(image from bibleplaces.com)
2 Samuel 13:29b, "Then all the kingʼs sons got up, mounted their mules and fled."
Last month two teams in Nigeria discussed with me during consultant checking how to translate "mules." In their initial drafts, one team rendered the animal as "horses," and the other team team used the term mudodo ["small horse"].
But what the Bible refers to as a mule is not 100% horse! It is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, the result of cross-breeding. Neither language group has these cross-bred animals.
We had a long discussion about the best way to translate the animal for accuracy. Here are back translations of their adjusted text:
- Team #1: donkeys that resemble horses
- Team #2: donkeys of horses
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