You may have heard at some point that unicorns are mentioned nine times in the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible. This fact has been used by some skeptics to argue that the Bible is ridiculous, which has, in turn, led some fundamentalist Protestants to defend the Bible by making the incredible argument that unicorns may have actually existed at some point in the past.
If you look at the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, however, you won’t find anything at all about unicorns. Unicorns are only mentioned in the King James Version due to a roughly 2,200-year-old mistranslation originating in the Greek Septuagint. This mistranslation has been corrected in most modern translations of the Bible, including the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and the New International Version (NIV).
Skeptics and fundamentalists on Biblical unicorns
Bible skeptics seem to talk about unicorns in the Bible quite a lot. The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible has an entire webpage devoted to listing occurrences of the word unicorn in the modern King James Bible. The book Biblical Nonsense: A Review of the Bible for Doubting Christians by Jason Long, published in 2005, states on page 159:
“The cockatrice, unicorn, and dragon are examples of mythical creatures in the Bible that fail to leave any reliable evidence for their existence.”
More humorously, the satirical children’s book Awkward Moments (Not Found in Your Average) Children’s Bible, Volume #1, first published in 2013, contains a page titled “Time for a Bath” with a passage very loosely based on the Book of Isaiah 34:2–8 as it is rendered in the King James Version. This passage is accompanied by an illustration of cartoon unicorns swimming and drowning in a lake of blood.
ABOVE: Illustration from the book Awkward Moments (Not Found in Your Average) Children’s Bible, Volume #1, depicting unicorns swimming and dying in a lake of blood
On the other hand, the fact that skeptics keep bringing up the mentions of unicorns in the KJV has led certain fundamentalist Protestants who believe that the Bible as it exists in English today is the absolute, literal, inerrant Word of God to make some spectacularly hilarious arguments in defense of the existence of unicorns. Here is an excerpt from an article published by Answers in Genesis on 18 August 2008 that seems to at least leave open the possibility that literal unicorns might have once actually existed:
“Modern readers have trouble with the unicorns in the Bible because we forget that a single-horned feature is not uncommon on God’s menu for animal design. (Consider the rhinoceros and narwhal.) The Bible describes unicorns skipping like calves (Psalm 29:6), traveling like bullocks, and bleeding when they die (Isaiah 34:7). The presence of a very strong horn on this powerful, independent-minded creature is intended to make readers think of strength.”
“The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.) Eighteenth century reports from southern Africa described rock drawings and eyewitness accounts of fierce, single-horned, equine-like animals. One such report describes ‘a single horn, directly in front, about as long as one’s arm, and at the base about as thick. . . . [It] had a sharp point; it was not attached to the bone of the forehead, but fixed only in the skin.’”
Yeah… sorry Answers in Genesis, but I’m just not buying it.
ABOVE: Medieval manuscript illustration of a unicorn from the Aberdeen Bestiary folio 15r, dated to c. 1200
The meaning of the Hebrew word rĕʾēm
The word that is actually used in the Hebrew Bible that is translated in the King James Version as unicorn is רְאֵם (rĕʾēm). This word certainly does not refer to a unicorn. In the Hebrew text, the Book of Numbers 23:22 and 24:8 both refer to the tôʿăpōt, which means “horns” (plural), of the rĕʾēm. Since a unicorn by definition has only one horn, this clearly means that the word rĕʾēm cannot refer to anything that we today might consider a unicorn.
Instead, the word rĕʾēm almost certainly refers to an aurochs, a kind of wild ox that was common in the ancient world but went extinct in the early seventeenth century. How do we know this? Well, for starters, rĕʾēm is etymologically related to the Akkadian word rêmu, which definitely means “aurochs.”
The usage of the word rĕʾēm throughout the Hebrew Bible is also most consistent with the definition of “aurochs.” Aurochsen were enormous creatures and they were widely known in the ancient world for their strength and ferocity. These are both features that are consistently associated with the rĕʾēm in the Hebrew Bible.
Furthermore, throughout the Hebrew scriptures, the domestic ox and the domestic donkey are frequently mentioned alongside each other and, in the Book of Job 39:3–12, the wild donkey and the rĕʾēm are mentioned side-by-side. It therefore makes sense to assume that the wild donkey and the rĕʾēm are related in the same way that domestic donkey and the domestic ox are related.
ABOVE: Woodcut illustration of an aurochs by Sigismund von Herberstein, published in 1556
The Greek Septuagint and the introduction of unicorns into the Bible
So, if unicorns are not mentioned in the original Hebrew text of the Hebrew Bible, why are they mentioned in Old Testament of the King James Version? Well, the answer lies with the Septuagint—the pre-Christian Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
According to legend, the Septuagint was produced by a group of seventy-two Jewish rabbis—six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel—working in the city of Alexandria in Egypt under the sponsorship of King Ptolemaios II Philadelphos (ruled 284 – 246 BC). Supposedly, the translators worked independently without consulting each other, but, by divine intervention, they all produced the exact same translation.
This is, obviously, nothing but a folk tale. Modern scholars generally believe that, in historical reality, the Septuagint was probably produced over the course of many decades by various people working in the late third and early second centuries BC and that there probably wasn’t a real group of exactly seventy-two rabbis from all the different tribes of Israel.
In any case, regardless of who they really were, it is certain that the translators of the Septuagint were living in a very different cultural context from the one that the original authors of the writings included in the Hebrew Bible had lived in. They were not living in the ancient kingdom of Judah; instead, they were living in a very Hellenized world, where the Greek language was dominant and Greek mythology was well known.
It therefore seems that the Septuagint translators were unfamiliar with the original meaning of the Hebrew word rĕʾēm, but they were familiar with the concept of a unicorn from Greek mythology, so they substituted a familiar concept for an unfamiliar one. Thus, the translators of the Septuagint consistently translate the Hebrew word rĕʾēm with the Greek word μονόκερως (monókerōs), meaning “unicorn.”
ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a bronze bust of Ptolemaios II Philadelphos, under whose sponsorship the translators of the Septuagint are said to have worked
Jerome, the Latin Vulgate, and unicorns
The Septuagint quickly became the preeminent Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible and it remained so for the rest of antiquity. Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern Mediterranean, but, as the Roman Empire came to dominate, Latin eventually became the dominant language of the western Mediterranean. Thus, probably starting in around the first century AD, various Biblical texts began to be translated into Latin. These early Latin translations of Biblical texts are known collectively as the Vetus Latina, or “Old Latin,” translations.
The texts that make up the Vetus Latina were, however, unstandardized and sometimes inaccurate. In late antiquity, as knowledge of the Greek language became increasingly rare in western Europe and North Africa, the need for a standard Latin translation of the Bible became increasingly apparent.
Thus, the Christian theologian and scholar Jerome of Stridon translated the entire Bible into Latin between c. 382 and c. 405 AD. Jerome’s Latin translation is known today as the Latin Vulgate. Although Jerome did learn Hebrew and made his translation of the Hebrew Bible based on the actual Hebrew texts, he allowed himself to be influenced by the Septuagint. Thus, in some passages, Jerome translates the Hebrew word rĕʾēm as the Latin word unicornis and, in other places, he translates it as rhinoceros, meaning “rhinoceros.”
ABOVE: Imaginative portrayal of Jerome, the translator of the Latin Vulgate, painted in c. 1480 by Domenico Ghirlandaio
The King James Version
The translators of the King James Version did have access to the Hebrew texts of the books that make up the Hebrew Bible, but they gave undue prioritization to the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate because they wanted to ensure that their translation matched the foreign-language translations that educated Christians at the time were familiar with. Thus, the translators of the King James Version adopted the Septuagint’s rendering of the word rĕʾēm as “unicorn.”
Modern translations of the Bible like the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) and the New International Version (NIV) generally don’t give prioritization to the Septuagint and the Vulgate. Both of these translations therefore render the word rĕʾēm as “wild ox,” which is the translation that seems most apparent from the Hebrew text itself.
How modern readers are separated from the original texts of the Bible
This discussion of unicorns in the Bible is particularly interesting because of what it shows about the history of the Bible; unicorns may not actually be mentioned in the Hebrew texts that make up the Hebrew Bible, but the fact that they are mentioned in some English translations of the Bible shows how removed most Christians today are from the original texts that they hold so sacred.
This is only the beginning of the complexities pertaining the Biblical text. In addition to the fact that most people today are reading translations rather than the original-language texts, even the original-language texts that survive don’t come from the original, autograph manuscripts written by the Biblical authors themselves; instead, all we have are copies of copies of copies.
Although ancient and medieval scribes generally did their best to keep the texts they copied as accurate as possible, in some cases, the texts we have have clearly been changed—usually by accident, but sometimes deliberately. I published an article back in February in which I talk about some examples of Biblical passages that have clearly been added or tampered with by later scribes. These include famous passages, such as the last eleven verses of the Gospel of Mark and the story of the woman taken in adultery in the Gospel of John.
Ironically, in some ways, the absence of unicorns in the original-language texts of the Bible may actually undermine the idea that the Bible as we have it in English today is the infallible Word of God even more than the presence of them would.
ABOVE: Illustration from 1866 by the French artist Gustave Doré depicting Jesus defending the adulterous woman from the angry mob wanting to stone her
Hello Spencer,
could you please provide a reference/link for this :
“the concept of a unicorn from Greek mythology” ?
Thanks.
Strictly speaking, I suppose that unicorns don’t really appear in Greek mythology, but they do appear in works of ancient Greek natural history. The historian Ktesias of Knidos, who lived in around the fifth century BC, mentions them in a surviving fragment from his Indika. Unicorns are also mentioned by the Greek geographer Strabon of Amaseia (lived c. 64 BC – c. 24 AD) in his Geographika and by the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder (lived c. 23 – 79 AD) in his Natural History.
Another interesting mistranslation into the KJV (perhaps earlier) is the one that has Moses with horns.
It was so well accepted (the Bible is inerrant, after all) that there’s a famous statue, and perhaps painting, showing a horned Moses.
It may be true or it may be an urban legend, Spencer might know better…
The explanation for Moses with horns apparently is due to some copier in a medieval monastery scriptorium that dropped the middle “o” form the latin corona (crown) and just wrote corna (horns) so poor Moses rather than having a crown on his head got horns… This woud be particularly severe in the medieval mediterranean world where a man with horns is one whose wife “sees” other men… 😀
Would of course not woud…
Actually, the description of Moses having horns probably isn’t the result of a scribal error; it most likely originates from Jerome’s own translation practices. The Hebrew text of the Book of Exodus uses the word קָרַ֛ן (qāran), which often means “horns,” but, in this particular context probably means “rays of light resembling horns.” Jerome wanted to translate the Hebrew text into Latin as literally as possible, so, in his translation, he describes Moses’s face as cornuta, which can either mean “horned” or “cuckolded.” (Jerome seems to have had a weird habit of using Latin words that also have potential sexual implications; for instance, in his translation of the Book of Samuel, he describes Goliath as spurius, which can mean “false” or “deceitful,” but most often means “of illegitimate birth.”)
You’re absolutely right about the fact that Michelangelo did make a statue of Moses that shows him with literal horns. It’s just one more amusing example of how even the smallest mistranslation of a Biblical text can have huge influence.
About that picture on the top of this post… I want to know what unicorn the artist was thinking of depicting. I remember reading that unicorns are supposedly very deadly creatures in all the stories they’re mentioned in, which is why it’s always depicted chained in heraldry. I don’t think it would’ve gone for a cuddle with a random stranger passing by.
And hey, on that topic, have you done any writing about heraldry?
In traditional European folklore, it is said that virgin women possess the magical ability to tame unicorns, which are impossible for anyone else to tame. The painting at the top of the article is a fresco that was painted in around 1604 or 1605 by the Italian Baroque painter Domenichino. It depicts a unicorn lying down on a virgin woman’s lap, illustrating the supposed power of sexual innocence.
I haven’t really written much about heraldry per se, but I did write an article back in July about state flags. Technically, that’s vexillology, not heraldry, but it is related to heraldry.
Ok this comment is almost certainly nitpicky and I’m sure most people won’t care but it’s something that always kind of annoyed me about Bible translations. Anyways… So if experts agree that the ancient hebrew word re’em meant Bos primigenius primigenius* (aurochs) then why don’t they just translate it as aurochs? I have to disagree with you when you say “wild ox” is “the translation that seems most apparent from the Hebrew text itself.” To me the most apparent translation of a word that ment aurochs in ancient hebrew is “aurochs” not “wild ox”. The reason why this bugs me is because I think the term “wild ox” is too vague and potentially misleading. In english, the term “wild ox” can mean an aurochs, kouprey, banteng or a gaur. But I think when most people read the term “wild ox” they start thinking of feral cattle like Texas longhorns or something. This is exactly what aurochs were not. Aurochs were the ancesters of domestic cattle and were a species of truly wild (not at all feral) animal that is now extinct. Now, I don’t think translators should be so specific that they use the scientific names of species in bible translations or anything, I just think that since the word re’em had a very specific definition in ancient hebrew, and since we have a word that has the exact same definition in english, then we should translate it to that word instead of using a term that’s a bit more vague. And while I do understand that the translators were probably worried that readers wouldn’t know what an aurochs is, in my opinion, they shouldn’t have to worry about that today since readers can just google aurochs if they want to know what they are. I would also argue the same for the term “wild ass”. Now if this animal was a truly wild animal like the aurochs than I’m assuming the original ancient hebrew was specifically referring to onagers not feral donkeys (or more specifically Syrian onagers, which were a subspecies of onager that lived in the region but are now extinct). I’ve heard that scholars are working on an update to the NRSV so I hope they reconsider how they translate animal names. All that being said though, I think it’s possible people would actually get annoyed at translators for using such specific names because most people would probably think that cattle and aurochs and donkeys and onagers are close enough to be the same thing. But personally I still think a translation that does this would be more accurate and (to me at least) more interesting.
*I’m assuming the authors of the Bible were referring to the Eurasian subspecies of aurochs but I guess it’s technically possible they were referring to the african subspecies (Bos primigenius africanus) since the Sinai and southern Israel seems to have been right were the two subspecies’s geographic ranges overlapped. I still think though that the aurochs in the Bible were probably Eurasian aurochs especially since many of the authors were writing from Babylon where there were only the Eurasian type.