travels, Marco Polo encounters a unicorn. He tells us:

There are wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles [and when savage with any one they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue]. The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud. 'Tis a passing ugly beast to look upon, and is not in the least like that which our stories tell of as being caught in the lap of a virgin; in fact, 'tis altogether different from what we fancied.

And so Marco Polo reveals to us his encounter with the unicorn. Mind you, he tells us that his encounter isn't what he had expected. Perhaps he expected something like a slender, white, quadruped with a horn in its forehead - with distinctive equine features. Yet, what he describes to us is something quite different. It has, he notes, hair like a buffalo, feet like an elephant. The horn is black and very thick (not white and slender), it has this tongue with prickles. The head shaped like a boar, and a bad temperament. Forget having it be seduced by a virgin says Polo. We know what Marco Polo saw as a Rhinoceros.

What makes this interesting isn't so much the fact that Marco Polo has provided us with a unicorn that is drastically different from what would have previously been identified as a unicorn, as it is that Marco Polo has expanded the meaning of the word "unicorn". Had he happened a month later, on a different island, to have encountered a while, slender legged quadruped, with equine features, that could be seduced by a virgin, and had a long white slender horn coming from its forehead, he would also have recognized this as a "unicorn". We don't see this phenomenon as often - where, instead of focusing on the differences we focus on the similarities. A chimpanzee isn't technically a monkey because it doesn't have the long tail. A Zebra isn't a horse because of its stripes and the problems associated with trying to domesticate it. But here, a rhinoceros is a unicorn.

And what makes this more fascinating to me is the fact that we can't simply go back to Marco Polo's text and translate it by substituting in our word "rhinoceros" for "unicorn". Since our word really isn't so inclusive as to cover the traditional unicorn, it would cause damage to the text. And while we might suppose that we could differentiate between when Marco Polo intended to convey the notion of a traditional unicorn as opposed to his new unicorn, in reality that is nothing more than trying to read the mind of a man dead nearly a millennia.

And so we are left translating quite literally his term - "unicorn" while recognizing that this word leaves us with a gap. It leaves us questioning what is going on - because we cannot effectively duplicate in translation what Marco Polo has done unless we also attempt to add to the meaning of the word "unicorn" in our own vocabularies. We struggle a bit because after all, while we use the same words that Marco Polo uses, the range of meaning is clearly different. This difference distracts us and forces us to really try and figure out what he is trying to say, and not just what he has said ...

At any rate, this brings us back to the Book of Mormon. BCSpace tells us:

Either the power of God rendered the text into English making a horse a horse, or the power of God showed JS horses and he wrote "horses".

But this is kind of a non-issue. The problem with translation has never been questioning the power of God, its about making a text meaningful to someone else. God would certainly know that Marco Polo, for example, was referring to what we call a rhinocerous - but Marco Polo, in using the word he uses in the way that he uses it is at the very same time using the exact same word (not just an identical word elsewhere in his text - but the same word at the same place) to refer to what we also call a unicorn. To translate it as one over the other in a way that excludes the other (and it doesn't matter which you exclude) is to alter the text from the meaning that its author intended. So however God communicates to Joseph Smith the word "horse" doesn't necessitate our understanding that the word is limited in the very narrow way that BCSpace seems to be suggesting. Cinepro notes this:

As I've said several times in the past couple of days, the problem isn't that Nephi called something a "horse". The problem is that hundreds of years later, certain animals were still being called a "horse". Even if Nephi knew what was going on, there is no way Alma would have known what an old-world "horse" was when he used the word, so by that time, Nephi's word would have changed meaning and now meant "tapir" or "deer" or whatever.

The challenge is that texts are partly about words, but mostly about meaning. So even if Alma has no way of knowing the full range of meaning that Nephi uses (although perhaps he does in the same sense that we understand the term unicorn - despite never having seen one personally, or even photographs of one), he does know that Isaiah speaks of horses. And his cultural basis for the use of that word could be much larger than the very specific and narrow meaning that BCSpace is trying to require. And that word represents both whatever Alma intends it to represent and whatever Isaiah meant it to represent. So the issue isn't nearly as clean, or as neat, or as simple as Cinepro or BCSpace would like it to be. Cinepro, of course, isn't much of a believer (if at all). BCSpace is. But I wonder how BCSpace deals with a related issue of allusion in the text of the Book of Mormon. Suppose, for example, that Alma includes an allusion to a sermon that King Mosiah gave at his coronation. We don't have a text of that sermon. We cannot possibly understand the implications of the allusion for the meaning of Alma's text. Do we suppose that God should have provided that context, or some modern equivalent so that we would appropriately understand whatever it was that Alma was trying to convey?

How exactly does God translate? Does Cinepro think God is more of an idea for idea kind of guy? Maybe he is a word for word sort of literalist? Does God simply provide the author's intentions (even when the author made a mistake that makes the intentions difficult to understand) and so skips the idea of a translation all together? Should we expect God to rectify the weakness in writing of the authors of the Book of Mormon and give us what they should have written instead of what they did? It seems to me that in these kinds of comments what we have are not problems in understanding the text so much as problems with expectations and assumptions that are never even fully given or described, but which would seem to have a great deal of impact on the question here.

Ben M.