Sunday night we talked about the
inclusion of ‘unicorns’ in the KJV Bible.
(Here is the link to the sermon referenced above. http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=921141913202)
The following is the Merriam-Webster
dictionary definition for a ‘unicorn’: “A mythical
animal generally depicted with the body and head of a horse, the hind legs of a
stag, the tail of a lion, and a single horn in the middle of the forehead.”
Since we know our Bible doesn’t reference mythical creatures, we may rightly
ask—why did the KJV translators chose the word ‘unicorn’? We can’t say for sure
why unicorn was selected because of the absence of a marginal note in these
passages or a 1611 dictionary to reference. But we can surmise. We know the Vulgate (the Latin Bible) that the
translators certainly consulted employs the word ‘unicornes’ (having one horn,
from uni- + cornu horn) in some of
these OT passages (such as Isaiah 34:7), where a horned beast is referenced. Therefore,
it seems very reasonable to assume that since the translators did not know
exactly what kind of horned beast the Hebrew word rĕ'em (H7214) is
making reference to, they simply maintained the one horn idea and transliterated
the Latin word unicornis into the
English unicorn. If the reader thinks of this horned beast as being
perhaps a wild ox, then they have a correct understanding of the text. If the
reader pictures a mythical horse with a horn protruding from its forehead, then
they are allowing the modern understanding of a unicorn to influence their understanding.
Since most contemporary readers think of a unicorn as such, most modern
translations have avoided using the word unicorn in these texts because the
goal is always to provide an accurate understanding of the truth.
