Antelope in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

an'-te-lop (RV; the King James Version "wild ox," te'o (Dt 14:5), and "wild bull," to (Isa 51:20); orux (The Septuagint in Codex Vaticanus has hos seutlion hemiephthon, literally, "like a half-cooked beet-root"): The dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas) is widely distributed in Syria, Israel and Arabia. The recently discovered Merrill's gazelle (Gazella Merrilli) inhabits the hilly country near Jerusalem and is not commonly distinguished from the dorcas gazelle. Probably the only other antelope within this range is the Arabian oryx (Oryx beatrix). Tristram cites two African species (the bubaline antelope, Bubalis mauretanica, and the addax, Addax nasomaculatus) as existing in the Sinaitic peninsula, southern Israel and Arabia, but he did not collect specimens of either and was probably misled by statements of the Arabs which in both cases really referred to the oryx. The only naturalist who has ever penetrated into Northwest Arabia is Mr. Douglas Carruthers, who went in 1909 on a collecting expedition for the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, his object being to obtain the oryx and any other large antelopes which might be found there. Through observation and repeated inquiry he became convinced that neither the addax nor the bubaline antelope is found in Arabia. Tristram says the addax is called maha' and the bubaline antelope baqar-ul-wachsh, both of which names are in fact used by the Arabs for the oryx, which is also according to Doughty called wadichah...