monsters: a biblical bestiary

Monsters:A Biblical Bestiary

Translational Monsters:Fantastic Biblical Beastsand Where to Find Them

First Baptist Church of ChristNovember 6, 2013

This is a Bible study about...


Unicorns?


Dragons?


Satyrs?


Giants?


BIBLE STUDY!

Some Interesting Texts…


“Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?” (Job 39:9-10)



“And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.” (Isa 34:7)



“And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.” (Isa 34:7)

All told, “unicorns” are mentioned nine times in the KJV.

What are UNICORNSdoing in my Bible?!?

Translational “Monsters”

The Bible was not written in English.


The Bible was not written in English.

הארץ בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואתוהארץ היתה תהו ובהו וחשך על־פני תהום

המים ורוח אלהים מרחפת על־פני

(Hebrew, c. 450 BC)


The Old Testament was first translated into Greek…

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, καὶ σκότος ἐπάνω τῆς ἀβύσσου, καὶ πνεῦμα θεοῦ ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος.


The Old Testament was first translated into Greek…

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, καὶ σκότος ἐπάνω τῆς ἀβύσσου, καὶ πνεῦμα θεοῦ ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος.

…and then Latin.

In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. Terra autem erat inanis et vacua et tenebrae super faciem abyssi et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas.


The Old Testament was finally translated into English around AD 1000.



On angynne gesceop God heofenan and eorðan. Seo eorðe soðlice wæs idel ond æmti, ond þeostra wæron ofer ðære nywelnysse bradnysse; ond Godes gast wæs geferod ofer wæteru.



On angynne gesceop God heofenan and eorðan. Seo eorðe soðlice wæs idel ond æmti, ond þeostra wæron ofer ðære nywelnysse bradnysse; ond Godes gast wæs geferod ofer wæteru.

Unfortunately (for us), this was OLD English!

Here is how that passage looked in Wycliffe’s translation (1395):

In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe. Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris.

Here is how that passage looked in Wycliffe’s translation (1395):

In the bigynnyng God made of nouyt heuene and erthe. Forsothe the erthe was idel and voide, and derknessis weren on the face of depthe; and the Spiryt of the Lord was borun on the watris.

And here it is, at last, in the King James Version (1611):

In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe; and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.

One of the first things we have to do when attempting to study the Bible is to make sure we’ve got a

good translation.

What did “unicorn” mean in 1611?

One of the earliest descriptions of a “unicorn” comes from Pliny the Elder in the first century.



An exceedingly wild beast called the monokeros (=unicorn), which has a stag's head, elephant's feet, and a boar's tail, the rest of its body being like that of a horse. It makes a deep lowing noise, and one black horn two cubits long projects from the middle of its forehead. This animal, they say, cannot be taken alive. (Natural History, Book 8, 31)



• Stag's head• Elephant's feet• Boar's tail• Horse’s body• Deep lowing noise• Single black horn


By the early Middle Ages, Isidore of Seville described the unicorn in his Etymologies.

The Greek word rhinoceros, meaning “with horn in nose,” refers to the same beast as the names monoceros or unicorn. This is a four-footed beast that has a single horn on its forehead; it is very strong and pierces anything it attacks. It fights with elephants and kills them by wounding them in the belly. The unicorn is too strong to be caught by hunters, except by a trick: if a virgin girl is placed in front of a unicorn and she bares her breast to it, all of its fierceness will cease and it will lay its head on her bosom, and thus quieted is easily caught. (Etymologies, Book 12, 2:12-13)



• Synonymous with “rhinoceros”



• Synonymous with “rhinoceros”• An “urban legend” associated the creature with purity/virginity



• Synonymous with “rhinoceros”• An “urban legend” associated the creature with purity/virginity• A creature from “natural history,” but about which there are some growing misconceptions.


Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828):

U’NICORN, n. [L. unicornis; unus, one, and cornu, horn.] 1. an animal with one horn; the monoceros. this name is often applied to the rhinoceros.


Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language (1828):

U’NICORN, n. [L. unicornis; unus, one, and cornu, horn.] 1. an animal with one horn; the monoceros. this name is often applied to the rhinoceros.

RHINOC’EROS, n. [L. rhinoceros; Gr. nose-horn.] A genus of quadrupeds of two species, one of which, the unicorn, has a single horn growing almost erect.

So…

• What might the KJV translators have imagined when they thought of the word “unicorn”?

So…

• What might the KJV translators have imagined when they thought of the word “unicorn”?

• How is this like—or unlike—the way we hear that word?

What the Bible “Says”

What the Bible “says” can be more complicated than merely what words we find in our English translations.


• Does the Bible “say” that unicorns are real?



• What does Paul mean when he speaks of “baptism for the dead” (1 Cor 15:29)?



• What does Paul mean when he speaks of “baptism for the dead” (1 Cor 15:29)?

• What does it mean when he says, “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man” (1 Tim 2:12)?

Okay, so what is a “unicorn”?

The Hebrew word is re’em


The Hebrew word is re’em…and nobody is quite sure what it means!



• Most likely, it refers to the auroch or wild ox.



• Most likely, it refers to the auroch or wild ox.

• Modern translations of re’em are unanimous in saying, “wild ox” (NASB, NRSV, CEB, etc.)



• Another option, less likely, is that the re’em is the Arabian oryx.



• Advocates of Young Earth Creationism sometimes claim it was a triceratops.

Some other interesting biblical beasts

The dragon (Hebrew, tannin)

And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. (Jer 51:37)



And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant. (Jer 51:37)

The satyr (Hebrew, se’ir)

But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. (Isa 13:21)



Modern translations say “jackal” or, in one place, “serpent”






NIV, NKJV, NLT all say “wild goat”





NIV, NKJV, NLT all say “wild goat”

NRSV, CEB, JPS all say “goat demon”

Next Week…

Opponents of Unusual Size!

monsters: a biblical bestiary

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