Kosher Animals - Birds

Birds

In regard to birds, no general rule is given, and instead Leviticus 11:13-19 and Deuteronomy 14:11-18 explicitly list the prohibited birds. The Masoretic Text lists the birds as:

• nesher
• peres (bone breaker)
• ozniyah (feminine form of oz, meaning strong)
• ra'ah/da'ah ( darts, in the sense of rapid)
• ayyah
• oreb
• bat yaanah (daughter of howling)
• tahmas ( scratches the face)
• shahaf ( atrophies)
• netz
• kos (cup)
• shalak (plunger)
• yanshuf (twilight)
• tinshemet (blower/breather)
• qa'at (vomiting)
• racham (tenderness/affection)
• hasidah (devoted)
• anafah ( sniffs sharply, in the sense of anger)
• dukifat
• atalef

The list in Deuteronomy has an additional bird, the dayyah, which seems to be a combination of da'ah and ayyah, and may be a scribal error; the Talmud regards it as a duplication of ayyah. This, and the other terms are vague and difficult to translate, but there are a few further descriptions, of some of these birds, elsewhere in the Bible:

• The ayyah is mentioned again in the Book of Job, where it is used to describe a bird distinguished by its particularly good sight.
• The bat yaanah is described by the Book of Isaiah as living in desolate places, and the Book of Micah states that it emits a mournful cry.
• The qa'at appears in the Book of Zephaniah, where it is portrayed as nesting on the columns of a ruined city; the Book of Isaiah identifies it as possessing a marshy and desolate kingdom.

The Septuagint versions of the lists are more helpful, as in almost all cases the bird is clearly identifiable:

• aeton (eagle)
• grypa (ossifrage)
• haliaetos (sea-eagle)
• gyps (vulture)
• ictinia (kite)
• corax (raven)
• stouthios (ostrich)
• glaux (owl)
• laros (gull)
• hierax (hawk)
• nycticorax (night raven)
• cataractes (cormorant)
• porphyrion ("purple ")
• cycnos (swan)
• ibis
• pelican
• charadrios (plover)
• herodios (heron)
• epops (hoopoe)
• nycturia (bat)
• meleagris (guineafowl)

Although the first ten of the birds identified by the Septuagint seem to fit the descriptions of the Masoretic Text, the ossifrage (Latin for bone breaker) being a good example, the correspondence is less clear for most of the remaining birds; it is also obvious that the list in Leviticus, or the list in Deuteronomy, or both, are in a different order in the Septuagint, compared to the Masoretic Text. Attempting to determine the correspondence is problematic; for example, the pelican may correspond to qa'at (vomiting), in reference to the pelican's characteristic behaviour, but it may also correspond to kos (cup), as a reference to the pelican's jaw pouch. An additional complexity arises from the fact that the porphyrion has not yet been identified, and classical Greek literature merely identifies a number of species that are not the porphyrion, including the peacock, grouse, and robin, and implies that the porphyrion is the cousin of the kingfisher. From these meager clarifications, the porphyrion can only be identified as anything from the Lilac-breasted Roller, Indian Roller, or Northern Carmine Bee-eater, to the flamingo.

During the Middle Ages, classical descriptions of the hoopoe were mistaken for descriptions of the lapwing, on account of the lapwing's prominent crest, and the hoopoe's rarity in England, resulting in lapwing being listed in certain bible translations instead of hoopoe; similarly the sea eagle has historically been confused with the osprey, and translations have often used the latter bird in place of the former. Because strouthos (ostrich) was also used in Greek for the sparrow, a few translations have placed the sparrow among the list. In Arabic, the Egyptian Vulture is often referred to as rachami, and therefore a number of translations render racham as gier eagle, the old name for the Egyptian Vulture.

Variations arise when translations follow other ancient versions of the Bible, rather than the Septuagint, where they differ. Rather than vulture (gyps), the Vulgate has milvus, meaning Red Kite, which historically has been called the glede, on account of its gliding flight; similarly, the Syriac Peshitta has owl rather than ibis. Other variations arise from attempting to base translations primarily on the Masoretic Text; these translations generally interpret some of the more ambiguous birds as being various different kinds of vulture and owl. All of these variations mean that most translations arrive at a list of 20 birds from among the following:

• Bat
• Black Kite
• Black Vulture
• Cormorant
• Cuckoo
• Desert Owl
• Eagle
• Eagle Owl
• Egyptian Vulture
• Falcon
• Flamingo
• Glede
• Great Owl
• Gull
• Hawk
• Heron
• Hoopoe
• Ibis
• Indian Roller
• Kingfisher
• Kite (all)
• Lapwing
• Lilac-breasted Roller
• Little Owl
• Nighthawk
• Night Raven
• Northern Carmine Bee-eater
• Osprey
• Ossifrage
• Ostrich
• Owl (all)
• Peacock
• Pelican
• Plover
• Porphyrion (untranslated)
• Raven
• Red Kite
• Screech Owl
• Sea Eagle
• Sparrow
• Stork
• Swan
• Vulture (all)
• White Owl

Despite being listed among the birds by the Bible, bats are not birds, and are in fact mammals. Most of the remaining animals on the list are either birds of prey or birds living on water, and the majority of the latter in the list also eat fish or other seafood. The Septuagint's version of the list comprehensively lists most of the birds of Canaan that fall into these categories. The conclusion of modern scholars is that, generally, ritually unclean birds were those clearly observed to eat other animals.

Although it does regard all birds of prey as being forbidden, the Talmud is uncertain of there being a general rule, and instead gives detailed descriptions of the features that distinguish a bird as being ritually clean. The Talmud argues that clean birds would have craws, an easily separated double-skin, and would eat food by placing it on the ground (rather than holding it on the ground) and tearing it with their bills before eating it; however, the Talmud also argues that only the birds in the biblical list are actually forbidden - these distinguishing features were only for cases when there was any uncertainty in the bird's identity.