While reading the Gospel of Luke in Greek I came upon the passage where Joseph and Mary go to the temple to offer the sacrifice required for the firstborn: a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.
τρυγόνων (tru-gon), the word for turtledove was new to me, used nowhere else in the New Testament. περιστερά (per-is-ter-ah), the word for pigeon was on a list of Greek animal names I memorized some years ago, so I knew it already. While it’s translated as pigeon in Luke, elsewhere in the New Testament as dove. Why so? I wondered. I also wondered why the turtle doves were a pair (literally a “yoke,” as with oxen) and the pigeons were just “two”?
A source of possible answers came from W. Geoffrey Arnott, former Professor of Greek at the University of Leeds and Fellow of the British Academy. In 2007 he published a book called Birds in the Ancient World From A to Z. He explained, based on references to classical Greek literature, that περιστερά was used to refer to both the wild Rock Dove and to the Feral and Domestic Pigeon. The Rock Dove was properly πέλεια (pe-lei-ah) but because the two birds are almost identical when not in breeding plumage it was often called περιστερά. It occurred to me then that the translators of Luke, having a far more extensive knowledge of Greek literature than I, understood that when περιστερά referred to a wild bird it should be translated dove, but when it referred to a bird raised in captivity pigeon was more appropriate. Sadly, in Matthew, Mark, and John’s accounts of the cleansing of the temple, the same folks who distinguished pigeons from doves in Luke named the birds being sold for sacrifice doves. So the mystery of translation remains a mystery. But, thanks to the Internet, I’ve learned a lot more about Birds in the Ancient World.
Dr. Arnott also notes that turtle doves mate for life. This might be the reason that they are considered a pair instead of just two birds.
There’s little or no chance I would have found this book if not for the Internet. This is the virtue of the Internet: easy access to knowledge. Back when I was a History graduate student research was done the hard way, using a library card catalog and indexes of academic journal articles. Often the journal one needed was unavailable even using Inter-library Loan thus requiring a road trip to a larger university. In those days it would have taken me days, not minutes to find a copy of Birds in the Ancient World. Most likely I would never have known it existed.
True knowledge is a good thing but the Internet is also full of falsity. Flat and Hollow Earth theories have found purchase on the Internet. Many people who would otherwise never have heard of the modern incarnation of these ancient misapprehensions believe in them now. Many other conspiracy theories have been amplified by the “corroboration” of “facts” found online. It’s likely that movements like the Qanon are based on deliberate disinformation campaigns engineered by shadowy government agencies to discredit by association otherwise sound ideas.
So, like every other good thing, agents of evil and chaos have perverted the Internet. It’s up to the user then to distinguish truth from lies. Unfortunately this requires education in the process of critical thinking, something that is utterly lacking in today’s institutions of learning.
