Creationists on the Square in Madison, Wisconsin

Don’t argue with him Pharyngulite MrG. Heddle knows his scripture and has earned his battle stars, having done a good job in confronting Dishonesty Institute mendacious intellectual pornographer Bill Dembski in the past (A feat which not even your hero, the great cephalopod lover, has accomplished.):

MrG said:

heddle said:

Buy even beyond that, you must go back to the Hebrew. Does the Hebrew word translated by the KJ writers as unicorn ever mean a horse-like creature (or for that matter any mythical creature) with one horn?

OK, what’s the Hebrew term and what does it mean?

I was thinking in an analogy that if the translators had, actually, been working in Japanese instead of Hebrew and had run across the term “Kirin” – a deerlike mythological animal common to Asian cultures and somewhat well-known as label of a beer – they might have just shrugged in desperation and called it a “Unicorn”.

But the fact remains that scripture does indeed refer to unicorns. There is also the fact that people often take scripture with an extreme literalness.

But you need not argue the matter with me, because I don’t care one way or another, and if you try to argue it with me, I will tell you that again.

Thanks for the reminder. I could have sworn you were a character in fellow Brunonian Rick Moody’s “The Four Fingers of Death”. Probably one of the doomed astronauts on Mars:

Wowbagger said:

Damn, and I thought I’d been doing a good job (elsewhere) of trying to make John Kwok’s head explode - but I got nothin’ on Hygaboo Andersen.

I mean, sure, I got him fired up enough to make death threats and rant about unpublished manuscripts on top of the same standard name-dropping and hackneyed-expression repeating that he does on a daily basis, but to have worked him into such a frenzy he’s posting the lyrics of whole Elton John songs and shouting in all-caps makes that seem insignificant.

Keep up the good work!

[cue new rant from John; probably no song lyrics, though]

Apologies accepted, Gingerbaker. I had posted on “Klingon Cosmology” so Skip could use my “proofs” to throw back at Larry the creationist, as a means of underscoring that the evidence for that is as good - and I would contend based on the same faulty logic used, much better - than creationism. I’ve mentioned Klingons for years. Even Ken Miler has gotten into the act by suggesting that ID “scientist” Michael Behe ought to be writing a textbook on Klingon biochemistry.

My own attitude on this is why not have some fun with the creos while we’re condemning them, which is why I came up with “Klingon Cosmology” in the first place:

Gingerbaker said:

I said:

“

John Kwok:

“Skip,

Just to get this thread back on topic, I am reposting this:

[some shit about Klingons]”

JK - you’re the one who peevishly perverted a side discussion about Heddle’s rather astonishing claim that the Bible doesn’t talk about unicorns into an irrelevant paean about Heddle’s support of creationism, complete with references to Francis Collins. And now congratulating yourself for setting the thread back on course with a repost about Klingons.

WTF? “

My error here. The bolded word “creationism” above was brain fart and should, of course been “evolution”. Also, it was not you who perverted the thread toward creationism, as it was already underway. I did not see those posts before I made my statement. My apologies.

I pointed out to Robin two days ago that noted classics scholar Adrienne Mayor believes re’em probably refers to a rhinoceros, not a unicorn:

william e emba said:

Gingerbaker said:

Heddle, as many modern apologists, claim this was based on a “mistranslation”.

Calling the “unicorn” a mistranslation may in fact be too strong, but it is certainly an evidence-free translation.

And then misplaces the burden of proof on those who merely observe what the words in officially sanctified Bibles have said. The burden of proof is rightfully on your shoulders, Heddle.

Because you said so? Sheesh.

Upon what basis do you claim that the Hebrew was NOT referring to a unicorn, but rather another beast, besides convenience?

I’ve posted on this earlier in the thread. Reem is in fact described in the traditional Hebrew sources and commentaries in various ways, but never as a one-horned anything. And the Biblical context makes it clear that what’s significant about the reem is its strength.

Moreover, the modern Arabic cognate and archaeological Akkadian cognate both refer to cattle-like creatures. Not one-horned equines.

What other word was there in Hebrew that *should* have been used to indicate a white equine with a single horn ?

Huh? What does this have to do with anything? You are apparently assuming that of course the Bible was somewhere just had to be talking about unicorns, and since we therefore know its in there, by process of elimination of the rest of the entire Bible, we end up deducing reem can only mean unicorn.

You seem to have been hit in the face with the stupid train.

I also posted earlier the fact that modern Hebrew calls them “one-horns” (using Hebrew, of course). This despite the fact that the Zionists who resuscitated Hebrew did so by taking Biblical words and repurposing them for modern concepts based on the flimsiest of similarities, whenever possible. That doing so offended religious sensibilities was ignored–after all, the religious objected strongly to bringing Hebrew back. Somehow nobody, but nobody, noticed a single word in the Hebrew Bible that gave the slightest impression of a one-horned equine.

Why would all official versions “mistranslate” such an error, especially as other mistranslations or transcription errors are problems which have an origin rationally evident of substitution of a single character of script.

Not just the stupid train, the Express Stupid Train!

Seriously, the one and only Official Version has reem, nine times. No mistranslation whatsoever.

As for the Septuagint, it has monokeros, nine times. As for the Vulgate, it has rhinoceros eight times, unicorn once. Of the various major “official” English translations, the KJV is the only one to have unicorn. The later ones pretty much all use wild ox. So your argument, such as it is, is based on factual error.

What evidence do you have that anyone objected to, or tried to correct this mistranslation?

The fact that pretty much no edition since KJV uses unicorn might tell an intelligent thinking person something. It obviously tells you nothing.

Why would they use “unicorn” and not the term for a bovine?

As I pointed out, your question is based on factual delusions.

Regarding KJV, I also pointed out one interesting detail. The translators certainly made a reasonable effort to be scholarly. Given multiple traditions for what was meant by reem, they could have ducked the issue and simply transliterated the word, like they did with Leviathan and Behemoth. They avoided rhinoceros, perhaps because that was the official Catholic choice. Yet they chose unicorn, and it’s a good question, why? As should be obvious by now, there really was no compelling scholarly reason.

It may have been simply to give Biblical praise to King James, their sponsor. The unicorn was the symbol of the Scottish throne (like the lion was the symbol of the English throne). And so King James VI of Scotland became King James I of the United Kingdom of England and Scotland (and Wales and Ireland and France and all that), and reigned in a time of peace and prosperity. And there he was, the translators’ patron.

Check out his Coat of Arms. Check out the title page of a first edition 1616 KJV. You’ll see the lion in the lower left corner, and the unicorn in the lower right corner. And check out this unicorn, the gold Scottish coin.

I have no idea if all this influenced the actual choice of unicorn, but it’s enough of a possibility that it can’t be assumed away.